Peter Jackson's King Kong | Xbox 360 REAL HARDWARE | 4K60
3This game does something very unusual that I've never seen anyone talk about before, in that it was a launch title for 360 and I believe one of the first games to use a dynamic resolution and on-the-fly graphic adjustments to maintain framerate. You can easily see this at 20:20, the entire section of this level is very soft and if you pause, you'll notice what looks like a quincunx-like antialiasing applied to what looks like a 600p output and looks extremely impressive. Then at 26:40, you can easily see that it's a native 720p with no AA applied. This does not help performance as you can read later.
This game is a point A-to-B shooter that focuses on ammo management and uniquely, no HUD. It otherwise plays with very few different mechanics, usually burning down grass, or finding a handle for a gate to progress. You fight the creatures of Skull Island, including centipedes, giant crabs, dinosaurs and more. About a fifth of the game is spent controlling Kong himself, which are annoying and some of the worse performance found in the game. He has only a few attacks and his sections are very simple, from standing still and mashing A or climbing across the environment. The real star is the survival like shooter part that spreads across the entire island in many different jungle-like locations. There is regenerating health in this game and no difficulty setting, I found it to be very fair and enjoyable. However, you can take a total of one or two hits before the screen drastically turns black and red, making it at least on my TV, almost impossible to see at points and I found myself getting aggravated over this many times.
Performance wise, this game runs horribly, almost borderline unplayable in the second half. It targets 60 with double buffered vsync applied, meaning it'll drop to 30 when it doesn't meet its target which is most if not all of the time, usually running in the low 20s to mid-teens especially when looking at alpha effects like fire. The first half of the game isn't so bad however, but I don't think people have seen much of the second half. I have played the PS2 version before which is a direct port, and it somehow runs much better. I experienced one crash during my entire time and no bugs that I can recall. The iron sights of every weapon are misaligned, and you'll notice this instantly. This shows the quality of the design when 95% of the time, they will be the object shown on screen.
King Kong is stunning though graphically, using a spectacular fake volumetric like fog in many areas that even today is impressive. Being made in house by Ubisoft, it features extremely high textures and gorgeous backdrops. Each scene is filled with dense vegetation and there is some pretty fancy 3D rendered water. Character models are hit or miss, with Jack having the funniest WTF face in the ended scene I think I've ever seen in a game at 4:37:30. The ending New York scene also feels very half-baked, at least until you get to the Tower itself which looks fantastic, especially the backdrop of the city.
I would give this game a 6/10 for its unique idea of trying to be immersive as possible but doing very little with it other than counting ammo. It's gorgeous and still looks beautiful today, while being fun to play but the Kong sections are underwhelming, and the performance just shoots itself in the second half and it genuinely hurts the experience. If the performance was better, I'd rate this higher. Otherwise, it's a fun game based on a movie that we rarely ever got at the time. I would recommend playing this on PC, Xbox or PS2 however and skipping the PS3 and 360 unless it's your only option. This honestly feels like it was originally developed for them as they even share the same geometry in graphics. It is on my list for games I'd like to see get a Series X or PS5 enhancement via backwards compatibility, or a remaster.
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