Monday, September 12, 2005

Advent Rising on Xbox 360?

It seems Microsoft has released a list of 80 games to 1UP.com for readers or any gamer to vote upon. The games at the top of the list will be considered for backwards compatability on the Xbox 360. So, vote for your favorites - namely Advent Rising which is at the top of Set B! So far Half-Life 2 and Panzer Dragoon Orta are in the lead for both sets respectively.

There is no need to sign up with 1UP.com and remember that you can vote for only 5 games in each Set (A and B). Also, this will end at 12 midnight tomorrow.

Click here to vote!

(thanks to awsmsteve at the Majesco forums)

Sunday, September 11, 2005

European Release date set - November 25

This appears to be a never ending saga... but this appears to be the most solid release date we have had so far.

November 25, 2005.

Gameplay.co.uk

Play.com

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

PC gamers speak out!

Here is a collection of different reviews and impressions from the Majesco forums from different PC gamers. The Majesco forums are the only active place for any talk of Advent anymore. The reviews are all pretty positive, and I did not just go through and pick all the positive ones either -- there were no true negative reviews that I could find for the PC version from gamers. Some of the reviews are linked to because of the length, but those are some of the most noteworthy ones. A few of these are slightly edited.

x-42

I am new to the boards and would just like to add my two cents about the game. First Wow, just wow. It is an amazingly fun game. When I beat it I was just like wow. Now onto the specifics. Graphics I found were suitable. Nothing stupendous but for the most part quite solid. The black bars on the top and bottom is that just my computer or is it the game? Didn't see the point of them. The sound was amazing. The music was top notch and fit the mood perfectly. Sound effects were good. Voice overs were really good, I just wished they would have been louder. There were times when I couldn't hear what characters were saying especially in the middle of a battle. Gameplay was great. Very engaging completely satisfying. I found flick targeting to be pretty useless but that's just me.

I only have a few nitpicking issues with the game. The first is the intro sequence with the Majesco name and glyphx. You can't bypass it. Not a big deal but it is annoying. The second issue is much more important at least to me. The use of checkpoint saving is wrong. It is executed well and I didn't have to keep replaying long segments. I would like the more traditional saving. Multiple save slots and the ability to quick save and quick load. I really don't like it when games don't include this. I want to save every 5 seconds and I should be able to. I can't believe it is some kind of technical impossibility. It was probably something left over from the Xbox version. All that being said I would highly recomend this game to well just about anyone. It is just a deeply immersive experience one that I will play again and again.

Abraxas

A very deep review highlighting the pluses and minuses.

subordinater

The most unique review I have read around the net, and highly recommended.

Sithwitch13

A very entertaining read.

MutoidMan

I just bought Advent Rising for the PC, and after having played it for about 2 hours last night I'm really getting into it.

The "flick targeting" is a very cool feature. It took me a little bit of learning to get the hang of it but once I did I found it to be very useful. I also appreciate that manual targeting is the default, because sometimes I just want to mow down a small crowd of enemies and aiming at each one individually just wouldn't cut it.

I'm using a kb/mouse control setup, and I find that there's no need for me to use a gamepad. I think you guys have done a good job with the PC controls.

The graphics are very nice. Not bleeding edge, but still very nice. The cutscenes are well done and the sound is very good too.

I don't miss multiplayer because I like a really good single-player experience; something with an interesting story and good exposition to move it along in a timely fashon. In this sense, so far AR is delivering the goods.

I look forward to the last two parts of the Advent Trilogy on PC.

akitot

I've been keeping my eye on this game for sometime now, finally got it and I havent regretted it ONE LITTLE BIT. It is for me one of THE best games EVER. I loved every single moment of it, and only wish it was longer. The voice acting was great, the story...engaging and WOW. This is the first game Ive felt compelled to buy for PC (excluding the MMORPGs) in a LONG time. Im gonna try and get every single being I come across to try it out and buy if they feel so inclined because this game deserves good sales. I cant wait till the next part in what will probably be the best all around trilogy to come to the gaming world, for some time. Truly wonderous and praise to all who were involved in this glorious production. It was epic, truly epic. If you haven't bought it yet...BUY IT. You wont regret it.

And to all the bugs that are to occur I encountered only one, and all I had to do was reload the checkpoint and it was fixed (I went of the cliff in the car *i think its called the raptor* and when I respawned it was without the car...so the big flaming rocks made a big mess out of me).

Great game, the only thing that was lacking was graphics and who really cares...its all about the gameplay people.

I hold this game up there right next to halo, and I dont really see how its ripped halo off personally. The protaganists of both games are completely different. Games are about emulating encounters so saying halo used multiple vehicles, guns what have you and AR ripped it off is stupid because it was only a matter of time before a game did all that and Halo wasnt the first anyway as many people have stated. Yeah the only thing I saw close to halo was the style ie the flashy looks shared by the aliens etc, but it wasnt so close that they are exact clones. Use your imagination people we only have so many looks available with current consoles and theres only so many ways aliens can look, they have to be somewhat similar.

Ragnarok357

A deep review that is not afraid to pull punches and a personal favorite of mine.

Mireneye

I played and loved the whole game totally. First off, im a sucker for stylished graphics, so this suited me very well. Other then that, I love gameplay that lets me jump around and do various kinds of moves to kill my enemies in different ways with alot of different strategies, second time I played through I used the 'All Powers' cheat to be able to experiment throughout the whole game. And there's so much fun to do. Right when I bore about tossing enemies around etc usually there's a nice cutscene that puts you in the trail of the next part of the story which suddenly makes it all interesting again to go out and kill some more.

+ The story is solid and I love the characters wherein 2 of them feels very much like people I really know "yes, jokes as well" I had no gameplay problems at all, and the so called stupid AI did'nt bother me much, I mean, there's not many games where I see any good AI, last game I played with decent AI was Farcry alas, I may have played some other game but did'nt notice the AI... Usually I let it pass by...

+ Animations are cool, as long as you pay attention to the action and the whole scene instead of just looking at the player.

+ The story was developed by Donald Mustard and his crew, and OC refined dialouge throughout the game.

+ The music is awesome, really memorable, nothing more to say then a really big hit.

+ There are also a few really interesting secrets in the game... The Developers Room, The Mario Pipes and Some small alternative things you can do.. *SPOILER* Let the guard in the beginning after training who's shooting at you, live.

Now comes the stuff I think could have been done better.

- Lipsynch, yes I think the lip-Synchronisation isn't that great. However there are few games which have great lip synch.

- Maybe more screentime for Gideon and the 'survivors' to grieve. However we see them doing that 2 times... And I think that's enough I imagine them grieving alot during the time we don't play them and time goes by.

- The things that was cut off should have been left inside, like riding that really big Car they had and also have the ability to sneak as you can see in some older movies, neither of these 2 are bad ideas and should have been there in the game.

- Modtools, with the PC version there should have been an Editor and additional mod tools, that would definetly enable the game to live on for very much longer then the span of houers it takes to play it through on Normal/hard and Ultra.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Final secret of Advent Rising?

Hey guys. Some of you may know me from the Majesco forums, posting in Rooney's blog, or perhaps through the walkthrough that I did for Advent Rising, but to the other 95% that don't know me, my name is Berserker, and I'll be helping Rooney to posts up the latest Advent news on his blog.

Just thought that some of you who do not visit the forums regularly would be interested in this secret easter egg hidden in Advent. I haven't added it to my walkthrough yet. This is most likely the final secret hidden away in the game. I find it hard to believe that it remained hidden for this long. The following contains very minor spoilers, but nothing too big.

This secret is located in Chapter 4 - The Awakening - Part E.

Through this level there is a series of three buttons which much be activated in this order...

Button 1 - In the room with the three shock troopers the first button, as you enter the room, is on the back of the right top portion of the area that holds rocket launchers in about the middle. Use the camera to see the area that I'm talking about. You need to charge jump up to it and there will be a little walkway area that you can stand on to press the button. Also, this pic may help. You need to destroy a black object in order to see it.

Button 2 - The room after you fight the two Seeker Elites, go to the locked door and do a charge jump to the area above the door. There is a button on the ground all the way at the end of this area. Destroy the black object first.

Button 3 - Right before you meet up with Enorym in the room with the dead Aurelian. Jump to the bottom and go to the furthest column in the back to find a button behind the column.

After all three have been pressed, backtrack to the previous room, and a new door is unlocked. Go inside to find...

The Advent Rising staff room complete with pictures of the AR staff! On the PC version a piece of music known as "Reya's Theme" will play in the background, but that is only on the PC version.

There is another easter egg in this room. You can press each of the consoles in the room one time each. You have to activate them in a certain order to get something special.

The right combination to activate them in is...

1. guy with the white guitar

2. guy with the black-rimmed glasses

3. guy with the wooded background

4. person with the long black hair

5. guy with mustache and beard

6. guy holding up the "Utah County Sheriff" sign

7. Donald Mustard (spiky hair and glasses, you should know him...)

This will activate a little something special in the center of the room that proves just how much ninjas rock!

Thanks to subordinater (Majesco forums) for the PC info, and the little edit that I just did and to rumporacer for another little detail I forgot to add. :D

Just in case I missed some details above, the original thread that I posted this in is here.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Advent seqel depends on Aeon?

Just highlighting something from the comments section...
Hey, Guys;

Believe it or not, I work for Majesco Co. I am not sure if I can tell you my actual job in Majesco but I’ll tell you this: The titles for other Advent Games were announced long ago- DON’T ASK ME WHAT THEY ARE- and as you might know the story and the script both were written at the same time. The only – and the only- factor that effects other Advent projects is Aeon Flux. If the selling of the game is well, get ready for more Advent stuff. I have not had the chance to go over all the posts - I visit a couple of them including their comments- but I've got to admit that you guys have made quite a community here :))


No way to confirm the source or the accuracy of these comments... but sounds plausible to me.

Update:

This was just confirmed on the official boards by PRosky (a Majesco Tester) to be in fact just speculation, so don't go out and preorder just yet, in hopes of a sequel. See the post in this thread on the official boards for details.