There was a lot of grumbling when Advent Rising was coming out that it was simply stealing Halo's idea.
It does seem that way, what with the messiah, the lone hero, the action guy who can take on a whole team of vicious aliens and emerge unscathed. Even the weapon selection and health (and energy shield) is similar to Halo's.
The graphics weren't exactly thrilling, either. They tended to have slowdown, especially (and inexplicably) during cutscenes, when the production team would have had the most time to make things run correctly. The animations seemed stiff, and there was some clipping from melee combat, as well as a few annoying glitches, such as enemies being caught falling while inside a wall.
So I was expecting a lot in the way of compensation coming from the plot. Really what I was expecting was this:
Originally Posted by Orson Scott Card
"What I found most interesting about collaborating with Majesco and GlyphX on the Advent Rising project was their sincere desire to creat a game in which the story seved as the springboard for all the other elements."
Which is basically anything but the final product. You'll notice many times that the game doesn't seem to follow from the story, but rather run independently of it. There's many times when you will be left to fend for yourself, left to figure out what exactly is going on in the game, because the organization and storyboarding is so poor.
During one cutscene, the woman you hook up with in order to get off-planet (who you reveal after montage-sequence that you love) says something to the effect of "Hey, we're on a loading platform. Just give me a minute while I get this thing ready to fly." She then immediately jumps into a Seeker (enemy) hovertank, and drives off quickly, leaving you standing on the platform.
Enter game engine. I stood around for a couple of minutes, looking for a timer to gauge from or an objective to get to before I realized she was simply long gone, and I was supposed to find transportation to follow her. (Did she abandon me? Did she go to find transportation? What exactly were we going to "fly" out of here? -- these were all unanswered questions that flashed through my head.) You see, often times in the game, cutscenes will show things that have already happened within the game engine, so there's a lot of redundancy. You watch it happen, then you make it happen. Knowing when to do what is like a
ing puzzle in and of itself with this game, since there are no objective markers, no real HUD or even sometimes, an enemy presence to point you in the right direction.
It crashed on me three times in the course of the game, though thankfully all three seemed to be at a save point so that my progress wasn't lost. There were also several times when I got frustrated at the simple amount of enemy firepower that is thrown at you at various points. It seems that sometimes the intent is to make you feel like less than the lone hero, the sole savior of the human race. To reduce you to smouldering, soulless wreckage.
But the game is fun. Despite all its problems with technical issues, organization, plot, and yes, knock-off factor, there lies within this shambling mess the kernel of a really great game. The combat is awesome, for lack of a better word. You feel as if you are taking part in something immediately engaging and crucial to what is happening. So what if those friendlies aren't unlocking a goddamn thing like the objective said they would? You're cleaning up enemies with your feats of acrobatic and mercenary skill. Cartwheels, flips, superhuman jumps and lethal martial arts...these things can'y be put well into words. Neither can the powers the game gives you, which are more numerous than I expected, and through the game's fantastic leveling system, never really begin to feel old.
I want to highlight that a bit, since that was one of the things that kept this glorified Contra from becoming dangerously monotonous.
Yes, I did just compare this game to Contra. the truth is that it's more of an interesting twist on a shooter than it is a real action game. It almost feels like P.N. 03 to me. You flip around, you use various human and alien weapons (all of which can be upgraded with continual use to gain better accuracy, damage, and secondary fire), and the game throws incredible odds in your general direction. Because the game spaces out the powers so well, allowing you access to a new one only each act or so, it never really registers that what you're doing is simply going from point to point doing the same thing. This is because the ways in which you're allowed to do it continually evolve. Your first power, Lift, for example, begins by allowing you to lift one person or object at a time. Then, you gain access to multilift, allowing you to lift multiple people at a time. This by itself changes the gameplay dynamic. You no longer have to worry about others swarming you when you use your ability. And if there happens to be a ledge or convenient lava pit nearby, well then look out! It's practically indescribable the feeling of accomplishment to be had by tossing a whole squad of enemies out a nearby window, or off a cliff, or out into space...
And like I said, that's really just the first power. The game succeeds because it allows for multiple different styles of playing the game, though it would never label them as such. You can be a balls-to-the-wall shooter, you can play defensively (and look ultra-cool while doing it), you can play with a great amount of finesse, showing off to an audience or simply to entertain yourself, I mean really, I think it caters to fans of all kinds.
And honestly, the story itself is not bad, so much as it is poorly organized, storyboarded, and executed. It's interesting to play something that places the player in the role of a demigod, because all of the expectations one has about playing the action game are kinda tossed aside. No one cares if it's unrealistic, because it fits in with the mythology of the game's plot. It's interesting not only because it caters to human ego, but because the possibilities are enticing. How exactly will humankind be treated as a result of being gods? Obviously the Seekers seem to take offense, but what will the ultimate reality, or the "message" of the series be? Should we avoid hubris, or should we embrace our potential and strive to always be more than we are?
Well, I found it interesting, anyways.
In the end, when I finished the game and all was said and done, I wanted immediately to play it again, and to relive the experience. I'm going to go with my gut feeling on this one, and recommend it to anyone who asks.
Final verdict: Advent Rising has multiple problems stemming from various areas, but nothing so glaring that it completely deflates the game's intense action/shooter core.
Here's hoping that the rest of the trilogy is not abandoned, but perhaps more importantly, that it learns from the mistakes of the first, and improves significantly on what I believe to be a winning formula.
