Starting off where the first season of the Avatar TV series left off, Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth follows the events form the second season almost exactly. Here, we will see Aang search for an Earthbender master to teach him, and eventually attempt to save the Earth Kingdom capital of Ba Sing Se from the Fire Nation.

While the previous game didn't actually follow the show's storyline, I felt like its visual and gameplay styles were much better. Instead of the pulled back, almost isometric view of the first game, The Burning Earth feels like just another third-person action/adventure game and gets drowned out in the white noise that is that genre. Granted, all the environments and characters look good and follow their TV series counterparts' styles pretty well, but the previous style was just more appealing to me.

The game's audio is pretty much what you would expect from a licensed game. Most of the lines in the cut scenes hark from the show, and could very well be the same sound bites and not re-recordings. While this is always good for a licensed game, it never really gives a person familiar with the show the feeling of getting anything extra. The music, much like the voices, is also lifted from the show and conveys a sufficiently Asian feel to the whole package.

I have to say, the most annoying aspect of this game is how it handles lip synching. I know it's a minor detail, but with the number of cut scenes that occur in The Burning Earth, it builds up quickly. Instead of even attempting to match the vocals with the characters' lip movements, they simply don't move. Sure some of the feeling of the statement is conveyed via body movement, but that typically feels stiff. Actually, if the game didn't attempt to do any lip synching, I don't think I would have found it annoying and just chocked it up to style. Instead, there are a few points in each conversation where at least one character moves his/her mouth. The first time this happened, I couldn't help but think the game was messed up and the characters were supposed to lip synch all the time. Instead, now it just comes off poorly.

Where the first game side-stepped the actual events of the second season (AKA Book Two: Earth), and created an alternate series of events, Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth follows the episodes pretty closely. While each level is named after an episode of the show, not all of the details are conveyed, but most of the big stuff is here. You start off by leaving the Southern Water Tribe, but you will eventually go to Omashu, swamps and even a lost library in the desert in your journey to not only save Ba Sing Se, but also find an Earthbender who will teach Aang. In the end, this turns out to be The Blind Bandit, Toph. It should be noted that you will even get the chance to play a level as Zuko and Iroh and thus be able to Firebend for the first time in a game.

The style of the game is your standard action/adventure type where you will always have a second character to either switch to, or have a friend pop in as. Levels are very linear, and occasionally require some backtracking and whatever objective you need to fulfill is pretty apparent. For instance, while in the aforementioned library, you have to run around collecting pieces of a map. It just so happens that the number of rooms in the immediate area match the number of map pieces you are collecting.

Boss battles come in a couple of flavors. The most prevalent one is a major character that you have to beat who has a really large life bar, but there are also a couple of times when you will have to run towards the screen as the big boss chases you.

As you progress in the game and collect energy balls, your characters will level up, but instead of allowing individuals to level up more than others, each time you gain enough points, every playable character gets another level. All this really does is allow you to add another point to be allocated to your ranged, melee or special attacks, which is a nice little bit of customization that you can do.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth is an easy game. Given a weekend day, you should be able to go from beginning to end without much worry, especially if you have a person to play with you since that will make some of the boss battles (like the one at the end with Zuko and Azula) a lot easier. The only times when having a second player might hinder you is during those couple of parts where you are running towards the screen and have to jump over or dodge objects as they come into view. In those cases, having a player drop out is best.

In fact, the only parts I felt annoyed with are when you control Appa (the flying bison) and a character on his back. In these levels, you are zooming through a jungle or desert. As Appa, you are moving around the screen trying to avoid various environmental barricades as they come to you. As the character on his back, you are shooting at the various enemies that are roaming around. These levels almost have to be done with two players since the A.I. behind the other player in this case isn't very good.

As mentioned above, Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth feels like just another 3D action/adventure title, and the controls do as well. The (A) button jumps, (X) attacks and (B) is your ranged attack. When you can use one of your special attacks, simply tap the (RT) and if you have to interact with someone or something, that's the (Y).

The only time the game's controls get even mildly interesting is when performing a focus move (i.e. making an ice bridge). When you come to an area that you need to perform a special task, you hold down the (Y) and move the Left Analog Stick in the fashion that the game shows you. This mechanic felt a lot better on the 360 than it does on the Wii since the visual descriptions that game gives you for how to wave your hands isn't quite good enough to make the focus move occur smoothly.

The Burning Earth is only for fans of the show. I can't see anyone else wanting to get into it. Actually, that's not completely true. The game does have the easiest achievement points I have ever seen and it seems to be due primarily to an early balance issue whose exploit has become widely spread (I discuss it here). So if you are planning on getting a copy of this game, go ahead and pickup the 360 one since you will be able to net yourself an easy 1000 points with it.