Advent Rising Review

Advent Rising is one of those games that talks big but ultimately fails to deliver when it comes right down to it. It definitely has a “big game” feel to it and Majesco has done a good job of marketing it as one, but there are a lot of issues with the gameplay and presentation that spoil a game that clearly had a lot of potential.

Story

One thing that Advent Rising definitely has going for it is a huge, epic storyline. You play as a hot shot space pilot named Gideon who is enjoying a fairly nice life until an alien spacecraft shows up in orbit one day. Luckily, these aliens are friendly, but they are actually there to warn the humans about another race of aliens that are coming to attack. The rest of the story follows Gideon through the initial attack and beyond as he tries to stop the enemy aliens and discovers that powers hidden deep within himself might be what they are searching for.

Even though the storyline and setting steals pretty much everything from other sources which any sci-fi fan will easily recognize, it is still interesting and a good backdrop to the action. You care about the characters and what is happening to them and that is usually enough incentive to keep you playing.

Gameplay

I say that it is usually enough incentive to keep playing because in most cases it is. In Advent Rising, however, the gameplay is so flawed and so off-putting that even the interesting storyline and pretty cinematics might not be enough to keep you playing. In all honesty, it isn’t that bad, but it is disappointing when a game that shows this much promise is so poorly executed.

The meat of the gameplay is a third-person-shooter. You pick up weapons and can dual wield them and the basic shooting feels pretty good if not a little repetitive. The problems come from the controls and targeting system. The game uses a targeting system where you flick the right control stick and it will lock onto the enemy you flicked at. The game also has an auto targeting feature as well, and this is where everything starts going downhill. As you move around, it will target enemies you didn’t intend to target which will cause the camera to wildly swing around and jump all over the place. Just walking from point A to point B is a pain in the butt because you’ll be targeting everything in sight and you won’t be able to walk straight.

Another big issue is that the controls are doubled up on some buttons. For example, the button you use to pick up a weapon also causes you to dive forward. You have to stop moving and wait a second or two for the controls to switch over to “pick up weapon” mode and it just kills the flow of the game. Similarly, since the right control stick controls your flick targeting as well as the camera, it is hard to walk around and actually see where you are going because you are always unintentionally targeting stuff.

Overall, the gameplay is fun once you get used to the finicky controls, but it is clearly not as good as it should have been and that is the biggest problem with it all. It is hard to describe, but Advent Rising definitely has a big game feel and presence but the execution just isn’t quite there. With a few tweaks it could have been great but as it is it is only passable.