Avatar - The Last Airbender: Into the Inferno for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

For my money, the hardest titles to write reviews for are ones I don't have any strong feelings about; Avatar: The Last Airbender-- Into the Inferno is one of these games. I've played the thing for hours, and I'm searching for stuff to say about it. It didn't suck, but it wasn't great. A few of the puzzles were interesting, but none of them were memorable. The control scheme is just button mashing, but there's a weak analog component.



Basically, this game just exists.



Into the Inferno loosely follows the events of Avatar's Book 3: Fire. Aang's accepted his destiny to take out the Fire Lord, and with the help of his friends, he's making his way to the big bad dude to end things once and for all. Now, if you've never seen this Nickelodeon animated series before and are just jumping into this game, prepare to be completely lost. Into the Inferno is strictly for the devoted followers of Avatar and doesn't bother introducing characters, abilities, or even a solid story. You wake up as Aang and you have to go fight people.







Toss in a few puzzles, the ability to switch between two pre-selected characters in every level, coins to unlock moves, glider mini-games, as well as lots of button mashing and you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect when it comes to Into the Inferno.



When the game first begins and you wake up as Aang on a Fire Nation ship, you'll need to use your fists and powers to get off the boat. Succeeding in combat is as simple as pressing Square, Circle, or R2; X or L2 makes you jump; and the D-pad allows you to switch between the two characters who are available for each chapter. Now each of the characters -- you'll play as Aang, Katara, Toph, Zuko, and Sokka -- has his or her own special power in terms of being an Earthbender, Waterbender, Firebender, or boomerang thrower. What this means is that you can use the right analog stick to move the small, transparent dot of light around the screen and interact with the world via your abilities. Aang can lift water and create ice pillars, Toph can create towers of earth, and Sokka can throw his boomerang to hack away at obstacles and set off levers.



Levers and various other puzzles are a pretty big part of using your Bending abilities. At one point, Aang has to get past this device that's pouring piping hot lava (or something equally as orange) into giant metal buckets. To stop the device, you have to figure out how to use a water-based pulley system to cover some vents so that the machine explodes. This puzzle leads to Aang moving water from pulley bucket to pulley bucket as he tries to get the weight distribution right. These puzzles aren't taxing or difficult, but they're interesting. Using your Bending skills is neat enough to solve them.



But don't take that as a ringing endorsement of Bending in Into the Inferno. I have the sneaking suspicion that Into the Inferno was developed for the Wii, and exhibit one in my case file is the fact that the Bender dot just sits on the screen like someone dropped a dab of jelly on your TV for most of the game. See, using the right stick to move your Bending crosshairs is an OK idea when you're in an empty environment trying to best a puzzle, but when there are bad guys on the screen, moving the dot to where you want to throw a boomerang or toss some water is next to impossible because you're trying to fight off attacking minions and because the dot is so damn slow. You can freeze enemies with your Bending attacks, but I never successfully pulled this move off until I switched to Nintendo's console and got a Wiimote in my hands. When I could just move the dot by pointing, using Bending in combat was fine.



Anyway, these humdrum objectives with next to no story or motivation are spread out across 11 missions that you can revisit once you've bested them so that you can collect hidden scrolls. The level select screen is sort of a living, pastel map. Your flying bison acts as your cursor, and you guide him to icons representing the chapters in the title such as the Arms Factory, the Awakening, and the Day of Black Sun. If you've never completed the level, the icon will be black and white, whereas if you've already finished the primary objective (see: getting to the end), the icon will be colored and you can scope how many scrolls you've already discovered.

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