Most gamers are quite familiar with the nightmarish reputation that movie-to-game titles have garnered over the past couple of years.

It has become somewhat of a guarantee that the release of blockbuster movies will coincide with the release of a game that is not only sub-par, but in many ways devoid of even a sniff of quality.

In fact, the bigger the movie, the worse the game is likely to be.

When it was announced that James Cameron's first movie in more than a decade will also have a game accompany it, I for one didn't take it seriously ? not even when I heard it would use the same engine seen in 'Far Cry 2' (hello cool alien jungles!)

But by the time our review copy arrived, I was still not convinced that this would be a game worth serious consideration and I resigned myself to taking one for the team in the desperate hope that somewhere someone would read this review and spare themselves the misery of forking out good money for this game.

So you can imagine my surprise when I began playing 'Avatar: The Game' and realised after a while that I'm actually enjoying myself. I'll get to the why in a moment, but first I think a side note is in order.

I had the good fortune ? in hindsight ? to not have gotten around to watching the movie before playing this game, because in many ways I think the appeal of this game is in the unknown world you engage. If you haven't seen the movie yet, you will love the alien planet with its interesting characters and lush, beautiful jungles.

This is very important though, because if you've already seen the movie before playing the game, all of that will have already been revealed to you in all its HD or 3D glory ? and the game might feel like a second-rate side show.

Still, may I also add that as movie-to-game titles go, 'Avatar' at least tries to be a proper game and not just a quick cash-in. The gameplay necessarily comes under scrutiny here ? and succeeds for the most part.

It's not particularly engaging or smooth and the camera-angle takes some serious getting used to, but once the initial weirdness has been forgotten, the game actually controls relatively well. Yes, the action tends to get a bit repetitive but the missions are almost always interesting enough to keep you going.

I've mentioned it before that my attention span is not the longest ever seen and as a result a game needs to constantly engage me with a change of pace to keep me playing. So when I find myself saying "Just one more mission and then I'm done," the game gets a tick mark in my book. And 'Avatar' got those in spades.

'Avatar' is also very clever in that it is actually two games rolled into one: depending on which faction you choose to join early on in the game (Human or Na'vi), the game follows a different path. So, if you feel like it, you can go back to that point where you had to choose sides and then pick the other, playing a completely different campaign.

The game is, however, far from perfect. Besides the wonky camera, the melee combat is quite senseless. More often than not you can't even see your enemies properly in the jungle, so hitting them with your melee weapons tend to be a case of "I'm just going to slash anything and everything in this here green jungle and hope I hit something." The bow and arrow (in the Na'vi campaign) is far more effective for example, and you'll probably just end up using that all the time.

Then there are some instances in which the game just makes absolutely no sense. Case in point is a mission where you have to blow up a tower during the Na'vi campaign. After successfully planting the explosives, you are airlifted out of the enemy camp and dropped on the other side of the fence during a short cutscene ? except you're dropped right next to an enemy tank with a human only too happy to shoot you to pieces with his rocket launcher before you regain control of your character and can fight back.

I would have laughed incredulously if it wasn't so frustratingly stupid.

The stocky voice-acting and cutscenes are contrasted shrilly with jungle environments that are quite good. In fact, for the most part the game looks very good, but then it shows its thin-worn underwear to you in other parts.

Still, I was pleasantly surprised with how engaging the game is and although it might not be the best game ever to be released, it's still a lot of fun to play. I wouldn't recommend a purchase, however, but it's a solid enough rental.

7.5/10