Advent Rising

"Welcome to the low end of mediocre."

As you may know, Advent Rising comes with an in-game contest to win $1,000,000. And here are reasons why I'd rather pass up the chance to win $1,000,000 than play this game again.

Story- 3/10
A friendly alien race arrives just in time to warn humanity of their impeding annihilation at the hands of another, malevolent alien race. Humanity is wiped out and the protagonist, Gideon becomes the last man on earth (or its sci-fi analogue). To survive, Gideon must learn to harness the legendary, hidden, power of humanity which aliens fear and revere. I don't know who Orson Scott Card is, but if this story is representative of his work, it's amazing that he's won awards at all. Levitating objects as training and the Galactic Senate come into play here, as well as a bounty hunter that wields dual pistols and a jetpack... The character dialogue is fairly insubstantial, half consisting of one-liners and quips about underwear, even when someone important (say the entire human race) died earlier the same day. On the rare occasion that a character does have a serious dialogue with Gideon; it's all completely typical, rendering flat stereotypical heroes that are hard to care about. There are horrendous plot holes and gaps in logic as well. It's as though the level layouts were done first and the plot had to be stretched around Gideon ending up in those places. Despite the interesting and rich premise of human survival and utter annihilation, the writing is so poor in general and so minimalistic that important conversations are talked about in summary rather than presented in the game. Furthermore, feelings of hopelessness and desolation are never explored by the few humans that do manage to survive. Also, the ending is a To Be Continued ending that manages to cheapen this story by promising another one. It feels and is incomplete.

Gameplay- 2/10
Everything in the gameplay department has been done better elsewhere. One of Gideon's more interesting skills is levitation. The control is decent, but it's been done better in Psi-Ops and Jedi Academy. Gideon also learns a skill called Surge, where he pushes enemies back with a wave of force... er... magic energy. Using these skills is rewarding because they level up into stronger forms that are more energy efficient. Weapons also level up with use, though later in the game the player is weaned into using Gideon's powers more than sidearms. The run and gun style of the game is thoroughly average and is similar to hundreds of other games that have come out since the original playstation. The reason the score is so low here is because there are several glitches that make this game literally unplayable. Within ten minutes of playing, shortly after the mandatory training session, the game froze. I had to turn off my Xbox to fix it. After loading where I left off, I tried to do the advanced training again and the game froze again. There were two instances where a door I had gone in moments before shut when I left and wouldn't open again, forcing me to reload the last checkpoint. I had to leave a room a come back in to trigger the cutscene that was supposed to happen, I had to load because a cutscene didn't trigger after I killed all the enemies in one area. After one cutscene, Gideon started to moonwalk and wouldn't stop until I made him crouch. These glitches were unforgivable back in the day of the original playstation and much more of a crime now. The "flick targeting" system, which the developers boasted about, is more of a hindrance than an innovation. Flicking the right analogue enables Gideon to lock on to enemies or objects in that direction. The problem is that this is also the only way to move the camera, meaning Gideon inadvertently locks onto furniture and enemies when you just want to adjust the view. Lastly, there is the framerate, which consistently dips below 30 fps, even during cutscenes.

Graphics/Presentation- 7/10
Advent Rising's art style is like Knights of the Old Republic with half the budget. The characters have a similar look, the environments are almost as lovely, but both suffer from lack of polish. Backgrounds are angular and character faces are simplistic. The aliens are all pretty impressive looking, but everything else is adequate; not great. One large annoyance is that during cutscenes, Gideon's character model is replaced by the beta-version where he had bangs instead of spiky hair. This also happens to his fiance at one point and she looks like a different character entirely until the next cutscene. This inconsistency is obviously because GlyphX didn't have time to change out character models by the time the game shipped. Sloppy. Several of the cutscenes are just the good aliens fighting the bad aliens or humans being wiped out by the bad aliens. These cutscenes occur way too often, about every ten minutes, and are underwhelming at best. It would have been better to have higher quality cutscenes at the end or middle of levels and leave it at that. Furthermore, the smoke effect from explosions completely saturates the screen, making movement and fighting impossible. There are also purely aesthetic glitches that just look like digital garbage, but I don't want to beat a dead horse.

Audio- 7/10
The music is fairly good. A couple tracks elevate the mood nicely and the ambient and boss themes are movie quality and memorable. Fight music and level music are forgettable and the sound effects are average. The score suffers here because the music often cuts out and the explosions and gunshots often cut out or become pops and crackles. The voice acting is very high quality, with the exception of the incomprehensible last boss.

Overall- 4/10
This is a game that doesn't have to be rented. There's nothing here that needs to be seen or played, it's all been done before and notably better. The story had potential, but with the exception of the audio, everything about the production quality smacks of a game that is still halfway in beta. The glitches are quite possibly the worst and most impairing I've ever seen on this platform and the graphical weaknesses are noticeable even by low standards. It seems like a few key conversations were cut out because of time constraints, the story doesn't feel complete and not just because there are sequels in the works. Since it's a product that was rushed and ultimately unfinished, Advent Rising isn't worth playing at all. Let's leave it at this, how many good games have offered a million dollars just to play it? This is a million someone's gonna have to work for.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/06/05