Advent Rising

"Advent Rising, the first part of a three part play..."

Advent Rising is the first game of The Advent Trilogy, It is also the first game made by GlyphX games. With all the things you have probably heard about it I am here to help you to understand what this game really is, and what it is about.

Gameplay- 8/10
With a dash of RPG a sprinkling of action and a FPS stirred in on high this game is one of the most ambitious games to come out in a long time that has actually delivered. With the ability to gain experience on all your weapons and powers, and the non-stop action and wave upon wave of enemy's you gain experience quickly. Sadly this game faltered in the glitches department, with graphical slowdown and odd clipping mishaps it retracts from the overall feel of the game. If AR had gone through a little more testing then I think it could have brought the score up.

Story– 9/10
The story one of the places this story really shines, with Orson Scott Card as one of the writers it was bound to be good. This is one of the few games in the last few years where you FEEL the characters, you feel their pain, and anguish, you also feel their happiness and joy. A quick over view of the main story without going into to much detail is that the human race in living on a new planet and you are being visited by the first race of aliens ever seen by humans. When you meet them they tell you that another race of aliens called the Seekers are coming and that their lot in life is to wipe out the humans as you leave their ship the seekers attack and the whirlwind story goes from there.

Graphics/Sound– 7/10
Good, not great but good. Had this game gone through better testing this would be a much higher score because when there weren't any of the many glitches happening this was one of the best looking game to come out so far this year, With its good FMV's and better then most in-game graphics. Now on the other side of that there was a lot of graphical slowdown when there was a lot going on onscreen, which was most of the game. When there was to much sound happening at the same time it would go mute for a couple seconds and then all of them would happen at once, which got annoying quickly. Luckily if you have a newer XBOX these are not as bad.

Play Time– 8/10
The playtime for this game is right around 15-20 hours if you take your time and level up all your powers and weapons. This could be done much faster but what's the fun in that. There could be a lot of time spent playing on XBOX LIVE looking for the prize icons while the contest lasts.

Replayability– Without XBL 5/10 With XBL 7/10
This all depends on whether you have XBOX LIVE, without XBL this is a fun story to go back to occasionally and it has multiple difficulty's but its not an amazingly fun game to play over and over again. With XBOX LIVE you may go through the whole game multiple times looking for the different prize icons while the contest continues.

Final Recommendation– Without XBL 7/10 With XBL 8/10
This is a good game over all and I recommend it highly because there are two more to come and with this game being so good despite its faults it can only go up from here, i think this deserves at least a rent so that you know the story for when the other two games come out.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/05