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Advent Rising was announced a few years ago as the first in a trilogy that was epic in scope. It has all the workings of a great project as well. The original story began in the director's mind and he knew it would be such a grand story that he enlisted the help of notable sci-fi scribe Orson Scott Card to help work the script. Card worked on the script, getting the dialogue right and also assisted with the overall story. On top of an excellent author, they employed an orchestra and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to perform. All of these should spell out to be a recipe for sucess. And it does, sort of.
What holds this game back from glory are the myriad of technical issues. To begin with, the game is beautiful. Graphic-wise, it reminds me of Halo 2. Halo 2 had no loading after the initial load and the graphics, while nice, suffered at times from having to be rendered quickly. The same goes for Advent Rising. In fact, while you are watching a cutscene, the game is busy loading the next sequence. What this does is put a tremendous strain on the engine. If the engine is strong, it shouldn't pose much problem. But, unfortunately, this sometimes spells disaster for Advent Rising.
The first 40 minutes of the game did not give me a great first impression. During the training sequences, the game locked up three times. I had to replay the same sequence about 4 times to get through it simply because I did something the game didn't like and it froze. The game auto-saves onces you hit certain check points and if you have to reset the game, you're starting back over from the beginning of the checkpoint. Things became much better as the game progressed and I don't remember the game freezing again.
Added to the lock ups, the game stutters when there's too many things going on at once. I don't mean when little things are happening, I mean when you have a squad of 3-4 people on your team shooting at 4-6 enemies and there's two drop ships coming in and launching missles that explode with huge flames. When that happens, the game's audio begins to "click," the frame rate drops very noticeably and things become a bit annoying. But again, this only really happens when there's a ton going on.
Unfortunately, more technical issues abound. Namely in the sound. With the beautifully orchestrated music pounding, the screams of people fleeing certain destruction, the explosions, the lazers tearing apart buildings, you'd expect to have a lot of sound. Unfortunately, in the cutscenes the sound tends to be muted. To give you an example, on my surround sound receiver (which the game supports by the way), I usually keep the sound at 10-11 for a decent, full sound that doesn't also piss off my neighbors. For this game, generally I have to have the sound on at 16-17 and it's still muted. I know the reason is probably because the game is loading the next scene and the engine is faltering because of it.
A love it or hate it device is used for targeting. Called "flick targeting," you use the right stick to change between your targets, effectively "flicking" it in their general direction to lock onto them. For those who use their right stick to change the camera constantly, like me, this can take some time to get used to. But, if you can train yourself not to change the camera as much will find it works pretty well. Where it can get into a problem is when you are trying to run from the enemy to get to cover. When this happens, and you try to reorient the camera to find some place to run, it can become frustrating to continually lock onto targets. Also, when you receive your power to levitate objects, this becomes even more of a hindrance as you not only lock onto enemies now but also moveable objects. Click the right stick (R3 button) helps with this problem because it releases the camera but it still causes moments of annoyance. Honestly, though, it's a great system to handle more than one enemy at a time.
At the heart of the game, past all of the technical problems and targeting woes is a great story. The beginning of the story with the Seeker's attack of your home world reminded me of what Halo 2 was missing. Here we saw devastation on your homeworld, we fought on the homeworld and it generally stressed the feeling of your world at risk. From there, it's an epic event after epic event as the seekers cause untold problems, a few plot twists occur and a few deaths propel our protagonist toward his goal. It's a great story and the dialogue is terrific, bring to mind movie quality. The voice actors are a charm to listen to, and there are a couple funny moments. Card's influenced can be seen everywhere. In fact, I was waiting for the main characters to break out in a discussion of Varelese and Ramen in terms of aliens (read the Ender's series if you didn't get that).
For all that's good in this game, and there's plenty do not get me wrong, I feel semi-disappointed. This game has been pushed back countless times. Mostly, it's been pushed back to help fix the frame rate issues, and other technical problems I've noted. And so when the game was finally released I was shocked when the very things that made it miss release date upon release date were still causing problems. What is most annoying is that we are this far in the Xbox development cycle and bugs abound. We are currently waiting for Xbox 360 to come out and countless games have been made that are more beautiful and less buggy than this game. It's disappointing to see that even this far into the Xbox life problems are still occuring. Maybe the game was too grand for the Xbox and should have been an Xbox 360 launch title. Whatever the case, this game is really good, regardless of the problems. If you can overlook the technical issues above, you will find not only a good game, but a good game with a heart. And that's hard to find today.
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Let me start off by saying that all of the official reviews you have read for this game have been completely wrong. I have yet to see any positive feedback from professional reviewers about Advent Rising, which is proof that every one of them needs to be fired from their jobs.
Now, with that aside, let me talk about the miraculous thing that is Advent Rising. I have never found myself so immersed in an experience as I have with this game. The gameplay is addictive, the story is compelling, and the music is to die for.
Bugs:
There isn't a game out there as unique as Advent Rising. Look past the glitches and slowdowns and you are clearly playing one of the most fun and incredible games ever released. Everyone has badmouthed the Flick Targeting, but all I have to say is that I play with an inverted camera, and I still found the targeting tolerable. Can you imagine targeting to the right and the camera moves left? It wasn't easy, but still, I gave the game a 5, so you know it can't be that bad.
-The framerate, in my opinion, isn't an issue, cause it only slows down about 4 times through the entire game, and not even enough to get you killed.
-Lockups are the same, rare.
-Music fades in and out, and will sometimes overpower the dialogue. (But music can be turned off)
-In fact, the only glitches worth mentioning are:
1. Every so often the camera will continue to lock on a target after they have been killed, meaning that you can't look ahead. It is quickly fixed though as another object is targeted.
2. While using Aeon Pulse alternate fire the character will get stuck in the air.
3. The health of the 2nd boss is inconsistent, one time it is easy to kill, other times it will take hours.
Gameplay:
Advent Rising delivers more surprises than any game out their. I've lost count of how many times I've just had to pause the game and think of how awesome what I've just pulled off was. You can do SO many things at one time that it is incredible, and I am STILL finding new things like...MINOR SPOILERS...the fact that you charge up the surge power and deliver a deadly blow that looks awesome. Also, that you can freeze the Seekers and then completely shatter them. Sure I'd heard people talking about it, but pulling it off is amazing. In what other game can I slow down time, kick a guy through the air, run across the room and then kick him again before he hits the ground? I can literally pick up 5 bad guys, throw them into Lava, and fire a rocket launcher at a mech-baddie while flying through the air in slow-motion, all at the same time. And then finish that one off by landing and spinning my launcher like some cowboy, it's incredible! End Spoilers.
-The coolest things however, are the RPG elements. Choices you make effect the storyline, and the powers/weapons you can level-up on create a unique character every time you play.
Story and Characters:
I won't spoil it, but it is the best storyline I've ever played in a game. This game made me cry, enough said.
-The characters are actually interesting! I want to learn about them, want to know where they came from. And Ethan is the man! One of the best characters out there. Gideon is cool too, but Ethan really made the game for me.
-(Minor Spoiler is you're sensitive like that) Just a hint that won't spoil it for people who haven't played it yet. If you want the story to reach its highest potential I'll just say this...pick the dude. The game makes more sense that way.
Problems:
-Other than the formentioned glitches, the character models other than Gideon and Ethan, and the Aliens, are rather dull. I would loved to have seen the females look better because during the city scenes there was only one skin for them, while the men had at least 4. Made it unbelievable.
-No subtitles. Without them it is hard to know what the characters are saying because the music, or mumble of their voice.
You have to play this game with an open mind, and whatever you do, don't play the entire game the same way. There are so many ways to kill things, that experimenting is so much fun. The landscapes are breathtaking and the weaponry is killer. And I don't care what anyone says, this game did not copy Halo with the Seekers. They look nothing like the Covenant, and the gamplay is actually much more fun than Halo.
Don't be deceived by the beginning of the game, I was, and I regretted getting the game, but by the end, I was completely immersed in the world and didn't want it to end. Let's hope the sequels fix the minor problems and expand on the already incredible gameplay.
I've already said this, but the game made me cry, and that's tough for me. It is truly one of the best games I've ever played, and IS the most fun.
Just remember, have an open mind, you'll love it! And as long as you aren't a picky and spoiled moron, the glitches won't bother you enough to keep you from this incredible experience.
We need more games like this!
Best Deals for Advent Rising - Xbox
In this generation of gaming, a dark age if ever there was one, where great games are few and far between, and sequel after sequel sells while great aspirations so often go unrealized, swept away in the flood of mediocrity, comes a game that turns me back into a true believer...
I've been around. I've owned so many game systems, tried so many styles of games. I've looked and searched and hoped and dreamed...that there would one day come a game that took the strengths and lost the weaknesses that have plagued seemingly every action game.
What does a good action game need? What have they been lacking? Well, think of all those stupid first-person-shooters, all those mindless action games. They have you mowing down hordes of enemies...and then jumping across a gap and falling to your death! You're blasting your way through all kinds of madness, and then you can't find the key to open the stupid door to the next area! How often I would dream of a game where there's no stupid jumping puzzles! No stupid key searches! Instead...you blast enemies, the story progresses, and the doors OPEN when you approach them! YES!!!!! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This game is what every Star Wars action game wishes it was. It's what Jedi Knight should have been. It's what Gun Valkyrie shoudl have been. It's what I've been waiting for...a fun game!
The beginning of the game you're walking around and talking and training. Then you meet the aliens. And all heck breaks loose. And wow! Suddenly with both X-box triggers you're blasting through hordes of enemies as the ship breaks apart. And from there the action almost never stops.
Your abilities level up as you go, and after a few levels you get POWERS. Then the game immediately goes from good to AWESOME. All powers have level ups that come from usage. And as the game progresses the powers get progressively cooler. But the real greatness comes not from the powers but what you can DO with them. You can grab weapons out of enemies hands, then shoot them with them. You can freeze time and run to enemies and take them down in hand-to-hand combat. You can put up energy shields and then backflip and cartwheel in and out of their path while firing energy blasts out of your hands. You can snipe with guns and toss enemies around with with telekinesis. And because you of the awesome targeting system and excellent control menus, it's painless to target enemies and switch weapons and powers.
Most of the complaints in this game seem to center around said flick-targeting system, glitches in the system, slow-down, and camera issues. Some also don't like the difficulty. To all of this I say...what's your problem?
The flick-targeting system is brilliant. It allows you to easily switch targets and focus the camera instantly. You can adjust it's sensitivity if it's not working for you quite right. Same with the camera. But honestly, this is an ACTION game. AJUST TO IT! Every game has camera issues! Most action games have slowdown! And as games with bugs go, please keep in mind that Knights of the Old Republic has more bugs than the state of Florida and people got over that! Honestly, the bugs, slow-down, jaggies, WHATEVER simply aren't big enough to even be an issue.
The game has INCREDIBLE level design. It has loads of cool weapons. It has GREAT boss battles (fighting a flying tank single-handedly for the first time was so much fun the first time!). It's LOADS of fun. It has a great story, great music, great controls, adjustable difficulty, inspired characters, good voice-acting, and simply limitless possibilities for gameplay.
For a long while I thought this was a four star game because of the bugs and slowdown and whatnot. But in light of the slow-motion dodging, the music, the gamespy, and the incredible amount of FUN that this game is, I simply cannot give it fewer than five stars. This is one of the most under-rated games I've ever played, and probably the best game for the X-Box, with only the phenomenal KOTOR games challenging it. Everyone who likes action or sci-fi games should definitely play this game. I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. It's just too deep and fun a game!
Honest reviews on Advent Rising - Xbox
Advent Rising is the first of what promises to be an amazing trilogy. The story is a great sci-fi adventure. To finally see a quality script and quality voiceacting in a video game is a treat. The soundtrack is nothing short of spectacular and completely immerses you the game, I may purchase it when it becomes available. What's more, even though this is the first part of a trilogy, you don't feel cheated at the end of the game (like in Halo 2). The first installment gives a nice feeling of completion. The only things keeping this game from a five star rating are the technical problems (which on the whole are minor) and the graphics (not what you would expect from a modern day epic video game). I trust that Xbox 360 will easily allow the developers to fix the framerate and graphics in the final two games of the trilogy. In the end, this series may surpass everything that's come before it, even Halo (that's right I said it).
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Advent Rising - Xbox
I saw Advent Rising on last year's E3 and was amazed, so I pre-ordered this game for US-launch (yes, I live in Germany). When I read some of the first reviews, I was disappointed and almost cosidered cancelling the order.
Luckyly i didn't: I played this game for 6 hours now and it is just brilliant! Great graphics and sound (though some minor technical problems) are one thing, but the great story, voice acting and cutszenes are what makes Advent Rising a classic. This is one of the rare ocassions where a game's story truly captures me.
I read some complains about the controls, but don't agree: The auto-targetting system is efficient and fun, if you like running and shooting in fast pace, you don't have to bother with target-selecting and aiming you just concentrate on the action.
I know this is a short review, but there is not much to say: Ordering this game from the other side of the atlantic was totally worth it and I can clearly recommend it to any Sci-Fi and Action-Fan!
