Avatar The Last Airbender returns with new playable characters and flying levels.

Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth video game based on the animated Nickelodeon television series is available for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo’s Wii, Nintendo Dual Screen (DS), Game Boy Advance (GBA) and marks Nickelodeon’s debut on the Xbox 360. Published by THQ (Worms, Danny Phantom and American Girl: Julie Saves the Eagles) The Burning Earth follows the storyline of the second season.

Game Summary

The Earth Kingdom is under attack from the evil Fire Nation invasion. It’s up to Aang and his posse of friends Katara, Sokka, Jet, Toph, Zuko Appa, Momo and Uncle Iroh to find the courage and master their skills to defend the Earth Kingdom and restore balance.

Game Features

The Burning Earth has several new features including five new playable characters including Jet Toph, Appa Zuko and Uncle Iroh, all new head-to-head Arena Combat, firebending moves, and flying levels for some intense aerial combat. Players can play alone or with a friend in the multi-player mode to battle enemies, solve puzzles or fight against the Fire Nation.

Graphics

Not much has changed with the graphics since the original Avatar. Much like the original, The Burning Earth does a solid job of preserving the look and feel fans of the animated series have grown to know and love.

Sound

The voice acting is dead on. The music and sound effects are also dead on. THQ has done a stellar job of keeping true to the atmosphere of Nickelodeon animated series.

Gameplay

Avatar The Burning Earth is easy to play. There aren’t a lot of difficult combos to learn. Controlling the many characters is also easily done. The hardest challenge may be mastering the air combat. Targeting while flying may take some players a little time to learn. Missing from the original Avatar is the buying and selling of inventory and equipment eliminating the need to earn coins and visit the various shop owners. Instead, quests now reward players with more experience unlocking new moves and increasing health. Also missing is the ability to increase your attributes by wearing various types of armor, clothing, jewelry and mixing of potions.

Entertainment

The cut scenes seem a little excessive, slowing the pace, but most of them can be skipped. This is minor because the action alone is well worth the wait. Allowing players to play as many of the characters from the animated series makes The Burning Earth extremely fun but doesn’t replace the charm of interacting with the many non-player characters as in the first Avatar.

Replay

The multi-player mode may give some gamers and die-hard fans of the animated series a reason to play it again but with no online mode there aren’t many reasons to revisit the Earth Kingdom.

Bottom Line

Avatar The Burning Earth has several great new features. The new playable characters and air combat makes this installment interesting and enjoyable but eliminating the interaction with the non-player characters seems to have taken away the sense of being a part of the story. Fans of the series will find plenty to love about The Burning Earth but returning players may be a little disappointed.

Rating 1-10 (10 being the best)

7