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This game was rushed-out garbage..

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Wow. Very rarely am I compelled to write reviews on games. This game is BAAAAD. I hate myself for paying $50 for it. Let me explain.

Orson Scott Card wrote the screenplay for this game, and it is actually pretty good. The orchestral music is really good, too.

So it sounds good, right? Wrong. The controls are the worst I have ever tried to use in my 20+ years of gaming. You want decent framerate? Not gonna find it here. Even the crappy cut-scenes slow down and suffer from choppy frame-rate. The whole engine shuts down to a crawl if you face more than two enemies. Wanna try and lock on to the bad guys? Good luck trying to pick the one you actually want to hit. Even if you do manage to target the guy you want, your character will arbitrarily split his fire between your intended target and another, whether you want him to or not. Oh, and then there is the camera, which like to stick you inside walls, swing around at inopportune times (letting enemies get cheap licks on you while you wait for the camera to swing around so you can target them), or just plain glitching out. This company sold everyone a crappy product dressed up in a pretty bow, and I am kinda angry about it. The potential was there....

THE GEORGE W. BUSH OF VIDEO GAMES

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: October 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game isn't even FINISHED yet! There are soooo many bugs and framerate issues that should have been resolved, and you'd think they'd have time to do it considering how little effort they spent on the graphics. Seriously, these graphics are simpler then the script-writer of Everybody Loves Raymond on crack. The characters' faces are unforgivably plain and void of any distinctive features, in fact, there's virtually no difference between any of the faces. The story sucks, it's basically the same as every single other sci-fi story out there. Don't buy this game, don't rent this game, simply point at it and laugh.

Glitches ruin what could be a great game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: November 08, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The writing for this game is great. So much better than the usual dialogue you get from hack writers out there. The story is very compelling and I enjoy the game mechanics. The engine itself is not to badly designed however it is plagued with bugs. The game locks up repeatedly. So much so, that I have decided to simply return it. This game showed a lot of promise, and I hope that they release some sort of Live downloadable patch for it. I don't think that will happen though. I found the game impossible to play due to random freeze ups. Steer clear of this one, but definitely check out the sequel.

Forget the tech issues, the game itself is seriously flawed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: June 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off, I have to say that most people who played this game complained about the glitches. I have noticed none. No glitches, no bugs. The framerate is bad, true - think playing an MMORPG in a crowded city on a modem connection. Well, I HAVE done that before, so the framerate didn't bother me.

It's the game itself that makes me wish I held on to that $50. You can upgrade your firearms the more you use them. This sounds like a Good thing. If you like a weapon a lot, you can just keep using it to make it more effective. Unfortunately, you quickly realize that there's a little thing called Ammunition, and it barely appears enough in the levels to let you USE the gun, let alone let you blaze around with the leveled-up firearm of your choosing.

However, you won't be using your guns much once you get your Psychic Powers stolen directly from Psi-Ops - erm, I mean, once you get your legendary, mystical powers that all humans possess. With these powers, the "leveling-up" concept is much more effective. Use a power a lot, and it levels up. The End. Some of the powers are seriously taken directly from Psi-Ops, though. Except in that game, you could pick up anything you like. In Advent Rising, you can only pick up whatever the game developers want you to pick up.

Still, the game has its moments. Jump around a lot, and your jumps get more evasive. Soon, diving to the side brings the world into slow-motion, granting you the ability to throw enemies and shoot grenades, all in one graceful leap. It looks pretty, and it's fun. The vehicle parts are also enjoyable. The "flick targeting" - flick the analog stick towards an enemy to target it - can get a little frustrating as the analog stick you're flicking also targets the camera. Sometimes, you'll be trying to target a certain enemy, but it insists on targeting the big object the enemy is standing by. Or it will remain locked onto a target that's behind you, when all you really want to do is see what's in FRONT of you. But overall, it works.

The music is just incredible...the one part of the game that really lived up to all the excitement I'd built up after years of waiting for its release.

However, the story is really what disappoints me. The movies are so DISCONNECTED from the main game it's absolutely ridiculous, and pulls you out of any shaky atmosphere the music and graceful jumps managed to provide. I'll just give you an example. You're running across a field. There's a group of aliens at your back. Suddenly, you notice a jeep sitting out in the open, all alone. You run up to it, thinking you can jump in, turn around, go back to the aliens...but Lo and Behold, once you get within ten feet of the jeep, the screen blackens, a cutscene starts, and suddenly there's about ten soldiers standing around the jeep, chatting, while your main characters walks up to them. I swear the soldiers weren't there before. So instead of relaxing and enjoying a cutscene, you're jarred from the "game" reality and enter "cutscene" reality. In "game" reality, you're standing in a dusty desert, with sand drifing in the wind. In "cutscene" reality, you're standing in a grassy field, the grass leaning and rippling in the wind. It's just jarring, lazy, and it gets me angry.

The game attempts to give you chances to make Decisions that affect the story. The way it's implemented would indeed have been novel and well-done, if your Xbox was actually an NES and the year was 1987. As it is, the decisions have no emotional involvement, and most of them are resolved ten minutes later. There is one pretty heavy decision that occurs early in the game. Well, not as heavy as it COULD have been (you don't know how drastic the consequences will be when you make it), but it's still a nice touch. However, I Choose Wrong, and as a result I was stuck with with a shallow, poorly-written character for hours afterward. My lesson: No matter what your instincts tell you, sometimes you have to leave the girl behind.

All in all, Advent Rising is disappointing and not worth your $50. The gameplay is all right, but I've seen better (much, much better). The story is blah. Unless you're an extreme sci-fi fan who experiences intense pleasure at the thought of aliens and spaceships, then this game just isn't worth your time.

Very overhyped.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: May 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game should have been good, with the brilliant Orson Scott Card as the storywriter and renowned video game musician Tommy Tallarico as the sound track creator, but it isnt. The story line is very derrivitive and dull, the graphics are seriously outdated, the flick targeting system is annoying and unresponsive, the frame rate was aweful, and there were tons of bugs and glitches littered through out the game. The only good I can say about the game is that the flick targeting system is a good idea, the power ups are pretty cool, and the sountrack to the game is amazing. If you are an Orson Scott Card fan, or in search of a good game, then stay away from Advent Rising. Just hope that the sequels will be better.

actualy 3.5 ,this could have been an amazing game if.......

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The developers had/took more time to iron out the kinks.Now the gameplay is very addictive,fun and some what innovative for a third person shooter.You get the choice of ten or so realy kick a$$ guns plus several different ' powers' like force push,exploding ice shrads from your hands, levitation and others.Now what is cool is that you can hold a gun in one hand and use the free one for your powers so you can double weild a la halo 2,...kinda.But cool none the less.Now a new and interesting feature is the targeting,you 'flick' the right thumbstick in the diection you see the enemies on screen and they will be selected in your cross hair.This works pretty good I might add, since I was dredding the worst when i heard about the targeting.Now this game is actualy alot of fun and you wont want to stop playing once you get into it.BUT there are some problems.1 the framerate in some areas is piss poor, well not that bad but there is some slow down when theres alot of things going on on screen,and sometimes you will move pretty sketchy.The graphics and all around art style of the game is very well done.Now to me it was almost like I was playing a third person HALO game,from the worlds,enviroments to the weapons,vehicles and characters all seemed to be from the same mold if you know what I mean.Thats not a bad thing either because if your going to use ideas from a game make sure its a top notcher like the halo series. PROBLEMS- there was a couple of times the game actualy froze up on me during the cut scenes.frame rate was prety choppy at time. The audio is kind of hit or miss every so often and the game is kinda short, you could beat it in a day or two, about 10-15 hrs.But you might need the god mode cheat to do so because the enemies are relentless somtimes.

All in all with those little problems aside, this is one game worhty of a rental at the very least.I've been hooked for 4 days straight and just beat it.If only they waited an extra month to fix all the little issues in the game this would have made my top ten list for sure.It is however one of the BEST games I have played this summer.

needs better fighting

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I rented this vidia game and found it to be good in graphics but wished it was a little more controller intuitive, and more fluid in it's fighting segments of the game.

Short

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: March 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pros:
- some of the cutscenes are quite nicely directed.
- "force" powers- you can pretty much use them solely to get thru the game once you have a few of them.
- the environment you traverse is continuous - ie there is no "please wait, loading...." of stages.
- You get to jump into jeeps and ships and drive them- like in Halo.
- The game doesn't end after the credits are over. Nice touch.

Cons:
- very cliched plot elements- stolen from all the major sci-fi films.
- "force" powers are too powerful most of the time.
- Game is way too short.
- First boss will require you to look at online cheats to figure out.
- Flick targeting is horrific at times.
- Game generally could use a month of polish. The soundtrack jars during stage transitions.
- Game only seemed to crash once. But on reload it seemed to have left off where I crashed.

If you like games like Psi Ops, Jedi Outcast, Second Sight, then you will find this game entertaining for a little bit. I say a little bit because the game is very short.

BUT you have to be forgiving about the horrific flick-targeting system and the glitchy audio.

So rent it or buy it on discount if possible.

Starts off strong, then falters almost immediately.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I was hooked with this game right away. I found the characters interesting, the environments thriving, and the writing top notch.

Then the gameplay actually started.

As soon as you start fighting aliens, this game falls apart. The story, which starts at just the right pace (introducing characters and their world, showing off what the for the Xbox was really impressive graphics), immediately snorts a shot of cocaine, destroys the friendly alien spaceship as if it were made out of wooden blocks (seriously, the vastly advanced good-aliens can't survive for more than a minute, but the human space-station is able to survive for the entire first level?), and starts throwing evil aliens at you.

It seems as if the developers were trying to pull the game in too many directions to do any one thing well. The cut-scenes are painfully repetitive, the characters turn into mushy stereotypes almost immediately, and the aliens would be completely harmless to any normal human society, as they fight like badly trained chickens. If it weren't for the constant bugs and glitches I'm sure that the humans would have a much easier time defending themselves.

The game had a ton of potential, and the initial shuttle flight scene that opens the game is one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen in a Sci-fi game. I really wanted this game to be good, but it ended up just being somewhat annoying.

Technical problems keep it from being great

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 44 / 45
Date: June 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

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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