King Kong | movie news and insight

King Kong the video game scored strongly and came in 8th during the critical holiday shopping month of December 2005. According to stats from gamedaily.com that were released today:

- The console versions of the game have been a critical success, garnering over 80% GameRankings.com.
- NPD has reported that the PS2 version of the game has sold 376,000 copies in just two months, with the Xbox pushing 180,000 units ( make sure to have an hdtv if you grab the xbox360 version ).
- In the U.K., the game has been in the top 5 best sellers for the past seven weeks according to the ELSPA.
- All told, the PS2, PSP, GCN, DS, PC, Mobile, Xbox and Xbox 360 versions have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.

Our friends over at HDTV Xbox 360 have confirmed first hand that Ubisoft made the King Kong game too dark for those with non-HDTV sets. The problem seems to stem from that fact that all the game developers tested and built the game while running HD televisions. So for those who have a choice of console version and still don’t have an HDTV, you may want to pickup the PS2 or original Xbox version.

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Ubisoft revealed that its official King Kong video games features an un-lockable, exclusive alternate ending in which players can save Kong from his cinematic death, pilot an airplane and discover Kong back home on his native Skull Island.

“I wanted the game to be able to take the audience a bit further than what the film could,” said Peter Jackson. ”

Read more on teamxbox.com

A very positive review has been posted on CNN.com. Written by Marc Saltzman of the Gannett News Service, Marc writes that:

While on the short side, the end result is a cinematic thriller that is difficult to put down.

He goes on to say:

Evident by a credits screen that takes more than 10 minutes to scroll by, Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” is one massive video game production.

Gamers can also unlock many goodies such as movie footage, hand-drawn artwork, interviews and a classic video filter that makes the game look like a grainy black-and-white movie.

While it may only take seven or so hours to complete, which is on the short side for a $50 video game, “Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie” is undoubtedly a “must-play” title regardless of your preferred platform.

You can read the full review on CNN.com.

King Kong, the video game, will soon be available for the Sony PSP. According to gameinfowire.com, we should expect to see it later this month.

You can find more screenshots here

Anybody planning to pick it up ? feel free to post your review in the comments.

I read over at bluesnews.com that UBI has announced the release of the video games on multiple platforms:

Today Ubisoft announced that Peter Jackson’s King Kong The Official Game of the Movie, based on Universal Pictures’ December 14th release, King Kong, from three-time Academy Award®-winner Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings trilogy), is now available on the Sony PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Xbox® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Nintendo GameCube™ system and Windows® PC. The Game Boy® Advance title King Kong The Official Game of the Movie is also available from today.

Those of us in the US will have to wait until November 22nd. There is more info at the official site: kingkonggame.com

Ubisoft has announced that the demo is available !

you can grab it on filerush and fileshack.

The demo includes two levels; one where you get to play as Jack Driscoll — and the 2nd level where you play as Kong himself.

The full game should be ready next month.

so what do people think ? we’d love to hear your comments …

According to eurogame.net:

“At a press and retail event in the UK last week, Ubisoft outlined its plans for Christmas 2005 and confirmed that both Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter and Peter Jackson’s King Kong would be released to coincide with the launch of Xbox 360 toward the end of November.”