Advent Rising seems as though it would be the end-all-be-all sci-fi action adventure, and it is. Almost.
User Rating: 7 | Advent Rising XBOX
Advent Rising is a tough pigeon to hole. Publisher Majesco is billing this game as the start of a trilogy, and judging by it’s ultimate virtues, they may have a winner. Advent Rising is the chronicle of the end of the human race. With dialogue penned by famed sci-fi author Orson Scott Card, Hollywood-quality voice acting, and one of the best scores in recent interactive entertainment history, Advent Rising seems as though it would be the end-all-be-all action adventure, and it is. Almost. This game, from its outset, stakes out some rather ambitious ground. Set at the dawn of mankind’s transcendence, our first contact with alien life, the player is put in the transport vessel of a rookie pilot, preparing to greet the out-of-galaxy visitors. Much of the narrative is played similar to a movie. There is even a montage about two hours in to the game that moves the story along very efficiently. One nice extra: the game allows players to pause and even rewind cinematic sequences. At first, the player is limited to basic jumping/shooting/dodging maneuvers. However, as players use specific moves, leaps, or attacks, the game begins upgrading your abilities. At one point, the main character even learns an array of powerful psychic attacks that can really level the playing field. The game features a unique targeting system. Players have to “flick” the right thumbstick in the direction of an enemy to lock on. Flicking can become a little troublesome, especially once the “throw” ability is learned and every camera adjustment mysteriously returns locked on to a random piece of the environment. Still, Glyphx tried something new and succeeds in flicking around with convention, for what it is worth. Advent Rising’s combat moves at a very quick pace, with some battles quickly filling the screen with dozens of enemies. The carnage can really pile up bodies quickly, especially with full a psychic battery at the player’s disposal. Still it seems as though team Glyphx got bogged down in making the gunplay so fluid that they neglected a few small, nagging issues. Small, nagging issues such as game stability. Yes, as much as this game offers, it has stability problems. It seems obvious that while a quality game and an engaging adventure all its own, Advent Rising shipped unfinished. At certain times during the combat, the frame rate will slow to a crawl, and then jump back into the 30’s. Other times, when loading data for the next area, the game will chug for up to five seconds before returning to normal. Breaks in both the world and the action completely ruin what is otherwise a mostly immersing experience. Frustration over the most basic of technical issues boils to a head when the game actually crashes at random intervals. Other issues encountered ranged from not being able to pick up weapons in the heat of battle to very obvious clipping errors during the cut scenes. Seriously, with the amount of work that has gone into making Advent Rising THE uber-cool sci-fi adventure of summer 2005, I am shocked that it was released in this state. Another 6 weeks of testing could have really helped, Majesco. But seriously, the game is not all bad. Oddly enough, in spite of such insurmountable flaws, I still love this game. The story is rather cliché: Star Wars meets Titan A.E. meets Halo meets The Matrix. Basically, Humanity is contacted by an alien race that brings a warning of Earth’s impending destruction. Unfortunately, the warning arrived too late. Within the first two hours of gameplay, our little blue sphere is pretty much obliterated. While this is nothing new to sci-fi geeks, the game manages to blow up Earth in a really cool way. The sense of helplessness I felt when The Seekers (bad guys) finally deal the death blow to Earth goes beyond what I have felt playing any other sci-fi game available. One mistaken association that many gamers and critics are making is Advent Rising’s likeness to Halo. Advent Rising and Halo are two entirely different games. They are nothing alike. Halo has shiny metal and repetitive environments. Advent Rising has a third-person camera and lots of beautiful, constantly new art to run past and blow up. In Halo 2, Master Chief is caught up in the Saturday morning version of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s War and Peace. In Advent Rising, players walk the path of the last remaining human in a fight to bring videogame related books up to required reading status for high school freshmen. (Ever read Ender’s Game? Same author.) Halo has multiplayer. Advent Rising is a game for single, lonely gamers or gaming couples with one party that just likes to watch. It is reasonable to assume that if you liked Halo, Advent Rising will satisfy your gaming Jones. It is not reasonable, however, to assume that Advent Rising is a game trying to coattail on the popularity of Halo. It simply is not true. Advent Rising has a unique look to it. Some of the environments are a little plain, and could have used a little more clutter. Other times, environments are a little too cluttered, and when the fighting breaks out it can be difficult to maneuver properly. I also would have liked to see some kind of radar as part of the heads up display. The game shoud at least some sort of clue as to the general direction of the objective. And if, somehow, enemies could have been marked on that radar as well, combat frustrations could be curbed if but just a tad. Despite frame rate issues, occasional crashes, cliché story elements and some minor design flaws, Advent Rising is much like the humanity it portrays: transcendent, as though carried by some great power within. The potential behind Advent’s first chapter is enormous, and with proper love and care, all the hard work and genuine creativity put in to this new ip could really show through. Advent Rising is a great game in spite of major drawbacks. It is a good beginning to a project that could turn the game industry on its ear, if only given a chance. Buy this one. Pray for the next. Advent Rising is rated "T" (Teen) by the ESRB for animated violence. Stephen Webster is the Editor in Chief of Binary Culture.net
