Kong: Survivor Instinct

ign.com:

If you’ve ever wondered what the arcade classic Rampage would be like if you had to play as a puny human rather than one of the skyscraper-smashing goliaths, then Kong: Survivor Instinct might be your answer. This 2.5D Metroidvania platformer takes place amidst a crumbling coastal cityscape while Kong and his kaiju combatants duke it out in the background, making it seem at first glance a bit like a Shadow Complex situated within Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a novel enough concept, but basic environmental puzzle design and uninspired combat mean that Survivor Instinct is unable to reach the towering heights of its ideas, and as I begrudgingly pushed crates and collected keys to make my way through each ruined urban rabbit hole I could never really shake the impression that Kong seemed to be having considerably more fun than I was.

Not that actually playing as Kong would be a guaranteed good time, of course – 2023’s Skull Island: Rise of Kong was such an unmitigated disaster that the aftermath of its self-destruction is probably still being studied by scientists from the Monarch organization. Kong: Survivor Instinct is a notably better game than that, but once the novelty of having the iconic angry ape messing about in the middle distance fades it just doesn’t have the level of creativity or player freedom that other superior games of this ilk released in recent years – such as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown or Blasphemous 2 – have so expertly displayed.

It also doesn’t have much of a story beyond “Don’t get smashed by the monkey.” We play as David Martin, a single dad in search of his daughter who’s gone missing in the midst of the spectacular, city-ravaging royal rumble that’s currently sweeping along the west coast of the United States. The elevator pitch of David’s personality is basically a sort of middle-aged Nathan Drake who’s apparently forgotten how to be funny (almost every time he kills a labrador-sized spider he deadpans “I was never fond of spiders”),