At the time of writing the movie of Avatar has not been released. Yet it has already changed the future of cinema. Even if the movie doesn’t claw back the entire $300 million budget, almost every one of the filmmakers who visited the Avatar set – including George Lucus, Steven Spielburg and Peter Jackson – are readying their next productions using James Cameron’s technology. Jonathon Crocker of Total Film writes “thanks to Avatar a cinema near you now shows 3D movies for the first time – the films release was put back months to allow suitable projectors to be installed around the world.” Game changing.

That’s a tough act to follow, even for the makers of Assassin’s Creed II, Alltern8’s Game of the Year 2009. So tough they don’t even talk it up on their own packaging – the main sell is a vehicle section. It’s 2009 and while having jam with scones may have been exotic at some point, it isn’t any more. What’s more confusing is the jam – er – vehicle section is one of the most disappointing things to spread on a lump of pastry.

Ok, Maybe I’m underselling it a bit. Avatar: The Game is accomplished; the engine (from Far Cry 2) is passable, the gameplay is easy to pick up and the story is at least as developed as a children’s book.

You start the game as Ryder, a signals specialist assigned to Pandora, a far away moon where the indigenous Na’vi tribes are getting uppity. You’re presented with an appropriately diverse, EU certified character selection screen complete with Avatar, a 9 ft tall facsimile of Marvel’s Nightcrawler.

Moments later you are thrust into the midst of an intercontinental war. Actually I lied about that. In fact, the beginning is just several short cut scenes interspersed with long loading screens and boring walking about. It takes a full ten minutes before you’re given a gun. In a shoot-em up.