Advent Rising - Wasted Beginnings

[StewShearerOld]

Advent Rising - Wasted Beginnings

Richer in ambition than success, Advent Rising was released in 2005 and pits the player against a vicious alien race in an (unfinished) quest to unlock humanity's potential.

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[StriderShinryu]

I will admit never reaching the end of Advent Rising, despite being just as excited about it. It was a game I wanted to love but even before release it was pretty much common knowledge that it was finished in terms of ever coming out in it's complete 3 game arc. The game was clearly rushed to release just to get something out the door and it showed. The game was a glitchy, buggy mess with horrific frame rate issues. I liked what I did play of it despite that but, knowing it was never actually going to be completed, I just couldn't make myself care enough to play through to the end of the game given it's many problems.

Even now, after reading this and seeing the price, I'm sorely tempted to give it another go.. but I just don't think I can. Even if the bugs and glitches have been fixed, I still know this is just part one of a three part series where we'll never get the second and third parts.

 

[ShirowShirow]

I remember Advent Rising. It was one of the first big high-profile AAA-boondoggles; A FUSE or Medal of Honor: Warfighter for that generation of consoles.

I never played it, but everyone hated it. Glitches, glitches, generic characters, Scott-Card plot.

If you want an older TPS game with cool powers Psi-Ops the Mindgate conspiracy is a better choice.

 

[SecondPrize]

I vaguely remember having some fun with this, but what sticks in my memory the most is that horrifically awful standing animation. Man that was just needlessly terrible.

 

[Micalas]

A pretty good game that with just a bit more polish could've become one of history's greats. A shame, really. The soundtrack was pretty good too. I enjoyed that a lot.

 

[Tanis]

Wait...wasn't this the 'find something in game and get 1,000,000 dollars' thing?

 

[DeadProxy]

Wait...wasn't this the 'find something in game and get 1,000,000 dollars' thing?

This right here is all I really remember about Advent Rising, and I thought that it was the first person to send in proof they beat the game or something gets the million. And then you never heard from it again lol

The only other thing I remember about this game is that some article said that by the end of the series, you be able to lift mountains with your mind, and that was enough to get me interested in the game, but never had an Xbox to play it on, so that dream died pretty quickly.

 

[Weresquirrel]

I too was drawn in by the premise, and I still think that it's got one of the more interesting sci-fi ideas out there, what with humans being treated as mythological creatures. the super powers were great fun once you got them. But yeah, the game was no where near polished enough for prime time, and it took way too long before you even got your powers.

Also, amusing fact, there's a character in it called Barrakka Bahma if memory serves.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I enjoyed this game a lot and was most disappointed that it's promised sequels never showed up. I'd be quite happy to buy just the story by itself as I thought it was (while admittedly a little generic) interesting and enjoyable. I thought the pacing was great as we go from weak and frightened at first to a tour de force by the end. The two hands thing was fun, years before skyrim would repeat it.

A shame it didn't succeed, I really liked it and would have gladly gotten on board with any sequels. It's the danger of AAA publishing tho...execs look at numbers, stats and graphs, nothing more and the forecast for Advent trilogy was clearly "Cloudy, with a chance of rain".

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Advent Rising - Wasted Beginnings

Richer in ambition than success, Advent Rising was released in 2005 and pits the player against a vicious alien race in an (unfinished) quest to unlock humanity's potential.

Read Full Article

Great article, summing up exactly what I loved and didn't about this game. I can't say much else other than that I was extremely disappointed the first playthrough and didn't touch it for a long time.
Also can't wait to read your Faxanadu for NES review. I remember playing the hell out of that game back in my youth, discovering it through a combination of mini-articles in Nintendo Power (RIP old friend) and chancing upon a copy at the video rental store on summer break.

 

[Schadrach]

Advent Rising - Wasted Beginnings

Richer in ambition than success, Advent Rising was released in 2005 and pits the player against a vicious alien race in an (unfinished) quest to unlock humanity's potential.

Read Full Article

Great article, summing up exactly what I loved and didn't about this game. I can't say much else other than that I was extremely disappointed the first playthrough and didn't touch it for a long time.
Also can't wait to read your Faxanadu for NES review. I remember playing the hell out of that game back in my youth, discovering it through a combination of mini-articles in Nintendo Power (RIP old friend) and chancing upon a copy at the video rental store on summer break.

I'm interested in the Faxanadu review too. Also someone who chanced upon it at my local rental store.

There was one in the neighboring town that took the opposite approach to Blockbuster in those days -- instead of letting you rent a single game for a bunch of days, they let you rent a bunch of games (4) for a single day for a similar rate, with the caveat that they wouldn't force anyone to return any rentals on Sundays. And they had an absolutely massive collection. It's the main reason I've played most of the "little known" or "rare" NES and SNES games. My typical rental pattern was to get a game I had been working on beating, another I was pretty sure I'd like, one that sounded vaguely interesting, and one that I'd never rented before, selected at random. That last one is why I can say I've played things like Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (which is the same genre as Shadowgate, the Uninvited, and DejaVu), or Whomp'Em (which is a racist Mega Man-alike that's actually really fun from a game play perspective, featuring a native american wielding a spear).