Advent Rising

Advent Rising's epic storyline and furious action sequences deliver the sci-fi goods you've been waiting for.

What a difference an involving story makes. This game makes you believe all the lip-service rhetoric about video games maturing into a genuine art form, because it puts its effort where its mouth is. Advent Rising isn't perfect, but it's innovative as hell, and the most emotive title to hit any platform in ages.

In this first installment of a planned trilogy, you're Gideon Wyeth, a pilot assigned to accompany an ambassador to an enormous alien ship on an historic mission of first contact. The aliens seem to view humans as gods, but theres little time for genuflection: another race, the Seekers, is out to eliminate all human life before its true power can awaken. Orson Scott Card's guidance is clearly present in the dialogue and character development, and an orchestral score gives the space opera proceedings tangible weight.

At its vital core, Advent Rising is about human potential and development, and every action you perform draws upon it. Whether you're firing a futuristic weapon, or letting your psychic fingers do the pounding, you're constantly improving skills that will help you survive the epic plot's dire circumstances. Before long youre simultaneously levitating an alien would-be assassin with one hand, firing miniature black holes at another with the outr?, and slo-mo flip-dodging out of yet anothers line of fireand all the while those abilities are enhanced, leveling up in the background. The sense of super-human power is intoxicating, and yet the acrobatics never feel like work, thanks to a fabulously intuitive "flick-targeting" system built into the right thumb-stick.

There are minor disappointments--the vehicles can't compare to those of Halo 2, and some of the environments are a bit bland amid the stylized design and saturated colors of others--but the end sum experience is so engaging and empowering that you'll easily forgive the shortcomings.

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