Advent Rising

Written by Troy Matsumiya  on August 08, 2005

Review: Advent has fallen and can't get up.

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I see trouble on the wayЕ

The first bad sign showed up in the form of bugs. Simply put, this is one of the buggiest and most unstable games I've played Ц not as bad as Hitman 2, but pretty close. For example, the framerate will suddenly drop to single digits for no apparent reason; in other games, this usually happens when there is a lot of action on the screen but in Advent Rising, it can happen at any time. It will run fine when there are a lot of enemies attacking, and then suddenly start chugging when there are only a couple left. Or vice versa. Heck, it even drops frames during the cutscenes for crying out loud.

There are also several audio bugs. The dialogue between NPCs will often overlap and play at the same volume, even if one NPC is further away from you. As a result, you can have two or more conversations going on at once and end up with a jumbled confusing mess. Sometimes the music or sound effects Ц or even both Ц will not play, either in-game or in cutscenes. At other times the music (which is probably the best part of the game) will drown out the dialogue; which on second thought really isn't a bad thing since the dialogue is middling, unoriginal and corny.

The flick targeting system is also quite buggy. There are times when you simply cannot get the target lock to work, despite flicking like a fricking maniac. Other times it will lock onto targets automatically and wildly swing the camera around, which is extremely frustrating when you don't want to lock onto anything. For example, in one level I had to jump across rocks spanning a lava pit. Just as I pressed the jump button, the targeting system unexpectedly locked onto an enemy way far behind me; as a result, the camera Ц and my momentum Ц suddenly shifted backwards and I ended up leaping uncontrollably to my death into the lava. Argh! The targeting system will sometimes remain stuck on a target even after you kill it, which makes it extremely difficult to move around when your view is always locked on a non-existent target (though it will unlock when a new target arrives or if you go in and out of first-person mode. Still, it shouldn't happen in the first place).

Worst of all, the game locked up and crashed several times in a short time span. Where the heck were the QC guys when they were making this game?

Maybe they were taking long lunch breaks with the NPC artists, because there are only about half a dozen different NPC types and enemy models. Because of this lack of variety, you essentially encounter the exact same NPCs and enemies throughout the game, which gets a little boring. It also doesn't help that NPCs repeat the same small number of lines over and over Ц and good luck trying to figure out which NPC is talking in-game because their lips don't move (apparently the art of ventriloquism is popular in the future). Their lips do flap in the cutscenes but are not synced with the dialogue, so it sometimes looks like you're watching one of those badly dubbed kung fu flicks.

The maps are huge but a little uninspired; there's nothing here that you haven't already seen before in any of dozens of other sci-fi shooters. The maps are also very linear with little opportunity to explore; and the ones you can explore have nothing interesting to offer in return.

But the biggest problem with the game is that it's way too easy, especially when you gain your ridiculously overpowered (and unoriginal) superpowers. Walking into a room filled with enemies that you can all kill with a single shot of your Surge УForce pushФ power may seem cool at first, but quickly becomes boring because there's no challenge. Gideon's health also recharges quite rapidly, so if you are ever overwhelmed, all you need to do is find some cover for a few seconds and you're back to 100% health. You don't need to worry about enemies attacking you while you recover either, because they're pretty stupid. They will either stand in one spot or run right at you Ц though УrunФ is a relative term since you are much faster than they are. Some enemies will leap at you, but you can easily dodge and then beat the crap out of them as they stand still for several seconds recovering from their leap. Even the bosses are pretty easy; in fact, you will have a greater challenge fighting the flaky targeting system than you will fighting any enemy.

Occasionally you will have friendly NPCs battling at your side, but they are pretty useless; they are supposed to follow you but will often stand like statues staring dumbly at a wall Ц not that they offer much help anyway. Fortunately for them, they are invincible so you don't have to worry about saving their worthless butts. The vehicles you drive are practically invincible as well because they can take a lot of punishment, whereas enemy vehicles go down after only a few shots.

The ease at which you can kill enemies and the repetitive missions Ц there is very little variation off of the kill-everything-that-moves objectives Ц means the game gets quite boring. Fortunately, the boredom doesn't last because the game is surprisingly short; there are only eight УchaptersФ and can be completed in under 10 hours or so.

If you want to make things interesting for yourself, try switching weapons and powers in the middle of a fight. Unlike virtually all games where you can either instantly switch weapons on the fly or pause the game to make your selection, when you pull up Advent Rising's weapons menu, the game slows down but does not pause. In other words, as you navigate the clunky, unintuitive menu, enemies will continue to attack in slow motion and you still receive full damage. It's a dumb idea that should never see the light of day again.

As for the much vaunted story, you wouldn't be faulted for questioning how much involvement Orson Scott Card had with its development. There is no doubt that he had a big hand in creating the back story where you can really see his influence in the development of the various races, their history and nuances, and even general plotlines. However, unless you take the time to read up on the back story on the official website, you are left with whatever is presented to you in the game Ц and that presentation is pretty thin. The story as it unfolds is the same unoriginal cookie-cutter script we've seen in other sci-fi games: evil alien race wants to destroy humans. Humans fight back. The end. We are never told why the Seekers hate humans; why the Aurelians and other races revere humans; why humans have superpowers and how they got them in the first place; or even basic backgrounds about the various races. There's a small subplot about a political rebellion, but it seems to come and go out of nowhere. In any event, the solution to every problem is the same: get Gideon to kill everybody. The fact that the Seekers look like Elites, the jeep vehicle looks like a Warthog and the alien architecture looks a lot like the Covenant's doesn't help the feeling that you've seen all of this before (though to be fair, Halo's story isn't exactly a shining example of originality either).

The cutscenes also don't do much to further the story, most of which are battle sequences that look pretty but really add nothing except eye fluff and a chance to rest your hands while you wait for the next level. In fact, you could easily eliminate over half of the cutscenes and not affect the story at all Ц not that there's much story to begin with. The ending is decidedly weird Ц the last boss seems to come out of left field since it has nothing to do with anything previously seen in the game Ц and is blatantly open ended for the next sequel.

Oh, and remember that big million dollar contest? Players had to download a small Easter egg each week over Xbox Live, find it in the game, and then log into the official site where they could win smaller prizes and be entered into the final grand prize draw. Not surprisingly given the build quality of the game, bugs have plagued the contest such that players could not download the Easter eggs or were locked out from entering their find on the web site. As a result, Majesco has suspended the contest after only a couple of weeks; and the fact that sales have been poor certainly didn't hurt their decision either. It's never a good sign when you can't even pay people to play your game.