This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Sean Kearney.

On the third and final day of E3, Gaming Horizon finally got a chance to check out a much anticipated title from Ubisoft: Peter Jackson’s King Kong, and we were very impressed with it, to say the least.

After waiting in line for about twenty minutes outside a giant compound made to look like something straight out of the upcoming film, we were ushered into a small theatre inside. The presentation began with a behind-the-scenes look at the game featuring interviews with Peter Jackson, the director of the new Kong film, and Michel Ansel, producer for the King Kong game, as well as the critically acclaimed title Beyond Good and Evil.

After the short behind-the-scenes featurette, representatives from Ubisoft treated the audience to a look at the gameplay elements of King Kong by playing through a few parts of some levels from the PS2 version of the title.

The game looked simply amazing. Despite the fact that the game is still a “work in progress”, the visuals were astounding. The jungle environment was modeled beautifully and the character animations were smooth and believable. Small details, like the fog rolling throughout parts of the game, looked great and added an ambience to the jungle. Even in an incomplete version, the graphics were some of the best we have ever seen on a current-generation systems.

Reminiscent of the ability to play as both Alan Grant and a Velociraptor in Jurassic Park for the Sega Genesis, one of the more interesting gameplay features in King Kong is the ability to play as both Jack Driscoll, the hero in the film, as well as Kong himself. The game differs from Jurassic Park however in the fact that it appeared from the demo as though you couldn’t play the whole game through as just one of the characters. It seemed as though at various points in the game, the narrative would change from Jack’s story to Kong’s, and you would play as the other character for that part of the game, much like the way you play as both Master Chief and the covenant Arbitor in Halo 2. As well, your camera perspective changes, and with it your gameplay, depending on which character you are in the game, as Jack Driscoll’s character has a first-person view and Kong has a third-person camera.

The demo began in first-person, with Jack awaking tied up as a sacrifice to Kong, looking out at Ann Darrow tied up as well. There was no FMV sequence as Kong approached from the jungle; the player was able to control Jack as he watched Kong carry Ann back into the jungle with him.

Following this sequence, two of Jack’s comrades (one convincingly modeled after actor Jack Black) untied Driscoll, and three went off running into the jungle after Ann. As Jack and his comrades started running, flaming spears began to land in front of him, thrown by an unseen source. The fire on the spears looked excellent, and an interesting addition to the gameplay was the player’s ability to pick up the spears that had landed in the ground, and launch them back from where they had come.

This interactivity with the environment extended to the next part of the demo, in which Jack and his friends battled a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a giant centipede looking creature. Random branches and pieces of brush lying across the area could be picked up and used by Jack to defend himself against the creatures.

The giant T-Rex chasing Jack was wonderfully modeled and animated, and when he roared, a motion blur filled the screen, reminiscent of the look of GTA San Andreas when you are speeding in a car, and gave a visual representation of the power of his cry.

The next part of the demo featured Jack and pals on a raft going down a river in the middle of the jungle. This time Jack was equipped with a gun, however two T-Rexes and a Pterodactyl were now chasing him.

As the T-Rexes chased Jack, they knocked over everything in their way, sometimes causing large branches and parts of trees to come crashing into the water right in front of Jack’s eyes. When something fell into the water, it would splash onto the raft and give the feeling that the environment was really interacting with the player. As well, as you passed by a waterfall, a mist would arise in front of the raft, drawing you in to the environment.

The final part of the demo began with what looked like a cut-scene, as Kong jumped out from the jungle to fight the two T-Rexes that had been pursuing him in the previous scene. It was only after a moment or two that it became obvious that the perspective of the game had changed and that now the player was controlling Kong. Whether this had been the case the entire time or there had indeed been a small cut-scene to segway between Jack and Kong’s narratives was unclear from the demo, but either way, the action never slowed down, and the switch between perspectives was seamless.

Playing as Kong, the interactivity between the player and environment was increased ten-fold, as Kong was able to interact with and destroy any object in the environment that was standing in his way in his search for Ann Darrow, who had escaped from him in the previous scene. The graphics still looked amazing in the new perspective as the camera pulled back a bit to be able to fit Kong on screen, and the gameplay still looked to play just as smoothly in the third-person perspective.

With an extensive demonstration of the gameplay and graphics of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Ubisoft gave us more than enough to be thoroughly excited for this title. The gameplay looked smooth and exciting, and the graphics were nothing short of astounding, especially for a game that is a “work in progress”. We are expecting that this is going to be a solid game when it ships this Holiday Season 2005 for PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Xbox 360, PSP, Nintendo DS, and Game Boy Advance.