I virtually ended up skipping the semi-recent Planet Of The Apes movies, although I’m glad I didn’t. The trilogy informed a surprisingly stable story of self-destructive, tragic struggle between a declining human race and quickly evolving primates. Plus, the second was principally a post-apocalyptic Lion King. Planet Of The Apes: Last Frontier (hitting consoles final yr, and making the leap to PC at the moment), is an attention-grabbing anomaly – it’s successfully a fourth movie, or a minimum of a follow-up miniseries. It’s an interactive film in essentially the most literal sense, extra movie than Telltale-style journey. It’s out now.
While builders Imaginati Studios describe Planet Of The Apes: Last Frontier as “a narrative adventure game”, that description conjures up Telltale’s mix of point-and-click adventures, QTEs and subtly branching tales. Last Frontier is a much more passive expertise – it’s a movie, in the beginning. Every few moments you’ll be requested to make a binary choice, and in case you’ve acquired a number of gamers you possibly can vote and even use a restricted variety of vetos to drive a call you consider strongly in. Once you’ve picked, you simply proceed watching, and see the place it leads.
As with Telltale’s games, many of the selections are minor and merely have an effect on the tone of scenes, though Imaginati say that there are 19 potential endings to search out. At the tip of every chapter, you’ll even be given a run-down of your selections and what characters consider one another, aping (sorry) Telltale as soon as extra. Plus, there are achievements for taking place sure story branches, with horrible names that I can’t assist however love. Someone deserves an award (or a slap) for “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Bonobo”.
While the apes in Last Frontier seem fantastically animated (as you’d count on, given the movies that spawned it), the human forged don’t seem to have fared fairly as nicely of their transformation from live-action actors to 3D fashions. They don’t look unhealthy, however they’ve acquired a little bit little bit of dead-eyed, uncanny valley look to them. Whether that’s a deal-breaker or not relies on you. I’ve but to see various clips of this myself, and as a fan of the movies I’m to see how nicely a narrative it tells. Perhaps one thing for the lengthy weekend, to take pleasure in over a banana break up.
Planet Of The Apes: Last Frontier is out now on Steam and Humble for £16/€20/$20.
