StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking, but before this thread gets all spammed up with OMFG!!1ONEONE TEH THRID PRESON SHOOTER IS TEH UBER SUCKZORZ!11!oneoneleven, let me just say: Shut the hell up. Everyone knows it is an inherently flawed concept, and everyone knows that keyboard+mouse owns controller based interfaces. Now, with that out of the way, onto the meat:

So, I've seen Advent Rising sitting on the shelf at blockbuster for awhile now, never rented, lonely as hell, just kinda...looking at me. I've glanced at the back of the box, and thought "Meh." But there was nothing else in that I cared to rent, or I had already tried everything else. So I picked it up.

The game starts with a Final Fantasy-style confusing as hell introduction that doesn't seem to apply to the game at all. But, I was impressed by the music, so I decided to give it more of a chance to develop. Glad I did. This Game sucked me right into the story, and instantly developed characters that I cared about. The storyline was just perfect. Yes, it took cues from Halo, undoubtedly, what with the unexplained alien invasion, blah blah blah. The interface is a bit difficult to grasp, and the targeting is a tad clunky, but I expect that in the sequel, that'll all be ironed out. Clunky though it may be, it detracts from the game not at all, and sequel? Oh yes, there had better be one. So, storyline gets 10/10. Awesome. Just awesome.

2nd best thing? Score. I don't know who they got to compose this score, but it fits the game PERFECTLY. In fact, the score is half of the reason the story works so well, as it should be. After all, what would SW be without the Imperial March? It's sorrowful, mournful, and adventurous all at the same time. And that's the way it should be. There is a hopeless feel to the whole story, like it is your last gasp of breath before you drown, but somehow, you always seem to manage to find an air pocket just as your lungs are about to explode. That's the only way I can think of to describe it. 10/10

Graphics. The graphics are nothing short of awesome-most of the time. The graphics are what pulled this game down from a 10/10 to 9.5/10. There are several instances in the game, especially later on, where there is copious quantities of frameskipping, and if there is one thing I hate, it's frameskipping. Also, there are times when there is a marked slowdown, especially during the cutscenes (by the way, there has got to be about 100 cutscenes, some of which add nothing to the story, but are neat to look at, nonetheless.) It seems like the developers just tried a liiiiiiittle too hard to push the envelope on eye-candy at the expense of performance. This is another area that I bet the sequel will address.


Short: Buy it. Don't rent it. Buy it. I have. It is arguably the best Xbox game since Halo, and surpasses it in many respects. The multiplayer aspect is not there, and that is as it should be with this game. If you are not convinced by this review, then at least rent it. Then, You will buy it. I guarantee it.


Awesome.

I've heard that this is incredibly glitchy, did you run into that at all?

1) Advent Rising has not aquired much success despite being out for 4 months.
2) Evidently it's also not getting much attention (nobody has been renting it).
3) Game Revolution gave it a C-
4) Gamespot didn't think it was good either.
5) Quite a few board members didn't like it or weren't impressed.
6) Chardok thinks it's awesome.

I'm going to have to side against Chardok's opinion on this one.

Mr Bean also hated the camera angles and controls. Mr Bean hated hated hated the camera controls. DIE DIE DIE CAMERA!
But I have the PC version. Which crashs out every fifteen minutes to an hour and has already corrupted to saves, so prehaps I'm a tinny bit biased VS your Xbox play.

I strongly disagree with Chardok on this one, this game in my opinion is a train wreck due to its ridiculous controls and camera and also the storyline is a Frankenstein rip-off of different GOOD Sci-Fi’s. I side with Utsanomiko here.

I'll wait for Gears of War to satiate my third person shooter desires, though this game has an interesting name and some nice alien designs.

X-Play gave it a fairly low score, and from what I've seen I'm going to have to disagree as well. I think the graphics look rather poor, and I've also heard that it's really glitchy. I had thought about at least renting it until I saw so many poor reviews (even from GamePro magazine, which I can't remember what it said right at the moment)

Ya the way the game is set up the autoaim wants to shoot everything in sight and cannot make up its mind, so your guys arms flail around like crazy attemtpinting to shoot everything at once and simply....well cannot. I give this game a 2 out of 10. The sad thing is that they are making 2 more OH YIPPY