Advent Rising- impressions?

[FantasiaWHT]

I checked this out at work yesterday, and was rather appalled... Many many problems, just from playing it a few minutes.

-Horrible framerate. Seems to drop near or below 10 fps frequently.

-Hard to find where you're going. There's no map, and you start out in this labyrinthine set of rooms and offices that all have multiple exits, and nobody tells you where to go.

-You can't talk to anybody... all these people are wandering around but you can't interact with them for some reason.

-Your character stands like he's been on a horse too long... his feet are about 3 feet apart hehe.

-Targetting is really strange.. you have to "flick" the right thumbstick in the direction of whatever you want to target, but that flick is really innacurate.

-While flying around in my little shuttle pod at the very start of the game, I was told specifically not to run into the giant alien spaceship, so of course I did. I "collided" supposedly, which brought me to a complete stop. No other visual or audio clue at all. And then about 5 seconds later I exploded. 'Twas strange.

The writing is all right, and the voice acting was pretty good. Some humor to it, but the gameplay just seems horrible, heh.

[Crush Crawfish]

Yeah, it seems like this one is set to be a dissapointment on all fronts. I wasn't anticipating it, but I'd expect better for a game that's been in production for as long as it has (3 years?).

Gamespot's review completely tore it apart, and suggested that it wasn't even worth playing at all. IGN was a bit more forgiving...

[bluecollarninja]

man, i was looking forward to playing this.

[FantasiaWHT]

I played it a little more just to torture some customers... the framerate got even worse... when there were more than 2 enemies on screen, it became almost unplayable =/ Reminded me of the last time I tried to play Unreal on my old rig at a LAN party heh...

[s1lence]

Well that answers my question if the game was worth buying. :/

[zmweasel]

Sounds like yet another game to fall under the "first in a series" curse (RapJam, Pryzm, SwordQuest, et cetera). In fact, the only series of games I can think of that was announced and actually completed is Bandai's .hack. Can anyone think of any others?

-- Z.

[geelw]

well, advent shadow for the psp is still in production, so we'll see what happens. as for the initial comments above, my advice to everyone who replied that they won't BUY the game is to at least RENT it if you were interested previously. when reviews are all over the place like the ones i've seen so far, a game tends to fall under the "not great, but you may like it if you're willing to overlook some issues" category. i can safely say after 32+ years of gaming that there are plenty of enjoyable but buggy games out there that deserve to be played no matter what you'll hear about them.

g.

[slownerveaction]

Sounds like yet another game to fall under the "first in a series" curse (RapJam, Pryzm, SwordQuest, et cetera). In fact, the only series of games I can think of that was announced and actually completed is Bandai's .hack. Can anyone think of any others?

-- Z.

El Dorado Gate (DC, Capcom, import) was completed, albeit in truncated form compared to what was originally planned.

[SoulBlazer]

It LOOKS like we're going to have Xenosaga finished with Episode 3. I'm also hoping someday that Shenume will also be finished with a third episode.

[geelw]

ok: i got my reviewable around 4pm (mail was a little late), popped it in at around 6 (i had gotten a bunch of E3 press kits as well and needed to go through them). i played advent for about 5 hours so i thought i'd point out a few things based on the origiinal topic post.

-Horrible framerate. Seems to drop near or below 10 fps frequently.

well, unless you have a debug counter onscreen, this is slightly misleading. the framerate stutters a lot, yes indeed it does... but the entire game isn't like this. you can also play in first-person mode (hit the BACK button), which helps the frame rate a bit. there's no head-bobbing motion if you're prone to motion sickness, and the controls are pretty much the same as most other xbox fps games.

-Hard to find where you're going. There's no map, and you start out in this labyrinthine set of rooms and offices that all have multiple exits, and nobody tells you where to go.

you weren't paying attention. the security guards point and say "this way", AND there are blue lights above doors you can go through. red doors are locked. in fact, whie the area you're talking about IS huge, there's only one set of doors that open in a more or less straight line.

as for "multiple exits"- you run into alternate paths after the invasion, but you'll have plenty of clues if you head the wrong way when too many seekers are shooting you in the face. there are plenty of video games that don't rely on maps and this one lets you know if you're getting too far off track in most areas.

-You can't talk to anybody... all these people are wandering around but you can't interact with them for some reason.

other than the way your powers and skills level up, this ISN'T a RPG- come on now. complain about something worth complaing about...

-Your character stands like he's been on a horse too long... his feet are about 3 feet apart hehe..

now THAT's what i'm talkin' about! yeah... i can dig the lanky stylized characters, but gideon's billy zoom stance was just too weird (give yourself +25 meseta if you know who billy zoom is).

-Targeting is really strange.. you have to "flick" the right thumbstick in the direction of whatever you want to target, but that flick is really innacurate.

well, you can adjust the flick sensitivity in the options screen, or as i mentioned above, play in FPS mode which disables the flick system. it still isn't perfect, but you need a light touch. when a developer tries something new, not everyone is going to appreciate it my review copy came with a control sheet that the rep wrote "don't forget to flick target!" on it in BIG letters

-While flying around in my little shuttle pod at the very start of the game, I was told specifically not to run into the giant alien spaceship, so of course I did...

er... no comment.

... I "collided" supposedly, which brought me to a complete stop. No other visual or audio clue at all. And then about 5 seconds later I exploded. 'Twas strange.

OK, i lied- comment: again, it's supposed to be a cinematic experience, so you sort of broke the fourth wall by doing something unexpected right at the beginning of the game . granted, whoever did QA for advent was supposed to do stuff like that because players tend to not want to play the game like they want to, but it's so hard to crash that shuttle (and you're supposed to be enjoying the playable credit sequence) that i could see glyphx overlooking this.

that said, i missed a jump in the truck and the same delay happened, lol. yeah, it was an easy jump but i got distracted by a swarm of missiles, lol.

-The writing is all right, and the voice acting was pretty good. Some humor to it, but the gameplay just seems horrible, heh.

well, the game gets better as it goes on- i've definitely played far worse games than this one.

my major gripes are with some of the textures, the sound production and the sometimes spastic combat when you have AI allies. the game uses color quite nicely, but there are some not-so-hot textures in big areas like the ruined city early on. transition scenes where the action stops and starts up again are a little disappointing, and there are a few clipping issues and areas where you can jump up to or drive on that cause you to get stuck.

as for the sound, it's supposedly positional, which means if you need to hear someone speaking to gideon, you need to make sure he's facing them or else... also turn the music down a bit on the options screen. this helps you hear dialog better. the music IS great, though...

despite the annoyances, i can see what the developer was going for: a sweeping epic with massive areas that have to be followed in a cinematic linear fashion to some extent. the game autosaves frequently, and there are stretches where you're just enjoying the ride while the game moves at a breakneck pace. i'll jump back into the game tomorrow (well, later today, lol) and maybe post more impressions.

g.

[Videogamerdaryll]

Well that answers my question if the game was worth buying. :/

Me too..

At Gamestop today,I picked it up several times almost buying it as it looked cool from the box..
Something in my gut said no....and I'm so glad I didn't waste my money on it.
I came home and sitting in my email a friend of mine wrote me his opinion on the game...(not recommended)

[FantasiaWHT]

Ok, I'll retract my comments about getting around (although you have to admit a map would've been nice... especially for those of us who get lost in 3D games REALLY easily. In the combat training mode I could NOT find my way back out)

I think the framerate ruins it though. Even just running around it was very stuttery and choppy, but when I started to do the combat training and there was more than one enemy... it was nearly unplayable.

When I was showing it to my customer, I remarked that it felt like each cut-scene was a total relief that I could enjoy the game again without having to actually play it.

And I stand by my comment that the silence of all the NPC's standing around is disjointing. They're just decorations, otherwise, and do a pretty good job of killing any "epic" feeling.

[Ed Oscuro]

Somehow I was expecting this...still a bit of a shock, though, given that Orson Scott Card threw his name behind it...well, from the few movies I've seen, I gained the impression it was a poor man's Halo.

O.S. Card has been closely aligned with the game industry since the C64 days, showing (as usual) that ultimately the budget determines how good your game will be, superstar names or no...

The graphic style is unusual. Felt like I was watching a mid-90s CGI film, heh.

[Cmosfm]

What more did you expect from:

[geelw]

What more did you expect from:

er... given that they also published psychonauts, phantom dust, raze's hell and a couple of other cool titles, that's an unfair jab. in fact:



so there.

g.

[geelw]

all the naysayers here need to actually rent this at least. i just finished it, and not only does the game get a hell of a lot better as it goesn on (you need to sit through the credits for a nice surprise)... you'll more than likely be interested in the next game just because of the very last part.

and there are super mario homage warp pipes hidden throughout the game levels! apparently one of the guys who did the game is a massive SMB fan, so the team stuck hidden warp pipes (yup, they're blue and you jump into them) in certain stages that lead to short platform sections (brick walls and floating blocks) and multiple warp pipes that lead to different sections of the game. dunno how many there are in total, but i guess i'll be playing again to find out...

g.

[FantasiaWHT]

We've had 3 of the 4 copies we sold already traded back in, each person telling us the game was absolute garbage heh.

[maxlords]

Guess I'll pick it up when it gets REALLY cheap ijn like a month or two, just to check it out. I'm all about the story so if I can get past the painful gameplay, I'm interested.

[squidblatt]

All I can conclude from the buzz is that the game isn't worth fifty bucks. Garbage or not, I can't see any way that buying it now will be money well spent.

[Ed Oscuro]

and there are super mario homage warp pipes hidden throughout the game levels!

Not an original in FPS titles; this was already done in Elite Force II, by Ritual. Yeah, there's platforming sections, and they have little Star Trek ships floating in the sky! Beat that.