If I decide not to go out, my ideal Friday night is spent with a burrito from Chipotle, a couple pineapple Fanta’s, and a good movie or video game. I’m happy to say I had quite a FEW good Fridays with Advent Rising, a futuristic third-person shooter based on the story by the award-winning sci-fi author Orson Scott Card. In Advent Rising, you assume the role of Gideon Wyeth, one hardcore military boy who exceeded in rank as a soldier and strategist in the last years of the Independence War. To a certain race of aliens, humans are considered a valuable treasure and consider it amazing that we even exist. On the other hand, there happens to be another race of aliens that wants nothing more than ultimate destruction of every single human in existence. Can you guess your enemy?
So Epic...
Whenever I play Advent Rising, I feel a lot like Ripley from the Alien trilogy. No joke, this game has a true blockbuster-feeling to it, and it adds for a lot of flavor.
"Be prepared for extremely intense action sequences on any difficulty."
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Be prepared for extremely intense action sequences on any difficulty. Trying the game out on the easy difficulty is advised, because this game is TOUGH! I’ve thrown more than a few fits from last minute deaths in many of the different venues. Some of the different environments are so different, vast, and beautiful, that you’ll definitely feel like you are in the middle of a movie. If you want to feel like a real hero for a day, Advent Rising may be spinning in your direction.
Taking Out Aliens Was Never This Easy...
Advent Rising utilizes a totally unique enemy targeting system called flick-targeting. Basically, there is no real button for targeting. All you do is flick one of the joysticks towards the enemy in which you want to target, and you’ll get a target. As you can imagine, this does take a lot of time to get used to. Personally, it took me over an hour to truly get the hang of it, but after that I was flicking like there’s no tomorrow. You can also alternate in between enemies using the joystick. However, I often found myself targeting enemies in which I didn’t want to attack. This became quite an annoyance and caused some unwanted deaths. Over time, you’ll learn to work through it and become an expert at it if you really want to beat the game. Using flick-targeting, you can easily learn to take out huge groups of enemies extremely quickly. The problem with flick targeting is that you’ll constantly lock onto things you may not want to whilst just walking around. This gets annoying, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a way to block it out.
The Feel of A Blockbuster
After an hour or so of playing Advent Rising, you can expect to be drawn in by the amazing cinematics and addicting alien-shoot-’em-up gameplay. Although, how does the game really play out? We know it looks good, but can’t something like this get extremely repetitive? Actually, you’ll find the gameplay quite similar to MDK2, however, the whole scenario is, of course, different. When you aren’t on foot, you’re most likely going to be cruising around in the Scythe, a vehicle that reminds me of Halo’s Warthog. The scythe is an all terrain vehicle that gets you from the larger areas during travel. It’s also accompanied by a powerful Gatling gun in the rear cab. If you happen to have passengers, one of the passengers can use the machine gun while you drive simultaneously.
"Running aliens over + pumping aliens full of lead = destruction! "
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Running aliens over + pumping aliens full of lead = destruction! The scythe comes with a feature we all die for in a game like this – infinite boost! If you like messing around, you can pull off some crazy maneuvers with the scythe as well. Not only do you control the scythe which is a human vehicle, but you can also control the Seekers’ assault vehicles and many different aircraft. Controlling the scythe wasn’t quite as fun as the Warthog, and moving it around seems sort of sticky at first, but you eventually get used to it because you do use it fairly frequently.
Our Hero’s a Psychic
As you progress through Advent Rising, Gideon can learn special powers. These powers can have a great effect on the gameplay, as they make it a whole lot easier to take out huge groups of enemies. For example, using Gideon’s push move and telekinesis, you can throw groups of enemies around and sustain them in the air while you blow the crap out of them! This seriously makes fighting a whole lot easier and can help you get through the game a lot faster. Also as you become more experienced with your weapons and powers, an automatic upgrade system will give your weapons and powers upgrades just for using them frequently. Their power will increase, load time, etc. Another thing I liked about the weapons system was being able to dual-wield two different weapons. The right and left triggers controlled each weapon, and this made for some intense action sequences.
Graphically Speaking...
I’ve already noted that Advent Rising contains amazing cinematics, but how are the graphics during gameplay? You’ll be pleased to see that they are quite up to par with today’s recent games. I was most amazed during the intro level, where you flew a ship and docked it in one of space ports. At first I figured it was another cinematic, but I was actually flying the ship! I never experienced any slow down, even during the heavy combat missions. Everything kept at a constantly fast frame rate. One complaint I had about the 3D modeling was Gideon’s legs. This is actually what mainly reminded me of MDK2... how people stand stationary! It gets quite annoying, so I tried to always be moving. Why couldn’t he have kept his legs a little closer together? It would have looked a hell of a lot more normal, and would have kept my bitching to a minimum. Narrowing it down, it’s really a small issue and it doesn’t really matter. The draw distance, however, seems massive! When you are in a level that seems desert like, you can practically see as far as the general eye can see! I don’t know about you, but having short draw distance is a big annoyance for me, because I like to feel that I’m in a realistic environment, and having buildings pop up here and there randomly just annoyed me. I saw none of this in Advent Rising and was very pleased.
Some John Williams Shizzy!
No, before you ask, I have to confirm that the game’s soundtrack is NOT John Williams. However, Advent Rising contains an amazing 70-piece Hollywood Union Orchestra to take care of the game’s background music. The score is excellently written and gives the game a very serious feel. I say ’John Williams Shizzy’ because I consider John Williams to be the pioneer of dramatic orchestral music, and this music actually reminds me of his work (that’s a good thing!). Other than that, the
"If you are hesitant, do yourself a favor and try before you buy- that’s what Blockbuster is for. I’d highly recommend this game- it’s a blast."
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sound effects are amazing. The voice dialoging is done well with no significant voice talents in the cast, and seems perfectly fine. AR has Dolby Digital 5.1 support, so if you’ve got a nice high quality speaker system (damn you), you’re bound to have some amazing stuff protruding from your home stereo system.
Worth The Buy?
Is Advent Rising another typical action/3rd person shooter? The truth is, it really isn’t. There are so many special features that make this game shine that I cannot help but encourage anyone who likes it to buy it. Advent Rising can become very addicting at times, and with Xbox Live support it makes it even better. Unfortunately, online play isn’t available in the Xbox version of Advent Rising, but there is a downloadable level from Majesco and the ’Friends’ option (So you can see who’s online and is playing what while your enjoying your game. Personally, I find that somewhat of a nuisance, but whatever may float your boat). Overall, at a still-stiff MSRP of $49.99, I can still recommend a buy. Advent Rising is an action-packed bundle of excitement and is really worth the dollars. If you are hesitant, do yourself a favor and try before you buy- that’s what Blockbuster is for. I’d highly recommend this game- it’s a blast.
