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(or
whatever object can be targeted) so Wyeth can make each bullet count.
However, he doesn’t always target the enemy you want and at
some crucial moments (like escaping from a crumbling space ship) Wyeth
will lock-on to something when all you wanted to do was move the camera.
This issue led to my death a frustrating number of times.
Toward the end of the game I was much better at anticipating what
enemy or object would be targeted. (In all fairness, the sensitivity of
the flick system can be adjusted in the options menu but you’re likely
to still encounter problems.)
Besides
the weapons, drivable vehicles, and turrets, Wyeth gains access to a
plethora of special powers as the game progresses that quickly replace
guns as his main form of attack. Not to give them all away, Wyeth can produce force fields,
toss enemies around with a “lift” power or knock back a group of
enemies with “surge.” Because
the effectiveness of each power increases as Wyeth uses them – this
extends to hand-to-hand combat and guns as well – he becomes nearly
unstoppable. The animations and effects ties to each power are neat to
watch and they actually do a lot to convey a real sense of power.
The flip side is that Wyeth becomes almost too powerful,
making most encounters pretty easy once he starts increasing his prowess
with each ability.

The
list of problems with AR is truly disheartening because without them AR
would rank up there with the elite action games.
I’ve already mentioned the choppiness, the lock-ups and
crashes, and the hard-to-master targeting system but AR also gets marks
off for consistent sound problems and some really distracting
“clipping” problems. At
random the music will pop in and out at varying volumes and the sound
effects will do the same (although less frequently).
The voice acting is good for the most part although some of the
dialogue is hokey at the worst of times.
I’m also pretty sure there were uncredited Hollywood actors
involved – I’m positive one was Leslie Nielsen of Naked Gun and
Forbidden Planet fame – but the manual doesn’t list them.
AR
has a graphical style all its own, each characters looking somewhat
elongated but it remains consistent throughout.
Each area and environment Wyeth fights through feels good
even if some areas feel sluggish.
AR
is/was supposed to be the first part of a trilogy of games.
While it’s sci-fi foundation and story elements are good –
Boilerplate? Give me a break, GameSpot – the rest of Advent Rising
feels too unfinished to make it much more than a rental if you want to
see it for yourself. If
GlyphX and Majesco proceed with a further two entries (a PSP chapter is
in the works) the whole thing has to be tightened up and fine tuned –
there’s a good game here but when you have to fight tooth and nail
through its problems to actually see it, there aren’t many that will
feel that AR is anything but a somewhat finished mess.
-
Omni
(July
8, 2005)
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