Kong: Survivor Instinct PC Review
Summary: Make your way through city turned monster battleground in your search for answers to what is going on.
4.1
Monster Mayhem
Kong: Survivor Instinct takes an interesting approach… rather than playing as the eponymous Beast… you play someone trying to navigate the city as Kong and other monsters do their own thing in the background (and sometimes right in front of you).
Let’s get the iffy elements out of the way first. The visuals are mostly good… quite impressive actually for Kong and other beasts… the main character however can look a bit odd at times, in the opening cinematic when he’s talking he looks as though there is an issue with his lower lip and he just keeps exposing his lower gums… a bit odd but fine I guess. The animation during the game sections (and some of the story moments in the gameplay world) can look a bit stilted, basically the animation just seems a bit off… it’s not horrible but can be a bit janky. The worst element is the voice acting and script… after a while you will hear a few phrases repeated over and over again, specifically in relation to getting through a fight with enemies… things like “you made me do this”. Whilst I appreciate that it might have been an attempt to not trivialise the killing of people… it isn’t delivered in a very compelling way and sounds almost like something that would be used for victim blaming.
But what about the gameplay? It’s actually quite fun. There’s nothing too taxing, a lot of running and jumping, moving boxes around to gain access to areas, finding items to provide access to other areas and a bit of “puzzling”. The little fragments of audio you collect that need to be put in sequence to summon one of the monsters is a fun little distraction from the rest of the events. Fights with humans progressively get trickier by the introduction of new weapons or armour being used against you… or simply more assailants to deal with at one time.
The monsters themselves have a fantastic sense of scale and as mentioned are quite nicely modeled/rendered. There are some sequences when you will need to escape/evade a direct monster attack and these can often be annoying as they have to be done in one sequence and can involve some fiddly timing to get right. They aren’t typically overly long… but can be a bit frustrating.
Final Thoughts:
I quite like the approach of playing a human existing in this world of monstrous beasts. The sense of scale can be quite impressive and certainly makes you wonder just what it would indeed be like if these creatures existed. The general gameplay is fun enough, jumping about and breaking through walls to reach new areas. Combat is challenging enough but not too hard and even the frustrating monster events aren’t so long that they are insurmountable. A decent bit of fun for a pretty reasonable price.
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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