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Advent Rising

…if it weren’t so darn buggy. Advent Rising, the first in a proposed trilogy, has you playing as Gideon Wyeth, one of the last living humans. See, in the distant future, mankind makes contact with a friendly alien race known as the Aurelians. These Aurelians seem to have been searching for mankind for a very long time, being the exhalted ones of their religion. The Aurelians believe that mankind’s brain is full of untapped potential, and this is where Gideon comes in. During his meet with the Aurelian ambassador, it is revealed that they aren’t the only alien race in the galaxy.

Enter The Seekers, whom hold the highest seat of power on the Galaztic Senate. The Seekers occupy worlds for 1,000 years, aiding whichever civilization’s technology and knowledge so that they are “fit” to join the Galactic Senate. Their true agenda, however, is to hunt down and exterminate humankind wherever they find it. When Gideon meets with the Aurelians, he finds out that The Seekers are in fact on their way as they speak. All hell breaks loose and Gideon manages to get off world with the aid of his fiance and pilot Marin Steel (the protagonist of the upcoming Advent Shadow for the PSP – a sidestory).

With the screenplay co-written by famous science fiction author Orson Scott Card, the overall story of the game is full of loss, redemption, and more twists and turns than your local amusement park’s roller coaster. From this perspective, the game is easily one of the best of the year for the Xbox. Sadly though, the gameplay is bogged down by inconsistent camera glitches, dipping framerates, and the occasional freeze up.

The camera can be switched from first to third-person at any time, though the first-person camera doesn’t allow you to use your Lift ability. In the third-person, you’ll target enemies by flicking the right thumbstick in their direction. For the majority of the game you’ll be relying on firearms, which are plentiful and varied. From pistols to automatics, each weapon has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Through continuous use of preferred weapons, you’ll essentially “level up” each weapon, unlocking extra firing modes, more accuracy, and extra damage. The more you progress though, you’ll unlock more powerful and varied attacks in the form of your special powers.

Your special powers (6 total) “level up” much like the firearms do. Each power has an alternate mode of use, such as the Surge ability. When you first unlock it, it works much like a Jedi’s Force Push. Its alternate mode lets you steal an enemy’s weapon. Once you’ve gotten to unlock all of them, you really won’t even need to use another gun in the game. This omnipitent power you unlock goes along with the game’s story very well, and although it isn’t the most difficult game ever, it manages to stay hard enough that it is rewarding throughout.

As much as all these things work for the game, the buggy camera and the occasional glitch keep this game from attaining the high praise it would otherwise deserve. When you have the Lift ability equipped, the flick targetting system locks you on to moveable objects in the environment. The problem is that you’ll be locked onto them at inconvenient times, even when you don’t have the juice to lift and use them or when there’re no enemies around and all you want to do is traverse the environment. This targetting system also fails when you’re taking out enemy turrets. After their demise, you’ll find yourself still locked onto them. This makes getting to the next area a pain or even ridding the remaining enemies around just about impossible. The game also glitches occasionally when you try to use the Aeon Pulse ability, often making you stay in the air long after the attack, some sort of frozen pinata or target for the enemy to beat on until your death.

Graphically the game shines (especially the particle effects), although there are several instances when the frame rate will slow to a crawl. The character models and architecture are some of the most creative to come to the Xbox in a long time. From the outset though, it’s quite clear that this game can’t run at a consistently decent frame rate with 5 or more characters on screen. For those with a quick temper and about zero patience, this is just about the biggest exercise in frustration. It’s a shame really, considering just how pretty these environments and character models are.

As for the sound, the voice acting gets the job done without any bad one-liners or wooden dialogue. While it’s a bit laughable at a few key moments in the game, for the most part the emotion and urgency of the conflict is portrayed well enough. The sound effects are handled really well, with explosions being visceral and the sounds of gunfire distinctively impacting flesh and ground alike.

With all of its technical glitches, it’s a wonder how the QA guys got away with it (or even if there were any). Without these problems, Advent Rising would of easily been in the running for Game of the Year, giving both Sci-Fi junkies and action fans the reality of their most desired dreams. A wonderful story involving aliens, loss, and one man rising up to be a God, who wouldn’t enjoy such a story? While the ending may leave gamers wanting more, it still has 2 sequels to follow. Whether or not those games will suffer the faults this one does, the world will have to wait and see.

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Tags: Advent Rising

Posted by David Hinkle on Aug 2nd, 2005 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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