It always helps to be beautiful, but good looks really can only get you so far in life. James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Game” is not offensively bad, but it also does nothing to engage players besides throwing pretty pictures of jungles at them.

As with the film, the game is set on an alien moon called Pandora. Humans are invading/colonizing Pandora to mine a valuable mineral that would solve the energy crisis on Earth. Naturally, this sets the humans into conflict with Pandora’s native residents, the blue-skinned, quite literally tree-hugging Na’vi.

The game allows you to play through two separate campaigns as either a human or Na’vi warrior. But the game completely botches the execution of that idea by forcing the player to choose a side very early in the game before any of the stakes, in terms of either story or game, have been established.

Neither of the two campaigns is very good on its own anyway. And as for the graphics, the swaying palmlike fronds and other native flora are beautiful to look at, but you can’t see where you’re supposed to be going half the time.

— Seth Schiesel, the New York Times