Kong: Survivor Instinct PS5 6/10 “An average game propped up by the king himself” 🦍 @7lvls #IndieGame #GameDev

🦍My only history with King Kong is going on the ride at Universal Studio with the most bored man I’ve ever seen manning the controls. I don’t know if it was his last day or the world was crushing his soul, but he was not selling me on how scary Kong was, his voice didn’t convey that Kong was a terrifying threat - more like he was bored, and lunch was coming soon. 

So, this is to say I don’t have much history with the franchise, and the little I did have didn’t paint Kong in the best light - though that’s not the big ape’s fault in all fairness. Could this game finally make a good impression and bring the King back to Kong?
You are David, searching for your daughter Stacy who has been caught in the destruction of Kong’s attack. You race through the city to find her, putting yourself in not only the giant ape’s path, but Alan Jonah and his men - David goes through a lot in order to find his daughter. 

The story is thin, the dialogue isn't fantastic, it is serviceable. In terms of gameplay, Kong: Survival Instinct is a 2.5D action adventure with platforming elements, so you will climb a lot, jump, and break many wooden boards, this will sound harsher than I mean it, but this really was one of the most average gameplay experiences I’ve had, it does nothing new at all, it is everything you would expect from a title in the genre. 

Now, the positive to this is that the things it does, it does well enough - the combat is slightly janky but nothing that is not the norm in this style of gameplay. You find pipes for melee attacks and eventually a gun for some ranged action. 

The movement mechanics are good, I never found myself unsure as to what I needed to do, you also have big set piece moments where you interact with Kong, which are fun enough, these are trial-and-error sections, having to memorise what you need to do over several attempts, they are long enough to be challenging but not overly long, so failing and having to restart the whole sequence again is not too irritating, they also happen often enough as to make him feel a genuine concern, you see him destroying the city in the background as you progress through this experience so he does always feel like a looming threat. 

Throughout play you scan for his vocal roars using a device you find at the beginning of your adventure and use it to help you in sections where you need his help – for instance, to remove a derailed train from a blocked path, so he can also be helpful at times. It will take between five to six hours to complete which I think for a game like this is a reasonable amount of time.

What I felt was Kong: Survival Instinct’s biggest plus was the level design, the stages that are mostly comprised of destroyed buildings are well designed and varied enough to not feel overly repetitive, the buildings on the town outskirts feel different from the downtown sections, you visit a construction site and a secret underground facility, so a good mixture of locations. 

A lot of the city is destroyed which makes floors collapse under you and bits of ceiling drop on you, I do think they use these tricks a bit too often, but they do convey the damage done to all the buildings in Kong’s path of destruction.

SUMMARY
Funnily enough I think King Kong is the game’s biggest asset, with standard 2.5D action and platforming gameplay alone it would be easy to dismiss, but the interactions with Kong and solid level design mean that there is enough here to find Kong: Survivor Instinct enjoyable.

6/10

🫗🦍MELTING🫗🦍

How long is Kong: Survivor Instinct? | HowLongToBeat