The new King Kong video game, Skull Island: Rise of Kong, has released to an awful reception, with some naming it as the 'worst game of the year'.
A new beat-em-up starring colossal kaiju favorite King Kong, flying in under-the-radar? You might be thinking 'sign me up' for a bit of that. If you're thinking that, you might want to hold back.
Skull Island: Rise of Kong was only announced in July, and is available on PlayStation 5, Playstation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC, and come to think of it, there wasn't a great deal of promo heralding its release at all.
That all makes sense now. The game is flat-out terrible, and the only noise being made about it is being generated by gamers who are ripping the new release apart with footage of the game and its cutscenes being shared far and wide.
A quick snapshot of user reviews shows Skull Island: Rise of Kong being named as janky, terrible, static, awful, buggy and a 'complete scam' - the professional reviews (and we'll get to those) aren't much better at all.
And users really think it could beat Lord of The Rings: Gollum to the title of 'worst of the year.'
In particular, one cutscene involving a JPEG flashback/jumpscare is generating a lot of attention. All of it mocking the presentation of the game:
It's not just gamers who are taking shots either, the gaming press is savaging the new release.
Kotaku said the 'New King Kong Game Is Very, Very Bad' and called it a 'bland beat-’em-up with bad cutscenes, nasty visuals, and not much else' while Eurogamer called it a 'swing and a miss.'
Fans of the great ape had been waiting a long, long time for a video game featuring Kong. The official video game of Peter Jackson's King Kong film titled - wait for it - Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie came out in 2005 over a mix of consoles. You could've played it on Playstation 2, it has been that long.
It's sad to say, but you'd be better off finding a way to play the older game. It's far, far better - and we can vouch for that.
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