Advent Rising E3 2004 Hands-On

At Majesco's E3 2004 booth, GlyphX Games was on hand to showcase Advent Rising for the PC and Xbox. The game is a pure sci-fi action tale that puts you in the role of Gideon Wyeth, a human in a universe that reveres humankind as a creature of powerful myth. When humanity is discovered to be real, he is thrust into battle with a hostile race known as The Seekers, who seek to destroy humanity out of fear of our race's power. Gideon will eventually gain access to a number of different powers, ranging from telekinesis, to the ability to jump and flip around in spectacular ways, all while in a bullet-time-like state.

In the level being displayed at E3, we started out with Gideon on a beach, blasting away at a number of hostile aliens. We had a few different types of guns we could use, ranging from a standard machine gun to a charge weapon that would deliver a massive blast of energy to any surrounding enemies. What struck us most about this section of the level was the technical beauty of several of its key graphical elements. For example, the level featured absolutely stunning water effects, even more so when we ran into the water and splashed around a bit. Also, the visual effects used for energy blasts were extremely impressive. In addition, quite a number of enemies seemed to be capable of appearing onscreen at once, though the frame rate did hitch up quite often the more chaotic things got.

As we progressed, we got a look at a few more of Gideon's moves. Quite easily, we were able to enact a bullet-time state during certain battle sequences, and when doing so, we could dodge and dive all over the place. We could dive backward while still shooting our gun or pull off ridiculous jumps and cartwheels, as in The Matrix.

Eventually we found ourselves able to access a ship of some sort, which we used to fly around and destroy a number of massive robotic enemies. The controls on the ship were actually rather loose, and trying to steer the ship proved to be a very harrowing task. However, the power of the ship's weaponry compared to what we had on the ground made trying to master its unwieldy controls a worthwhile task.

Finally, we reached a boss fight with a rather large and nasty alien. We learned that this alien in particular was actually already dead and that a small spine-shaped metallic piece on the creature's head and back was actually a bounty hunter who had the ability to reanimate dead creatures and take control of them. In between serious poundings and being crushed underneath large boulders, we discovered the pattern necessary to defeat the boss, and we eventually knocked the robotic bounty hunter off the boss creature. Upon doing so, the demo came to an end.

Though some definite rough spots and technical issues were apparent in the E3 demo, GlyphX Games still has a few months yet to polish up the game before its September release date. We will bring you more on Advent Rising as it becomes available.