Perched on a high branch at the edge of a rainforest, we spot a six-legged colossus stamping about by the shore of a lake, a membranous plate rising along its spine like a sail. Close by is a crop of tottering plants that shrink into themselves as we approach, passing a group of Na’vi spearfishing in the shadow of a levitating mountain. We go there later, flying on our pterodactyl-like ikran, to see the exotic plant life and animals from above. The world of Pandora is vivid, intriguing and genuinely alien. Its many parts – swamps, rainforests, grasslands, misty mountaintops – all possess their own shades of extraterrestrial personality.
Yet enjoying them can behas not come out looking so much like a lean cut but a rough assemblage of offal, spoiled in flavour and lacking much substance. This is a huge open world, sprinkled with linear story moments, optional side missions, outposts to sabotage and perfunctory crafting supplied in the style – though fortunately without quite so many entries on its ever-expanding to-do list. As a stolen Na’vi child raised by the RDA (Avatar’s human colonisers), we’re saved from execution by the indigenous resistance, and join up to liberate our people by rallying Na’vi tribes to fight off the invaders.
