The tricky part of writing a review of Advent Rising is avoiding spoilers. The main reason to play the game is to enjoy the engrossing, compelling, blow your mind and make you utter Neo-esque "Whoa!"s plot, so to give away any of it would be downright criminal of me. On the other hand, if I leave out all of the plot-induced coolness, what I'm left with is a laundry list of ways in which the game fell short. So my choice is either spoil the story or imply that it's a bad game.

Decisions, decisions.

Ok. For those readers who would like to remain spoiler-free, listen up. Go get Advent Rising. It's a fairly short playing experience, under 20 hours all totaled. Let the credits run entirely through, and then get ready for one hell of an epilogue and an impatience-inducing cliffhanger.

As for everyone else, here's the rest of the review.

Oops…our bad

The game begins in the distant future, with ace pilot Gideon on the crew of a ship preparing to make first contact with the lovely and benevolent Aurelians. They have arrived to warn humanity of the danger of the Seekers, who want nothing as much as to see each and every last one of us eradicated. Problem is, in their attempt to get to our home planet to warn us, the Aurelians actually ended up leading the Seekers to our very doorstep. Yeah, sorry about that. No sooner have Gideon and crew absorbed the information that their lives are in danger than the Seeker ships show up and start blowing everything to hell. Gideon and a few others just barely manage to escape, and join the Aurelians in the fight to defeat the Seekers and save humanity. The Aurelians have many secrets to reveal to Gideon, whom they refer to as "exalted one." Humans being worshipped as gods isn't exactly a new concept in science fiction, but in this case, it's not just because Gideon can predict eclipses or has a Zippo lighter handy. As the story unfolds, Gideon learns more about the true origins of humanity, and rediscovers long forgotten powers to become the savior of the species.

GlyphX scored a major coup when they got sci-fi legend Orson Scott Card to write the dialog for Advent Rising, and his expertise shows in every single cutscene. Each and every character has depth and weight, and despite only having a few minutes onscreen at a time, by the end of the game, we feel as though we really know them. True, the Seekers are bad guys and the Aurelians are good guys, with the human cast caught in the middle, but there's a nuance and a subtlety to their motivations that isn't usually seen in an action-based video game. I didn't just go from level to level, gunning down Seekers because that was the point of the game; I went from level to level, gunning down Seekers because I hated them. I hated what they did to me and my family. I was pissed and I wanted revenge. I was sick of watching my loved ones die, and they were damn well gonna pay for it. Now that's good storytelling.

Speaking of bad…

Ok, so the storytelling is an off the charts level of excellent. That's the good news. The bad news is that Advent Rising is a let down in just about every other way it could be. For starters, it's buggier than a cheap motel. Gideon will frequently get irrevocably stuck in the scenery. The camera will get locked in place at inopportune times (just switch in and out of first person mode to fix that one). The frame rate shudders and stutters at random intervals, and it is quite likely that the game will lock up more than once, so get used to restarting. Even giving GlyphX the benefit of the doubt (this being their first game, and all), this kind of bugginess is simply inexcusable, especially in a console game.

There's nothing really wrong with the game graphically speaking, although I must admit I was expecting a lot more. The environments are repetitive and bland, wide-open spaces with very little in them. The character models are similarly boring; every Seeker looked like every other Seeker, and the Aurelians were hard to tell apart, too. Until he develops some of his ballsier powers, Gideon relies on guns he finds lying around, and these too are uninspired. The graphics improve in the cutscenes, but are still merely average. One thing I did particularly like, though, was the bright color palette used for the overall look of the game. Developers usually assume that the future will be gun-metal colored, dismal, and gray, I suppose to reinforce the grimness of the protagonist's situation. Advent Rising instead opts for cheerful oranges, greens, and blues, which act as ironic counterpoint to the death and destruction that goes on.

Despite its deep story, Advent Rising is really just a run and gun action title. A cutscene will set the stage for the combat, which varies little from "move from point A to point B, killing everything that moves," and then the level begins. The cutscene nicely masks the loading of the level, which explains the silly little scenes that don't really seem to advance the plot at all, such as Seekers running down the hall firing their guns. The lack of visible loading seems like a minor point, but it keeps the player sucked into the atmosphere of the game as the action ebbs and flows naturally, instead of being stopped dead to watch a bar fill up on the screen.

The gunplay is reminiscent of Halo, in that Gideon can only hold two weapons at once, and his health will regenerate if he can avoid getting hit for long enough. There are also some deliciously crunchy melee attacks (breaking Seeker necks is sooooo satisfying), though they can be a bit tricky to pull off in the heat of battle. There are a few vehicle sequences included in the game, as well, basic "drive here" or "shoot that down" scenarios that break up the gameplay somewhat, but don't really offer anything new. Advent Rising uses a technique called "Flick Targeting" to lock onto enemies, which takes some getting used to. Basically, flicking the right stick in the direction of an enemy relocates the targeting reticle, allowing the player to hop from enemy to enemy quickly. It feels a bit weird at first, but it works well, especially once Gideon's acquires some of his powers.

I am a golden god!

Demigod that he is, Gideon unlocks cooler and cooler powers as the game progresses, such as lift, aeon pulse, and shatter. The more he uses them, the stronger the powers become, with each stronger level granting new abilities. For example, what begins as a simple jump eventually develops into a time-slowing, Matrix-esque cartwheeling dodge. Gideon can equip a different power on each hand, and players will feel, well, positively godlike as they suspend helpless enemies in the air with one hand, only to blast them with bolts from the other. Each new ability exponentially increases the fun of combat; lifting one enemy and flinging him across the room is cool, sure, but lifting three or four and hurling them into a bulkhead? Never gets old. By the time I had a seriously killer set of powers, however, the game was just about over; I wish it had been just a little bit longer so that I could've had more time to enjoy my godliness. The challenge of the combat keeps pace nicely with Gideon's development, so that the game never feels too easy. The control system is intuitive and smooth, with players able to switch weapons either on the fly or from a pause screen.

So it's incredibly buggy, the graphics are uninspiring, and the action is fairly average running and gunning. And yet Advent Rising is one of those games that I simply couldn't stop playing. The acting and writing in the cutscenes was so good, I always wanted to know what happened next. I wanted to level up each new power I acquired as fast as I could, just to see what new abilities I'd earn. Just when I thought the story was over and all of my questions had been answered, the final boss showed up and I realized I knew nothing at all. If the sequel had been available when I finished the game, I'd have run out that very day to get it, just so that I could experience the next chapter of the story.

Advent Rising is a flawed game, true, and players who make a habit of skipping through cutscenes because they don't care about plotlines and character development will be unimpressed with this title. It's also relatively short and doesn't offer much by way of replay value. Although its core gameplay may fall short of expectations, it's still an entertaining, challenging, and enjoyable enough experience to make it worthwhile.