The Advent Trilogy Blogspot - Advent Rising News

Possibility for more Advent?

2008-05-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Probably not... but interesting to note that Chair Entertainment - where the Mustard Bros. scurried off to after the Advent implosion to create Undertow - has just been bought by Epic. We know they had quite some trouble getting the Unreal Engine to work well on the Xbox. Maybe Epic can help them out with that with the sequels???

Check out the press release and some comments over at my favourite blog - Joystiq...

Some very old info that was never posted

2007-09-15T18:25:00.000-07:00

Just tossing out stuff here from some recent google surfing while in an Advent mood/mode.

There was an IGN interview back about a whole year ago that might be of interest to some of you here.

And one more thing, it seems that a few of the hardcore Advent Rising fans from the old days have gathered on the Chair Entertainment forums. Now, I'm not saying that you should go there armed with pitchforks and knives and make Advent Rising assault and battery threads or posts, but you may want to give the forum a look, and that link is here.

Mustard update

2007-07-03T06:01:00.000-07:00

So Advent Rising has died off somewhere as has this blog really... but the briefest of updates as to what the Mustard boys are up to...

Their new company - Chair Entertainment - is now working on a new Xbox Live Arcade title called Undertow. IGN calls it a cross between Geometry Wars and Battlefield... underwater. And they think it's looking ok.

MTV.com of all places (ok so it's really GameFile) also have an reasonably interesting, now and then piece on the Don. Check it out.

Advent Comic #4 and the fate of Advent Shadow.

2006-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Advent Rising: Rock the Planet #4 was released on Wednesday, April 5.

Also, this is some old news, but hasn't been posted on the blog yet. Advent Shadow, the sidestory game outside of the main series of Advent Rising, along with other Majesco PSP titles, has been cancelled according to IGN.

IGN article

thanks to Sir_Brizz for the link.

One more thing. According to Rob Worley, Donald Mustard's new website is now active. Notice the email address.

PAL Advent release!

2006-02-17T18:32:00.000-08:00

Advent Rising quietly slipped into stores this week for Xbox and PC in Europe. After many delays Europeans finally get the chance to enjoy Advent. Surf on over to the Advent Rising Majesco Forums for a few opinions.

You can check out the Eurogamer review by clicking here. Even with the low score they did have some good points.

In other Advent news, please note that Advent Rising: Rock the Planet #4 will be on store shelves in March 2006.

Majesco is still committed to Advent.

2005-12-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

The following is taken from the January issue of Official Xbox Magazine (OXM).

To Be Continued...?

I was wondering whether you knew anything about an Advent Rising sequel. I think it’s one of the best Xbox games ever and the ending (er endings) really left me hanging. So for peace of mind, I would like to know whether or not there’s a sequel in the works.
-David Sianissian

We Say: You’re not the only Advent Rising fan, David. We dug the kinetic and story-driven action that GlyphX’s debut effort delivered, and the developer has always gone on record saying that the game was planned as the first of a trilogy. Unfortunately, Majesco wouldn’t go on record specifically addressing the future of the Advent series. What a representative for the company did say was, “While Majesco is currently focused on their new upcoming titles for 2006...we remain committed to our existing, originally developed intellectual properties including Advent Rising and Bloodrayne, but are not ready to make any announcements at this time.”

Thanks to Soma Holiday from the Majesco boards for the info.

Advent wins Best of 2005 award from IGN...

2005-12-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm being a bit over the top with the headline... Advent Rising won the award for Best Original Soundtrack on the Xbox for 2005 from IGN.

Pretty amazing effort for the soundtrack to shine through on a game that was NOT much appreciated by the critics.

Xbox Best Original Score -
Advent Rising

Advent Rising Comic #3

2005-12-18T15:52:00.000-08:00

The third Advent Comic is due out in comic stores on Wednesday, January 4th. Below is the very eye-catching cover for the third issue featuring Olivia. Like before, click on it for a better pic.

Advent Rising Comic #2

2005-11-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

Long time no post eh? The second Advent Comic is due out in comic stores on Wednesday, November 30th. Below is the cover for the second issue. Click on it for a better pic.

Final version of award winning FAQ

2005-10-27T03:27:00.000-07:00

Just letting you know that Berserker has delivered what is very likely to be the final version of an already amazingly comprehensive FAQ.

It is also an award-winning FAQ! It was named one of the FAQs of the month for June at GameFAQs.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/contest/fotm2.html

Great stuff Berserker.

European Extras.

2005-10-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

Just highlighting a post from below from Robin, a regular visitor to this site.

(applies to PC version ONLY) Here is some important news. The PC version which is going to be released in the UK and other countries is different from the US version. The UK version contains a dvd with special features (behind the scenes and other stuff- for USA this was available in a limited edition in XBOX version only). Exciting news is that one level was deleted (due to AI and other technical difficulties) from the US version but that one is back for the UK version. Fourth level (which had some brief difficulties in terms of shooting- for both XBOX and PC) has been repaired and bugless. This news will soon be confirmed in the official website (early November). How do I know this? I talked to Blaine Christine and Ramin Mody (directors of the game, MAJESCO BOOTH) in festival in LA(for PSP and Playstation). Brought the news as soon as I could, hope rooney and people appreciate it.

Looks as if the European PC release may be worth the wait for sure. Some of us Americans may be compelled to import if this is the case.

On side note, and as thanks for the head's up, be sure to check out Robin's Aeon Flux site by clicking here.

Advent Comic Review

2005-10-21T01:31:00.000-07:00

Come this Wednesday Advent fans will have something to look forward to. Advent Rising: Rock the Planet #1 will hit store shelves all around the US. The first issue contains two comics for the price of one for a total of 53 pages of Advent. Now onto my little review...

The Cover

If you have ever been a comic fan, then you will know that the one of the most vital aspects to a comic's success lies in the cover - more specifically, the cover of the first issue, which can make or break that comic's success in the eyes of the consumer. I am happy to say that Advent Rising: Rock the Planet has one of the most eye-catching and detailed cover that I have seen on a comic in quite sometime. The sheer amount of detail that the artist put into Olivia is exquisite. Internet pics really don't do it justice, you have to see it up close for yourself to see what I mean. Click here to see a pic. The first issue actually has three covers - two for the first comic, and one for the second.

The Story

The comic starts out with Gideon and Ethan having just moved from their homeworld of Edumea to the planet of Artemus. The first two issues (actually first issue) revolve around them getting settled in on Artemus and how they cope with their new surrounding peers and overall lifestyle of Artemus. Each character stays true to the game. I'll go deeper into each character in a moment.

The Artwork

I must admit that I was a little worried about the artwork when I first saw a few pics from the comic. It takes a little getting used to at first since it's much different from the artwork that was shown during the game's release, but after getting used to it you will enjoy it. The expressions are very reminiscent of the actual game's characters and still keep each of their individual personalities in mind. Sometimes the expressions look a little strange though - a little too exaggerated.

Now let's get to each of the characters. To show how much each character is like their video game counterpart, I have decided to post a pic of the character's video game image alongside a few of the comic images.

Gideon Wyeth

Gideon's personality is still that of a whiny boy that is overshadowed by his big brother Ethan - not to say that he doesn't change later in the story. It's interesting to watch his relationship with Olivia progress in this issue.

Ethan Wyeth

Ethan is EXACTLY like his video game counterpart, in that, it was as if I could actually here the voice actor from the game speaking the lines as I was reading each of his statements. He's still cocky and still tries to be humerous. They have totally captured Ethan's character in this comic and Ethan fans will definitely be pleased.

Olivia

Olivia was definitely a naughty girl when she was younger, but you could always see that she had kind of an evil side to her. Well, not exactly evil, but an extremly flirty side, nonetheless...spunky, I guess you could say. The Gideon and Olivia scenes remind me a lot of the game, in that, she picks on Gideon a bunch in front of people. I definitely like her character in the comic, and would like to see a bit more of her in future issues - she doesn't appear as much as Gideon and Ethan in the first issue.

Overall, if you are a fan of Advent Rising and want some extra background on each character, and want to see the characters from game interact in their younger years then you will definitely like this comic. Nice job 360ep and staff!

Any questions about the comic?

2005-10-18T18:52:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would point out that Rob Worley (writer of the Advent comic), under the username "Robbo", is answering users' questions over at the Majesco Advent Rising forums if anyone is interested. Go to this thread if you have any questions to ask.

The first issue of Advent Rising: Rock the Planet is scheduled to appear in stores on next Wednesday (October 26th) in the US, and you can visit this comic shop locator service to find a comic store near you. For more info on the comic, see Rooney's post two posts below this one.

French release date...

2005-10-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

From an old friend of this blog algarys in a comment from a while back that I missed, some confirmation of a French release date.

Some more waiting it would seem... :(

February 3rd, 2006 for both Xbox and PC versions

This date is “official” and most of the French videogames sites mention it in their news, so I think this time it will be for good.
If you want proofs (well, at least, for those who understand French) :

http://www.clubic.com/actualite-22685-thq-precise-quelques-sorties-majesco.html
http://www.xbox-mag.net/webfiles/advent-rising__g534.html

Advent Comic News...

2005-10-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

OK... so this is hardly news (announced in August!), but came across something that hasn't been posted before here. So in the interests of keeping something ticking over...

Double Issue of Advent Comic for launch

Seems like the Advent Comic is launching as a double issue... here's hoping it's a little more successful than the game sales wise.

Interview with Rob Worley

An interview with writer of the Advent comic, Rob Worley... you can also check out his own personal blog for more stuff...

Rob Worley's Blog

Has anyone actually picked this up yet? Write in if you have any reviews.

Advent Rising on Xbox 360?

2005-09-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

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)

European Release date set - November 25

2005-09-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

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

PC gamers speak out!

2005-09-07T07:36:00.000-07:00

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.

Final secret of Advent Rising?

2005-09-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Advent seqel depends on Aeon?

2005-09-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

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.

European release date?

2005-08-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

OK... this continues to be dragged out, but 'DeathAngel' has emailed in another report of the September 9 release date. Let's hope that the Xbox and PC versions arrive then.

Douglass Perry chimes in on Advent...

2005-08-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

Sure, it's just some online games editor... but Doug has been around for a LOOOOOONG time in this industry. Additionally, he edits the site that was the most positive about the game out of all the big players.

Advent Sequel
Can you pester Majesco and GlyphX about whether Advent Rising's sequel will ever see the light of day. Obviously you don't know anything yet, or else you would have told us, but I would really appreciate it if you could get an interview with someone from both of those companies and see what's up.

-Uwe Warg

Sure, I can pester them, but I can tell you right now that Majesco won't be publishing a sequel. Game journalists ripped GlyphX's first game like it a commie in 1950s American suburbia. Shredded it, some of it deservedly, but a lot of it not. So, partially because of reviews and partially because the game was not firing perfectly on all cylinders Majesco won't be publishing a sequel. As I understand it, GlyphX is most likely working on another title entirely.

--Douglass

It's not the news we want to hear... but I happen to know Doug personally and definitely think his opinion is worth noting.

We can still live in hope!

Original IGN Mailbag

Thanks to Chikn n a Biscuit over at the Majesco forums for the heads up.

The Future?

2005-08-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

Hey there Adventers...

So what does the future hold for the Blogspot? When I started it up I anticipated quite a successful launch of the game and a largish passionate community that would keep generating news worthy of getting excited about that would turn into coverage of Advent 2 etc.

As it now stands there are a few VERY passionate fans still around on the internet (check out the official forums for a good bunch of people). And I don't have faith that news of Advent 2 is going to be coming soon or be positive. I guess there is the Comic coming out... but there is not much on that out there.

If there is anyone out there that want's to start posting news/wallpapers whatever... let me know!

My big regret of course remains that I HAVE STILL NOT BEEN ABLE TO PLAY THE GAME! Oh well... one day it might arrive in Europe/Australia.

Thanks to everyone that has emailed, posted comments and of course to those of you that sent in content - was really great, and appreciated by many in addition to myself. Special mentions to Berserker and Algarys on this count.

Contest... cancelled

2005-08-16T00:28:00.000-07:00

Well... not really surprising... but I think Majesco has actually done OK by the fans...

August 15, 2005

To Our Advent Rising Contest Participants:

After careful assessment of the technical issues identified with the Advent Rising “Race to Save Humanity” contest, Majesco Entertainment and Xbox Live have determined there to be no technically feasible solution that would allow the contest to continue in a fair and secure manner. As such, we apologize for any inconvenience, but we must unfortunately cancel the contest.

However, as consolation, Majesco Entertainment has set up a program in which contest participants can receive two FREE Majesco Entertainment games for Xbox. Those interested are invited to follow the steps below for redemption:

1. Send an original Advent Rising Xbox UPC or photocopy of the UPC along with your name, date of birth, shipping address (we cannot ship to P.O. boxes) and Xbox Live Gamertag along with your choice of two (2) of the following games. You must be 17 or older to receive a Mature-rated game:
a. BloodRayne 2 (Xbox, rated Mature)
b. Guilty Gear X2 #Reload (Xbox, rated Teen)
c. Psychonauts (Xbox, rated Teen)
d. Raze’s Hell (Xbox, rated Mature)
e. Phantom Dust (Xbox, rated Teen)
2. Mail this information in an envelope to:
Advent Rising Contest Customer Service
P.O. Box 6570
Edison, NJ 08818-6570
3. Submissions must be received by September 15, 2005.
4. Additional information: Please allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery of games. Majesco reserves the right to substitute a game of equal value as quantities are limited. While supplies last. Limit one redemption per contest participant.

If there are further questions, please email Majesco Entertainment Customer Service at arcontestfeedback@majescoentertainment.com

Sincerely,
Majesco Entertainment & Xbox Live

It's not a million bucks, but at least you are guaranteed something here. In the end it probably won't cost Majesco much as I'm sure many people have just forgotten about the whole thing by now...

PC version is out

2005-08-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

OK - from multiple sources we can say for sure - the PC version is out!

By the looks of things we are not getting any reviews right away from the official sources... so please post your first impressions in the the comments section!

EDIT:
IGN review is out.
Seems to be a fair, if unspectacular take on the game. In a nutshell - an improvement on the Xbox version in terms of framerate, a less than perfect control scheme, and graphics that look dated. The last one is to be expected - a better than average Xbox game is definitely going to be a below average PC one without major retooling.

EDIT #2:
Gamespot review is out.
Another poor score from Gamespot - 6.3/10. As expected I guess.

PC Ship date is set

2005-08-04T15:34:00.000-07:00

The official website has taken away the 'Race to Save Humanity' banner and replaced it with an announcement that the PC version will ship August 9.

What this means for the 'race' remains unclear... but it looks like the PC version will be with us soon, lack of hype notwithstanding.

What you will be looking for - thanks to DeathAngel for the heads up!

More on Advent Comics

2005-08-01T01:04:00.000-07:00

IGN have some news on the Advent Rising prequel comics set to be released later this year. They were lucky enough to snag some art work from the upcoming 6-title series.

Some of the artwork looks good so far... let's see how the story pans out. Click on any of the images to go to the original story.

PC release date...

2005-07-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm guessing most of you have worked out the PC version was NOT released today. As for when we might see it... Amazon is still saying it is released and will ship in 1 to 2 weeks. But the other date floating around seems to be August 9.

If anyone has any other news, post in the comments!

There is another...

2005-07-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

I was just looking through some of my files and happened on another Wallpaper from the famous Algarys. And I think this is my favourite! Very nicely composed scene, with the placement of the gun.

And a double bonus today an updated FAQ and an all new Game Script from the famous Berserker! Just click on the link on the right to get it.

Advent Rising sneaks in to Top 20 for June...

2005-07-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

It just made it... but Advent Rising appears in the Top 20 selling titles for June.

1. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Xbox) Take-Two

2. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (PS2) LucasArts

3. Conker: Live and Reloaded (Xbox) Microsoft

4. Medal of Honor: European Assault (PS2) Electronic Arts

5. LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (PS2) Eidos

6. Destroy All Humans! (PS2) THQ

7. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition (PS2) Take-Two

8. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (Xbox) LucasArts

9. Destroy All Humans! (Xbox) THQ

10. Madagascar (PS2) Activision

11. Medal of Honor: European Assault (Xbox) Electronic Arts

12. Forza Motorsport (Xbox) Microsoft

13. God of War (PS2) Sony

14. Batman Begins (PS2) Electronic Arts

15. LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game (Xbox) Eidos

16. Juiced (PS2) THQ

17. MVP Baseball 2005 (PS2) Electronic Arts

18. Madagascar (Cube) Activision

19. Advent Rising (Xbox) Majesco

20. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition (Xbox) Take-Two

Figures from NPD Funworld IGN Article

More Majesco troubles...

2005-07-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

2 things to point out today.

Majesco is now the subject of four class-action lawsuits from shareholders over the share price disaster described below. They are contending that they were mislead on earnings forecasts.
Gamespot article

It is much to early to predict what the outcome will be and what effect this will have on the Advent Trilogy, needless to say they are probably a little distracted from getting on with the business at hand, which is running the $1million contest and hyping the PC release. (Should be released in a week but has ANYONE seen ANY coverage ANYWHERE?)

Secondly - carterman pointed out in the comments below that Sobe put up the $1million for the 'Race to save Humanity' contest. Can anyone confirm this? If so, the status of the contest may be quite different to what I described below. If I were Sobe, I may throw a spanner in the works though based on not getting value for money. (Especially if they were told Advent would ship 500,000 units or something)

Majesco in trouble...

2005-07-19T05:28:00.000-07:00

This news is a bit old, but I thought I would write something about it in the context of the $1mill contest.

Majesco is projecting a loss of around $16 million for the year ending October 31, down from a projected PROFIT of around the same amount.
Gamespot article
The CEO promptly stepped down and check out what happened to the share price!

Some of the blame for the poor performance goes to the poor sales of Psychonauts and Advent Rising. Did the marketing efforts behind these two fail? Or did the games just not hit the right note with gamers?

Now all of this of course coincides with the 'temporary' suspension of the $1mill 'Race for Humanity'. While the contest was beset with technical issues, it's hard to think that there is no relation between the two events.

I'll take two looks at this, from a gamer/consumer point of view and from Majesco.

For the average gamer trying their best to win the million (and some trying pretty damn hard), they are being severely dudded if the contest is pulled. A million was promised on the game slick, and a company wanting to protect it's image should honour that committment.

BUT that is a luxury Majesco may not have. The cost of the competition is probably much more than $1million and anyway they can limit their October loss will be important for their shareholders and possibly the companies future. And the promotion has already basically failed. It would have been designed to quickly move units of the shelf - 'available for the first 500,000 customers'. There is no way the game has sold anything near that. If Majesco continues the competition it won't be getting many (any?) more sales as a result.

So basically it comes down to a fairly straight forward tradeoff decision.
What is more valuable?
- To protect it's image with the gamers that have bought the game and tried to take part in the contest (potentially a quite small number). ALSO to limit the spill over damage that a contest halt would have on their other titles sales. Hard to say, but I think this might be limited. Psychonauts fans are not buying the game because of the Majesco name. Same for their future releases BloodRayne, Jaws etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole contest fiasco and subsequent postponment has not been covered in any gaming media? The fallout from a complete cancellation might be small. (or maybe they will just not say anything for the next few months and hope everybody just forgets about it)
OR
- The cash needed to actually continue the contest.

So... basically if you are waiting for the contest to restart, don't hold your breath. If it does start again, consider it a nice bonus... and I would also consider your odds of winning will have improved considerably with the number of people that would have lost interest by now.

Advent Comic on the way...

2005-07-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

As mentioned by subordinator in the comments to the previous post, an Advent Rising comic is on the way.

No real details around at the moment it seems, but this is what one of the authors working on the project, Rob M. Worley had to say:

"Working on 'Advent Rising' has been a great, collaborative learning experience," said Worley. "We're working that book sort of old school Stan and Jack style, so there's a lot of back and forth with me, the layout artist Arthur Dela Cruz, the editors Teresa Focarile and Bill Jemas, the finish artist Cliff Richards. It's really fun because there are so many ideas going around and the whole thing seems really comfortable for everyone.

Link to original Comic Book Resources article.

Will it be any good? I thought the mini-Preview comic was a bit 'meh' with some average dialog... but that was just a promo thing really. Could be very interesting to see what story is done in the new Comics and/or what part of the universe they play with.

Also of note today, Version 1.2 of Berserker's walkthrough is now up!

No news is good news?

2005-07-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

No.

I've been away from a decent computer and internet connection for a week and it seems that basically nothing has happened in the land of Advent Rising.

- No European release.
- No PC release. (Now look for it at the end of the month)
- No restart to the contest.

I would not be all that surprised if it wasn't restarted at all. If the game has sold a very small number of units, it might be better for Majesco to call the whole thing off. I'm sure they will have included some such clause in the conditions, and if it isn't moving unit, who cares if they piss off some fans?

Time will tell...

Soundtrack CD

2005-06-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report in the last week or so... a few more reviews have popped up here and there, but nothing too exciting.

I did see this listed the other day on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk - the original soundtrack.
(the soundtrack will be available in Europe even when the game itself is not firmly listed :\)

Anyone got this yet? Any reviews?

Week 3 Contest clue...

2005-06-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

Here it is...

Week Three:

Clue: Gideon says, "Those ships just keep coming and coming... at least I have the access code for these things!"

Level range: Located somewhere within Chapters Two through Four...

UPDATE : CONTEST SUSPENDED TEMPORARILY. Please read the comments section. I think this is for the best for the time being. Be patient, and be confident knowing the Majesco and MS XboxLive ARE trying to make the whole experience better for everyone.

Walkthroughs and Wallpapers...

2005-06-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

Two great pieces of reader work today.

First up is a Walkthrough of Advent Rising by Berserker! I haven't read it as I'm still trying to stay as spoiler free as possible, but it looks very comprehensive. You can download it as a .zip from the permanent link in the sidebar. Excellent stuff Berserker.

We are also coming to the end of the Algarys wallpapers. This one might look familiar but it actually has a different background to the one we've seen before.

There may yet be a few left up my sleeve!

Mustard brothers leave GlyphX

2005-06-20T01:43:00.000-07:00

From Donald Mustard on the official forums:

Hi Guys,

As planned, my brother Geremy, who is the technical director, and I left Glyphx when Advent Rising was completed. However, we will remain involved with the Advent game trilogy and all other projects associated with the franchise.

I wish I could offer some insight into the contest, but unfortunately that is one aspect I am not involved with.

Hope this clarifies some things.

Donald Mustard

Ummmmmmmm... well it actually doesn't clarify much to me! Please post in the comments if anyone can offer any more details.

Majesco and GlyphX are ripping us off...

2005-06-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

... or so some posters on the internet would have you believe. (apologies for the headline BTW!)

Have they ripped of consumers by releasing a glitchey game ? Who's fault is it ? I think it is too simplisitic to try and say 'its Majesco's fault' or 'its GlyphX's fault'.

Yes Majesco will have said to GlyphX - this is your final deadline, you have no more time for bug fixes.

BUT GlyphX has had a fair bit of time to know this and schedule their work accordingly – the game has been in development for a long time. At some point the developer needs to lock down the content and move on to polish. It would seem that GlyphX chose to spend more time on the content than the polish (or probably underestimated the time required for polishing…). GlyphX is not alone in this problem though, it is common (I would even argue the norm) for many software development projects. Take MS Longhorn for example. I’m sure that scope creep is blowing out development time there, and the level of polish required there cannot be compromised on. Hence we see delays measured in years.

So should have Majesco just given GlyphX more time after they discovered that they had run out of time for bug-fixing ? For Majesco it then becomes a trade-off… if they keep spending money on the game will it mean more sales ? Maybe they decided it would be better to spend money on promotion than to get a polished product. If this was the case I think this was a poor decision. I think 8-9s with IGN, Gamespot etc would have been better for sales (and a hardcore fanbase) than a million dollar comp. Maybe their assessments were different. (They obviously have a lot more data on the situation than I do)

The other factor that Majesco needs to consider is timing. If they delayed the game another 2 or 3 months, would the game not sell because Xbox owners had started to look to the 360 ?

Neither GlyphX or Majesco deliberately wanted to piss anyone off with a buggy product… but sometimes business decisions do not match with delivering the best possible player experience. Both will have learnt from the experience and I’m sure we’ll see a better end product next time around.

Enjoy the game we have, and if you can't get over the shortcomings, sell it on Ebay, cut your losses and move on to the next game...

-------------------------------------
PS. The issue of a 'con' with the million dollar contest. Again I don't think that Majesco deliberately tried to con anyone with this contest. However, it is fairly clear that it was not planned that well. I think any future contest of a similar nature would have to address the problem of the data propagating through all Xbox servers and being available to all users at the same time. Perhaps an alogorithm could be developed that hides the time taken to find the icon into the code unlocked by players so it is a genuine race in the game, rather than a race to download and then submit the code.

New clue... and a warning

2005-06-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

The clue for week 2 is up :

Week #2 Clue:

Clue: Gideon says, “I don’t deserve to be alive… it should have been me out there!”

Level range: located somewhere within Chapters 1 through 3

And also of note is something off the Microsoft website :
"Contest downloads begin at 5:00 P.M. PDT every Thursday. Attempting downloads prior to this start time will result in a three-hour penalty."

I think this is a new condition they have added in an attempt to make it fairer to all... good luck.

Donald Mustard speaks ! And DLC ?

2005-06-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

Donald Mustard speaks ! It's great to see that DM is still keen to support the fan community. The following was posted on the official forum:

Hey there. Sorry it’s taken me a few days to post, but I’ve been reading your messages (well, when I’m not walking around Times Square…) and I’m so thankful to all of you for your continued support of the game.

It’s been crazy. You’d think our jobs end when the game comes out (at least I did), but we’ve been really busy promoting the game and the contest! Not to mention preparing for some future projects we’ll talk about some other time...

Back to the contest. Now, normally I’d be like “whatever, contest, blah, blah, blah.” But hey, you can win a million bucks! Who lets you do that?

So, yeah it sucks that the contest people had some tech issues during the first week, but Majesco is awesome and is giving everyone a chance to re-compete for the prizes again this week! I mean, you already have the game. Why not compete for some cash? So, good luck competing this Thursday for twice as many prizes.

I know a lot of people are upset with some less flattering reviews of the game and all I can say to that is...well, I think they suck too. I stand behind Advent and I’ve had a great time playing it. We set out to make something different and it’s always difficult to do things differently because people immediately love it…or they don’t. We had a number of hurdles to overcome with our first game – some we expected, some we didn’t, none of which I’m in a position to discuss at this time – but we still accomplished a lot of which we were told we never would and we’re still determined to do more with our future games and to try and change things - as opposed to settling for what everyone else is doing. More importantly, I swear that any mistakes you may find in this game will NOT be tolerated in our future games. Period.

Keep posting your feedback on the game. Whether you love it, hate it, or are somewhere in the middle – I want to know what you think about every last little detail.

Thanks again for all of your support. Like I’ve said before, we are making these games for you, so your feedback means a lot.

Donald Mustard

Great to see a creator willing to talk to fans and address some of the bad publicity the game is getting. BTW - I am officially excited again to be getting the game, hopefully in July. (A disturbing lack of information on that Euro/Aus release though...)

Also of interest is some speculation around some Downloadable Content. There is obviously the DLC involved with the competition, but some eagle eyes on the official forums spotted this on the contest instructions:

Map 1 and Map 2 ? What could this be ?! It could be nothing, just a placeholder or something... but maybe for example the PC version ships with a little extra content, with this extra content available on Xbox Live ? All speculation, but isn't that half the fun ?

A change of pace...

2005-06-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

So let's put all this talk of contest screw ups, bugs and framerate problems to the side for a sec shall we ? :)

Bad news everyone - the Algarys series of wallpapers are coming to an end. But there are still a few to go, and this is another nice one. I love the planet in the background through the ship window.

If anyone else out there would like to share something Advent related with the rest of the world, let me know. It could be more wallpapers, artwork, play guides, easter eggs - whatever - send it in.

Majesco responds to the problem... sort of...

2005-06-11T01:56:00.000-07:00

The following message was posted on the official forums and on the competition website:

June 10, 2005

Majesco has confirmed that a technical issue was responsible for the problems experienced with last night's launch of the Advent Rising "Race to Save Humanity" contest. The cause of the issue has been identified and rectified, and Majesco currently sees no evidence to suggest a reoccurrence.

We understand the angst this issue created and we've begun to identify winners for Week #1 and will award all allotted prizes. Furthermore, for next week, we will be increasing the prize packages to include an additional $10,000 cash prize and a host of other prizes. The Week #2 competition kicks off as planned on Thursday, June 16 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.

Majesco regrets any inconvenience to players and wishes them good luck over the next five weeks of the competition as we build to the big $1 million grand prize.

Not completely forthcoming, but they are trying. On to week two it seems !

Official contest website

Million dollar fiasco

2005-06-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

Well... the hunt for the million is on... but the contest seems to some major problems.
Players are posting all over the place that some of them cannot:
a) download the DLC containing the icon
b) submit the code once they have found the icon

With this being the case it's hard to claim that it is a fair hunt... more like a random process for getting a winner. That is not a bad thing in and of itself (to have a winner determined at random) but there seems to be A LOT of disgruntled players out there.

RedPhoenix over at the Majesco forums had an excellent post sizing up the situation and making recommendations for change.

the contest, at the time of your post, was NOT available to everyone who was considered a valid player. [Ed:This post was in response to a semi-official announcement from Majesco that the DLC was available 'NOW' DLC does NOT become available to everyone at once on Live, it hits different users in waves. It has never hit everyone at once in any game delivery yet - we just do not notice it much because normal game DLC has no bearing if we get it late and we usually are not sitting in front of the console waiting for it.

It was 10:45pm CT (8:45pm PT) before DLC was available to users in Canada's CT area. I know that many users in New York and other Eastern area also see similar delays. I'm not just talking about "having trouble downloading it" - I mean it literally could not even be SEEN in the download area. Congestion, as you suggest, would only affect being able to actually download it - not SEEing it.

The only way you will make this contest "fair", if you cannot do anything further about the DLC delays nationwide, is to NOT give out any clues until at least 24-48 hours into that week's contest.

It is usually traditional to wait until it is apparent that the players are having troubles before you tell them (almost straight out) where it is. I knew pretty much where to find it from the way-too-obvious clue you supplied. Once I finally had access to the DLC it took less than 15 minutes to locate it.

These players all have legitimate gripes about how the contest was conducted so far and you trivializing the problem makes it even worse.

Now, to add fuel to the fire, you (or whomever the IT team is) either did not fully test the submission process or you never load tested the servers handling the submissions, because it would appear that the servers are offline - if it was excessive traffic and timing out the server request, we would more likely see a 500 error, not 404 errors.

A 404 error only usually comes up if the page is really non-existant or the web service is not responding.

My suggestion to you (meaning Majesco) would be to cancel this week's contest and chalk it up to trial and error, fix your submission code/servers (or get new ones), do not supply clues until after at least a 24 hour window, and work more closely with Larry and the rest of the staff at Xbox Live to get the DLC better delivered on time.

You cannot run a contest of this proportion with this many loose ends still dangling in the wind.

This entire fiasco aside, the game is great.

Let's hope they fix this up by next week. Seems Majesco is still on a learning curve. Should some of the blame also be pointed at MS for the Xbox Live performance ? Or is it simply a matter of how the contest was designed to start by Majesco ?

Speak out in the comments section if you are having good/bad experiences with the contest.

The Race for a $1,000,000

2005-06-09T04:26:00.000-07:00

So the 'Race to Save Humanity' is about to start ! As I said back when this was first announced, this is an amazing prize being put up by Majesco and if you have an Xbox and a broadband internet connection you really should be having a go at this.

Come on! I want a blog reader to become a millionaire! Post in the comments section if you win something, have comments on where and when you found the first icon etc. Also send in a pic of what you found... we'll all be interested. (And jealous if we can't take part)

So here is the first hint from Majesco:

Clue: Gideon says, "Alright, at least she is still alive. Now we've just got to make it back in one piece..."

Level range: Located somewhere within the Epilogue or Chapter One...

And this is what you need to be looking for...

Good luck !

GamePro review

2005-06-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

OK... another review... sorry if this is getting tedious... but what else can I put up while i dont have the game ;)

GamePro... gave Advent Rising a 4.5/5 ! Editors Choice award ! Sounds great... the only negative they mention are the vehicles not being as good as Halo.

However... I'm not going to get too carried away with it. The simple fact is that gamers impressions AND professional on-line reviews have identified many more problems with the game. (Albeit while agreeing with a lot of the positives in the GamePro review)

So why is GamePro so different ? I've read suggestions that they were paid off. Unlikely. Much more likely is the way that print publications have to do their reviews. They usually have a lead time of 6-8 weeks where content has to be locked down to get ready to go off for printing/distribution etc. so that you get your mag with seemingly brand spanking new reviews in it. GamePro probably reviewed a version that is about 2 months old and may have been given assurances that minor bugs and framerate issues would be fixed up for the final release.

Also worth noting is the fact that the stylized Gideon seen in the review (also in the sidebar of the blog) is a specially created piece of art for GamePro. It was released in the fansite pack a few months ago - again indicating that Majesco and GamePro had been at work with this for a while.

I'm not suggesting any conspiracy, just letting you know some of the facts on how the gaming media works. Another example you may have heard of is the way that most of the Halo2 reviews were set up - a play session conducted months before release was used to write reviews to appear in print mags in time for the November 9 launch.

Box Shots !

2005-06-07T08:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to 'Berserker' some shots of the Xbox packaging along with the packaging of the bonus DVD that came along with EBGames pre-orders. (if I remember correctly)

UPDATE :
Some shots of the game disc, manual and bonus disc.

Good work Berserker !

TeamXbox Review

2005-06-03T04:06:00.000-07:00

Yet another review up... this one notable for a few things.

It is the highest score to date - 7.9 / 10.

The tone is generally much more positive and the all important story element seems to have hit the mark according to the reviewer 'Horus'.

It also points out that they reviewed the retail version of the game, that may have less framerate issues than the review versions.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Due to the severe framerate issues that plagued the 2-disc review debug version of Advent Rising, TeamXbox.com chose to base our review off of the final retail copy of the game. A few of the problems experienced in the debug version of the game were resolved or lessened in the retail version. We did not feel it would be fair to review a product that is not representative of the final retail version.

While its admirable for TeamXbox to take this approach, it does sound like something that Majesco/GlyphX should have got right before shipping out the review copies.

Also please dont expect that the retail version of the game will have NONE of the framerate issues other reviews have pointed out :

For one, the game is plagued with glitches and bad transitions between sequences. Enemies will become stuck in walls, you will occasionally hang in space before falling to your death, and the overall polish is severely lacking. The framerate is a problem throughout the game, however, not nearly to the extent that it originally was when playing through the debug review version of the game. The odd thing is that the framerate is choppy most often right after a cut-scene finishes, not while in the heat of battle.

TeamXbox Review

Gamers have their say.

2005-06-02T01:35:00.000-07:00

Some posts from GAMERS around the web to counter some of (but not all) of the criticisms we have seen in the reviews to date. Note that my impression from reading around is that if you were a fan eagerly waiting for the game you WILL NOT be disappointed. I wish that I could share with you my actual impressions from playing the game, but still no word on when the game will get a release outside the US.

I’ve noted opinions that I particularly value with Advent art and most posts have been edited a little for spelling, length etc.
(No offence to the opinions without the pics, I just haven’t read posts from them before and can’t really judge their credibility)

Xeran : Official Forums
Yes it is as good as everyone is saying it is! and yes there are some issues with the framerate however it is nothing that ruins the game in any way at all. graphics are as good as expected, and the gameplay is just awesome, hehe i played it for 2hrs straight and i dont think i blinked at all...i had a headache afterwards.

i do have one complaint about it tho. the whole "choose your own path" aspect of the game isnt as full as i thought it was going to be, i think it couldve been fleshed out quite a bit more, but thats only a minor complaint.

Schwarzwald : Official Forums
Pros:
-Action-friendly targeting
-Choices
-Acting
-Weapon upgrade system
-Overall Story

Cons:
-DRIVING
-No real graphical textures
-Framerate and Camera hitches, though occasional, are still a bit of a pain
-DRIVING
-No movie scene index YET

Still, for me the Pros are far out-weighing it...

Delirium : Official Forums
My first impressions of the game are simple. I REALLY REALLY like the game. It's not perfect(what is?), but it's a hell of a lot of fun.

The flick targeting is kinda odd to get used to, but at the same time it's not like if you don't flick you get your butt whipped. The game does a good job of auto-aiming for you while you decide who to flick to. Also, Gideon automatically prioritizes who the second weapon fires at if you're shooting two guns at the same time. The fights are fun, but if these are the first levels, the later ones are probably going to be really challenging

The frame rate issue has been a non-issue for me so far. I've only had two bits of slow down. Both at the beginning of cutscenes where the game has stuttered a bit. But then once it started playing, the cut scene went on fine. If I hadn't heard of a frame rate issue (unless they're later) I'd actually probably credit those bits of choppiness to my XBox needing it's disc-reader cleaned, or the disc having a small scratch or imperfection on it.

Oh, and the thing everyone wants to know. the Choice system is STILL in the game.

This game so far is exactly what I was hoping for, I can't wait until I start unlocking abilities and can have even more fun fighting people. Dual wielding enemy assault rifles is fun, but hey..so is using powers.

Oh, and I don't know what the Gamespy reviewer was smoking, but the dialogue is actually really good.

Ferretwave333 : Teamxbox Forums
I am playing the game right now, trust me, there is no severe framerate issue. Please get it, this is really a great game, its just getting under rated, ask anyone on this board who has the game, they love it. Really, we can't all be lying. I need this trilogy to be continued its really good.

Finalsolution : Teamxbox Forums
The game is not mediocre just because the framerate killed the game, Im so pissed that I have put $50 to a game and not even enjoy it. All I know from now on I will never buy a game on a release date because it sux and Im pissed.

They were better just delaying the freaking game and try to fix the bugs, How the hell are you supposed to race for $1,000,000 if the game cant even run good.

Nimblevagrant : IGN Forums
Ok, first off, the game is great so far, and I haven't even got to play with the powers yet.
The reviewers were right on when they were talking about the framerate. Now, I am not a stickler for framerate by any stretch of the imagination but, there are certain points where it just chugs. However, it doesn't take away from the gun play. The gun play is freaking sweet. Both the auto-targeting and the flick-targeting are well implemented (for being a new type of targeting at least). It takes a short minute to get used to it but, once you do, you will be blowing Seekers away like theres nothing to it.

Buried-in-a-box : IGN Forums
. I really love the water effects and the jumping and floating around feeling. First person view seemed to help the framerates out a little bit too.

So far, the story and music have truly impressed me, and that's a hard thing to do. The pseudo-anime style works for me too, as the whole package of art direction just seems waaaay ahead of other game designers art direction.

God, I love the water effects!

I'm what is known as usually being a total dirty graphics slut whore, and even I am impressed here. No it's not Gears of War or even Halo 2's "clean" graphics package, but it's exactly what I expected after seeing the screens in the Xbox Nation 5 months back.

And even then they said the framerates could get pretty bad, and I didn't expect them to change. Not with all this detail on screen at once.

InsideRaindrops : IGN Forums
Yes, the gunplay is awesome, I have to agree with that. There were also some preview-authors who stated, and repeatedly, "Why do they give you all the guns early? Because when you get far enough into the game, you won't want/need them." Guess what, ladies?

It is *SO* true.

Flick-targetting. I love it. I really, really love it.

However...and this is one of my problems, although I don't know if it's with my XBox, or with the game, itself....the music and sound both cut out, for no apparent reason. At random.

Now, wait, wait, issues? Are there issues? Certainly there are issues. No game is perfect, and this one, as well, could've been worked on, just a bit. There are frame-rate dips, when there's a lot of stuff/explosions/enemies going on. Does it go on, forever? Not at all.
I have to say that both Gamespy and Gamespot were way, way, way off their marks.

Aross2004 : Gamespot forums
The framerate gets WAY worse later in the game. At first, it kind of just stutters a lot, but later in the game, (the sinking ship for example), it just bogs so bad that you can't do a damn thing except jump so you don't die while the framerate tries to even itself out.
Anyone who quotes scores from Maxim magazine should be tarred & feathered.

Edder1010 : Gamespot forums
After playing this game for 3 hours, I think that it will really disappoint those of you who waited two years plus for it. And yes it has all to do with the frame rate. In just about ALL this gun fights i've had so far in the game the frame rate dips down. Not to the point were its unplayable but.....its ugly.

other than that story, sound, and controls are all on the up and up. But the framerate can ruin it all. like i said it...its ugly

And for those of you who has the x-boxes that freeze and stutter in cut scenes all the time you might want to skip this one. this one freezes up more than KOTOR .

Gamespot review

2005-06-02T00:31:00.000-07:00

Gamespot review is up... and it's bad.

5.7 out of 10.

Pretty much the entire review is negative, but here is one quote I'd appreciate someone rebutting.

However, there's one big fundamental flaw with the whole system: namely, its irritating tendency to latch onto targets as you're walking along. Essentially, as you move around, enemies and objects you can target will catch the attention of your reticle, so you'll immediately snap your focus to them. This is a big problem, mainly when you're trying to maneuver around a group of enemies to get to a health pack or a fresh ammo clip, as your speed is immediately reduced by about half when you're targeting something. You can click the right control stick to remove the reticle, but it will immediately snap to a new target the next time you get close to one.

Gamespot Review

I'm going to be back shortly with a BIG round up of GAMER impressions from around the web.

First reviews in...

2005-06-01T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well as you may already know, the first reviews of the finished game are coming in on the web.

And there is no other way to spin it - I'm dissapointed.

Gamespy chime in with a 2.5 stars out of 5. Ouch. What makes it worse for me is that I usually prefer Gamespy reviews over all others. It doesn't even get top billing on the site !

Unfortunately, the player will also be struggling to find meaning because the story just isn't conveyed terribly well. The cutscenes are a poorly edited mess, showing little understanding of presentation or engaging storytelling. The dialogue is especially lacking and contrived, considering the talent behind it.

Gamespy Review

Moving on to IGN... we have 7.8 out of 10. More promising. I quite like IGN reviews, but to be honest I find them overly forgiving on most games. The Gamespot review will let us know if that has been the case here.

By flicking the right analog stick in the general direction of an enemy the reticule locks onto the target and directs all of Giddeon's attacks at this point. Players can toggle between enemies in the heat of battle by simply nudging the stick in their direction. Players who are used to constantly maneuvering the camera will find this system to be awkward at first, but as you learn to work with the targeting system it opens up a world of possibilities.

IGN Review

Both review speak a lot about dodgy framerates. Donald Mustard himself has addressed this on the Official Forums :

As far as framerate in review code: the game has a pretty dang good framerate. It will dip occasionally, but its not so low that it hurts the gameplay. That being said, Advent has so much content that the retail version has to be a dual-layered dvd. This is awesome for you because we crammed in a ton of stuff. This is bad for reviewers because Microsoft is the only place that burns these special dual-layered dvd’s and then sends them straight to manufacturing. Those disks are what you can buy today. Review builds obviously have to go out before today, so reviews get a 2 disk version of the game that does run a little slower than the retail version. Sucks, but whatcha gonna do?

Sooooooooo... lets wait and see how the game plays when in our hands ! Gamers out there - when you have the game, please write in and tell us your thoughts !

The Final Countdown...

2005-05-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

The Final Countdown... man I hate that song. I hope that none of you out there have heard of it. But only a few short days to go until US release... and I may not be updating again before then !

Keeping the wallpaper tradition going, I actually made a wallpaper very similar to this myself... but once again Algarys comes up with the goods and my wallpaper is obsolete ! I think I'm right in saying this is from an E3 image from last year...

Also a short interview to Donald Mustard to check out... short but sweet !
Xecuted Interview with Donald Mustard

Good luck to all of you getting the game !

A jumping Gideon and some cutscenes...

2005-05-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

My favourite effort from Algarys to date ? Possibly... and I can tell you there are still more to come !

Also of note today is that IGN have released a bunch of cutscenes detailing the story of Advent Rising ! Personally, I will be trying to stay spoiler free, but if that doesn't bother you, you might want to check it out.

IGN's Advent Rising Cutscenes

10 things to do while waiting...

2005-05-25T03:59:00.000-07:00

The US Xbox launch is almost here... we should be seeing reviews up soon, and if you live in North America you could be playing the game in about a week !

So what to do while waiting ? Here are some ideas, along with some new screenshots to keep you busy for right now.

Boom ! Looks like there will be some nice graphical effects in the game... flames look a lot better in motion, but I still like what I see so far.

--------------------------------------------
A List of 10...
10. Download the prologue comic or find it with DC Comics.
9. Watch the trailers again. The latest one is amazing.
8. Watch Revenge of the Sith. Nothing to do with Advent Rising, but if you’re interested in Advent you’ve got some geek in you. And if you have some geek in you, you have to see ROTS.
7. Enter the Sweepstakes. Entries close May 25... TODAY... so get in fast. Unfortunately only for North American residents.
6. Read some of the previews… The TeamXbox one is probably the best, but some of the post-E3 ones are OK too.
5. Pre-order the game from EB… not because I’m a huge fan of them or anything, but they do seem to have the pre-launch deal going around. Again… only for North Americans it seems 
4. Visit the official forums at Majesco. There are a few other forums around, but at this stage, these are the ones I’m endorsing. Check out what people are saying and start up your own account before it gets very busy post launch.
3. Go for a walk to the supermarket. The fresh air and exercise will do you good. And chances are you might be stuck in front of the Xbox or PC for a while eating whatever you get from the supermarket.
2. Read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Mr Card played a big role in developing Advent Rising’s story and is considered a legend in the sci-fi literature circles. You’ll be getting some culture and the right frame of mind for Advent.
1. Keep visiting the Advent Trilogy Blogspot ! I’ll be keeping it up to date with links and summaries of all the reviews when they hit, and offering my own view on the game when I’m able to get my hands on it.
-----------------------

You can see Gideon just in the front of this screenshot. It gives a great indication about just how big those Seekers are.

E3 has been and gone...

2005-05-23T01:21:00.000-07:00

So the biggest event in the gaming year has been and gone. I for one was VERY underwhelmed. I was expecting some big announcements to really get excited about around franchises jumping platforms or something.

As a current Xbox fan, I was hoping for some big things from the Xbox360. MS really dropped the ball on this launch. Partially due to the viral campaign, the MTV launch and the leaks, there was really nothing to get excited about in their presentation. I think it will be a good console (the Live features in particular) but it wasn’t a great launch.

PS3 was launched as expected, and again I was underwhelmed. Not much was really shown despite some decent trailers. (Check out the Killzone trailer… impressive, even if it is pre-rendered)

And the Nintendo Revolution was probably the most disappointing thing. I was really excited about what Nintendo might have up its sleeve… in many ways I respect them the most as having gaming its top priority. But… again a letdown. Basically no real information and a very bland looking console in my opinion. (yeah it’s small… but it looks like a router or something… I don’t need a super small console)

And the actual games ? Nothing really leapt out at me. Gears of War for the 360 looks good. Perfect Dark Zero could ultimately deliver… but I’ll be waiting for more news before getting to excited about anything else.

As for Advent Rising ? Not a lot of news has come through as yet (to be expected… its almost release time!) but there were a few new screenshots released.

Check out TeamXbox to see them all.

UPDATE : Some previews based on an E3 play are beginning to surface.
DailyGame.net Preview

Game Target

1UP

Nothing overly revealing... the real reviews will be just days away.

A pleasing comment from the Gaming Target article though "Graphically, Advent Rising is incredible." Nice to hear that those graphical issues may have been put to rest.

The other trilogy

2005-05-18T06:05:00.000-07:00

Another certain sci-fi trilogy has been occupying my mind recently ;) Ive just watched Episode I (fast forwarding about 40% of the movie) and Episode II (skipping about 10%) and are primed for Revenge of the Sith. My excitement is tempered with my experience the last two times (less so AOTC) but it is still a day to be a day long remembered.

Midnight opening - here I come.

UPDATE : 3:46AM... I'm back. No spoilers here - but three words come to mind at the minute : intense, excitement, sadness. If you're a fan, you don't need me to tell you to go and see this movie.

Weekend Wallpapers... x 2 !

2005-05-13T19:48:00.001-07:00

A weekend wallpaper blowout ! (to borrow an overused Gaming journalism term...) Another two excellent efforts from Algarys. Personally, I like the clean look of the Wyeth brothers one... you can still have your desktop icons clearly visible and not obscuring the artwork. The excitement continues to build...

OXM Review of Advent Rising

2005-05-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

This might get missed in all the Xbox360 hubbub... but not missed here !

There is a little teaser about the OXM review of Advent Rising on the Xbox.com site. And it sounds fantastic.

We in the gaming press have great jobs—let none of us ever say otherwise. As part of our work, we get to see all of tomorrow's hottest games today, so to speak. But sometimes we are shown games too early, when they're not even fully cohesive programs.

Such was the case with Advent Rising, the anticipated, plot-driven, third-person action-adventure from Glyphx Games and Majesco Games with a story penned by famed novelist Orson Scott Card. The game ships at the end of this month, but I first saw it approximately a year and a half ago. Back then it was practically a tech demo, running at a mere 15 frames per second with a couple of vehicles thrown in for testing and experimentation purposes. It didn't leave the most favorable impression at the time.

Well, the game showed up in the office for review recently, and on an optimistic whim I volunteered for the review. It's Orson Scott Card, after all!

I'm happy to report that my optimism was rewarded and that, 18 or so months later, Glyphx's pre-pre-pre-alpha demo turned into one heck of a final package. There's plenty to like in Advent Rising, not the least of which is, naturally, the story line. Of course, you'll have to read my full review in the July issue of Official Xbox Magazine (on sale June 14) to find out exactly how much I liked it, but rest assured that it's a game you want to keep a close eye on.

--By Ryan McCaffrey, Assistant Editor, Official Xbox Magazine

Original Article at Xbox.com

New 'Theatrical' Trailer out... a must see

2005-05-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

A new trailer is out and you HAVE to see it. However this game turns out, these guys certainly know how to make a trailer... Click below for the Windows Media version from GameTrailers.

This is the one that is rumoured to be attached to Revenge of the Sith, so it will be great to finally get a bit more momentum behind the game.

Click this one for Quicktime from GameTrailers

There is a lot in this trailer... I could have posted a dozen snaps. It is definitely worth checking out on-line or when it hits cinemas.

UPDATE : The trailer before Revenge of the Sith is confirmed on the official Advent website (link in the sidebar) as well as a super large quicktime version available for download.

UPDATE 2 : Credit apparently for the trailer should go to "D. Christopher Salmon of GlyphX". Excellent work D... the fans love it, and I'm sure it is making many more fans !

IGN Powers #4 - Surge

2005-05-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

This looks like a good one. Surge is described as a 'force push' / 'weapon grab' power. The push move (the primary use) triggers a bubble like effect that blows enemies backwards. The secondary use allows the player to grab weapons from your enemies.

Also in the article is a profile of the H.A.Z.E. Blaster... I think its the weapon we see featured on the Advent Comics website.

New Screenshot and $1 mill comp Egg

2005-05-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

The cartwheeling wallpaper had to be followed up with this screenshot... one of my favourites. These moves definitely look like fun, and the graphics are also looking pretty nice here. Check out the blurred edge shadows.

Also - Algarys does it again !

A good find here... an example of how the 'Easter Egg' logo will appear in game during the $1,000,000 Xbox Live comp.

Click the above image to a link to the story at the 'DEN'.

Weekend Wallpaper #3

2005-04-30T01:22:00.000-07:00

Another wallpaper from Algarys... and another nice effort !

Gideon vs a Seeker while doing a spin.

This is the kind of thing that is getting me excited about the game.

Again, check the comments for details about this wallpaper from Algarys herself. Also remember to keep checking back as we keep posting more wallpapers from the series.

$1 Million Competition !

2005-04-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

Remember when I posted a while back about the big push Majesco is doing for Psychonauts? I speculated it might mean big things for Advent Rising...

I was right... But only sort of, because this blows my expectations to the moon.

Majesco is running a competition for Advent Rising that is nothing short of amazing. I would go as far to say this is the biggest competition in the history of gaming outside of a console launch. (feel free to offer evidence to the contrary)

Paraphrasing the media release...
The Competition - the "Race to Save Humanity"
The contest commences June 9 and is limited to the first 500,000 copies of the game. These first 500,000 copies will be specially marked and will include a free, two-month subscription to Xbox Live. Then, once a week for six weeks, an "Easter egg" in the form of the letter 'A' will be downloaded via Xbox Live and hidden within a level of the game. Majesco will distribute clues as to which level the icon resides in and then the race is on to find it first.

Once the egg is found, gamers will be unlock a code and will then use the code and their Xbox Live gamer tag to log on to the competition website. The first person to do so is that week's winner. And you will want to be one of these winners...

The Prizes
There are '100s of prizes' on offer... we'll have to wait and see the exact break down but it includes :
* Six weeks of cash prizes totaling $10k, $20k, $30k, $40k, $50k, and
the Grand Prize of $1,000,000
* 12-month Xbox Live subscription cards from Microsoft
* SoBe refrigerator and a one-year supply of SoBe drinks
* SoBe guitars, golf bags, MP3 players, and more
* Advent Rising strategy guides from Brady Games
* Officially licensed Xbox controllers from Radica.

Wow. That all sounds amazing and should do really kickstart the hype machine like we've been wanting. It actually sounds like calling it a 1 million dollar comp is selling it short !

The bad news in all this is that it's only open to US and Canadian residents. (with a few exclusions) The rest of the world will have to make do with the game. We'll have to wait and see if the downloadable Easter Eggs will at least be available.

Good work Majesco... seems like you're really going all out to make Advent Rising a hit.

To check out a copy of the original media release go to Yahoo.

I'll update later, as I expect this to get A LOT of coverage from IGN, Gamespot etc.

Note : first heads up from subordinator over at the Majesco forums.

EDIT :
Gamespot Article
TeamXbox article

New Wallpaper of the Brothers Wyeth and IGN Powers Part 3

2005-04-21T18:01:00.000-07:00

Another wallpaper this weekend ! It is from our French Connection - Algarys. Great stuff. Check the comments section for how Algarys made these great wallpapers.

Click on this preview of this Wyeth brothers wallpaper to download the full size version.

Algarys has a series of 10 images to share so keep watching this space...

IGN - The Special Powers of Advent Rising, Pt. 3

Also up today is another IGN Powers article - Part 3. It's a little hidden this time down in the News section.
Today we get a look at Timeshift (a Speed boost power)

The primary function seems to be a standard speed boost power... the secondary power is a slowdown mode 'bubble'. Both are powers we've seen before in other games, but pairing them together seems to make sense.

Also revealed is the 'Talmage 50.08' rocket launcher. Sounds like it also has some form of seeking ability... based on 'sonic pathways - interesting. (A pic is also available)

We also get a decent write up on the 'Hurricane'. Described as a 'highly-armored behemoth military vehicle' it looks like it should be fun. Unfortunately there are no pics of it but I think it is observable in some of the gameplay trailers we have seen so far.

EDIT : subordinator has just pointed out in the comments section that the 'Hurricane' write up has been removed from the article... no idea why that would be the case...

New IGN Powers...

2005-04-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

It's 6:00AM at a near deserted Singapore Airport so what else to do but update this sucker ?!

A new artcle up at IGN...

So what's in it ? A look at the 'Negate' power. I've heard it described before, but I haven't seen screenshots - good to see. Basically, you have the power to set up an energy shield directly in front of you. You can then use it to advance on the enemy and if there are any Seekers in the way, it sounds like they'll meet a nasty end. The secondary use of the power involves encircling yourself with the shield... sounds almost like an energy whirlwind with you in the centre... we'll see how that plays out.

Also there is a very short profile on the 'Rockwell-Young XJ9'. Sounds like a standard assault rifle/grenade launcher combo... a pic of it at IGN !

Apologies for any typos caused by sleep deprivation...

Inter-continental Screenshot

2005-04-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

I'm making the big trek from Copenhagen, Denmark to Melbourne, Australia tomorrow, so there won't be much in the way of updates even if there is 'gone gold' news, a bunch of new interviews and a 10-page hands-on article. This screenshot will have to do... and not a bad one I reckon...

Some explosions, glass shattering, guns going off, cool graphical effects with the water - looks good to me !

More to come in a few days...

Wallpaper Weekend !

2005-04-17T02:13:00.000-07:00

Something a bit different for the weekend. Some wallpapers featuring a stylized Gideon showing off some of his special powers. You might recognise the image from the sidebar – it is originally from a special feature for GamePro magazine. The image is contained in the fansite pack – I’ve just tweaked it to fit as a wallpaper and added the logo.

Enjoy !

It comes in a few different flavours, but my favourite is this one…

Gideon to the left – Logo
Gideon to the right – No Logo
Gideon to the left – No Logo

Do you have any cool Advent Rising wallpapers out there (not already on the official sites) ? Send them in and I'll post them up !

New Gamespot video interview

2005-04-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

The official site is listing this so I'll briefly mention it.

Gamespot has a new video interview up with Donald Mustard. (No Geremy to be found in the new interview)
Gamespot media page
There seems to be some new footage on offer, but not much 'new' news from Donald. (Comments about flipping around in the air shooting enemies with one hand and using the wield power to throw others off a ledge sounds special though)
I'm currently sitting on a horrible dial-up account so I'm not that well placed to comment on the postage stamp sized video, but later next week be sure to check back for a round up of all the latest videos floating around.

Some classic DM quotes though :

"We want players to feel like they have become a super hero."

"Everything [weapons and powers] is laid out for you to create your own symphony of death !"

More stuff to come before the weekend...

Preview primer and a screenshot

2005-04-12T05:34:00.000-07:00

Let's go first to the screenshot !

This looks to be from near the start of the game based on what we know so far, where the Seekers attack the space station Gideon is on. (see the Comic website to get up to speed) Gideon is supporting a friend while taking care of a Seeker. I don't think its much of a spoiler to speculate this friend seems to be brother Ethan.

I’m posting the links to the latest round of previews out on the game that will give you some idea of what to expect out of the game if you are yet to read much about it. Most of them cover off on similar things, but you do get the impressions of four different individuals.

It looks like Donald Mustard went on tour with a build of the game and visited most of the big media outlets. The results are below…

TeamXbox Preview
The best one I’ve seen out there so far. “Legba” seems to be like the concept and likes what he sees in the preview build.
http://previews.teamxbox.com/xbox/966/Advent-Rising/p1/

Gamespy Preview
http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/advent-rising/583910p1.html
I like Gamespy a lot. They seem to me to speak like true gamers rather than getting blown away by hype or trying to be over serious. This article is a positive look at how they viewed the latest build.

IGN Preview
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/598/598806p1.html
Not the best article I’ve seen up on old IGN but it quickly covers off the basics. Perhaps an older preview build is being used for the media at the moment based on the framerate comments ?

Gamespot Preview
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/adventrising/preview_6116665.html
Another positive look at the game. It mentions that the game is locked in for a May 3 release… I’m still assuming May 31 though.

TeamXbox mentions ‘pre-alpha’ preview builds … interesting that they would have a pre-alpha so close to release date… but good to hear because in theory the final product should be much more impressive than what the media have seen to date.

First review, big spenders and a screenshot

2005-04-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

A range of things to talk about today.

The first review is apparently in ! As reported on the official website, 'Stuff' magazine has given AR a 3 out of 4. To be honest a 75% score as a first impression had me dissapointed... but you have to consider that this is not a specialist gaming publication and these types of outlets can often 'follow the hype' with their scores. With the hype machine yet to really fire up, this could be more a score based on first impressions. With the game not yet 'gold', and the lead time on magazine publications often a number of weeks, it may have been a non-final build that was reviewed. Additionally, we have to consider the quote that actually went with the score :

"This sci-fi epic's incredible graphics and design combine with fast-paced fighting and shooting action to deliver a space ball of a good time."

Sounds a bit better !
The 'proper' reviews should be in soon though - keep stopping by here for the latest ! (If anyone has read the whole 'Stuff' review, chime in with your thoughts)

Secondly, of interest is the news that Majesco will be spending big on the Psychonaughts marketing campaign. Why does this matter for Advent Rising ? Majesco is currently trying to position itself as a front-running publisher of AAA titles - Psychonaughts, BloodRayne and Advent Rising are the center pieces of this plan in the short/medium term. I expect AR to be also getting a big launch push. We've already seen the start of this with the sweepstakes and Comic tie in, and I have read rumours of a trailer for the game being attached to Revenge of the Sith ! This would seem to be a perfect match and a bold move by Majesco... we'll see what happens shortly anyway.

Finally I thought I would post a screenshot from the fansite pack for you to check out.

What do we see here ? Looks to me to be a couple of Special Ops troops taking on some Seekers with some kind of energy weapon. Any thoughts any one ? It's definitely an in game engine shot but doesn't look to be from actual play.

Look out for more screenshots coming soon.

IGN Feature : Powers

2005-04-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

New article up at IGN ! It's described as a focus on the Special Powers - and the first of a series.

First up is 'Wield', which is supported by some descriptive pics and movies ! It's basically teleknesis... or if you are Star Wars inclined... a Force pull, push, throw move !

The surprise is that the article adds a little more than what was in the title and also features a look at one weapon and one vehicle ! Detailed are the 'Faust-C-41' - the standard issue pistol (pic also up of the Faust) and the 'Scythe (ATV with mounted hangun)' all terrain vehicle. (this is what we are seeing in the pic above ?)

Hopefully we might also see dedicated weapon and vehicle features popping up in the future. Go check it out by clicking on the image above !

Advent Comic and Sweepstakes site updated

2005-04-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

The Advent Rising comic and Sweepstakes website has been updated. It launched a little while back, with a Comic download and interview with Donald Mustard (lead designer at GlyphX and main driving force behind the game).
The site now features a new flash intro movie, not as nice as the one on the official game site, but with some music from the current trailer, a new interview with Mr Mustard, some screenshots and some new Wallpapers.

Go check it out !

Bonus pack for Xbox gamers

2005-04-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve just noticed something else to get excited about. It looks like Majesco and GlyphX will be following the newish trend of releasing ‘Special Edition’ versions of new releases. We’ve seen it with Halo 2, Doom 3, Jade Empire and will soon be seeing it with Advent Rising. Pretty good company to be in.

At this stage all we know about the bonus content is as follows from EBgames.com :
“Bonus DVD includes: Advent Rising trailers, interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, soundtrack samples and exclusive artwork.”

It seems to be limited edition only, and your best bet would be to pre-order. Gamestop.com is also listing the ‘Bonus’ but Amazon is only listing the regular edition. Also no word on availability for European/UK/Aus NZ gamers. I’ll see what I can find out !

It doesn’t appear to be available for PC gamers, so it looks like they will have to make do with the cheaper purchase price. (RRP USD$29.99 compared with $49.99)

The other big thing to note about the listing is the release date of May 31 2005. A UK release date I could find was June 3, 2005. (I would assume the rest of Europe and Australia/NZ would be around this date as well) More details as I find them.

EDIT ! Schwarzwald at the Majesco forums has pointed out that Gamestop.com have now updated their listing. Their bonus is different to the EBgames one and is a console sticker for your Xbox.

Personally I would go for the DVD... but some might find the sticker cool.

Q : Which would you prefer ? Sticker or DVD ?

Advent Blog Rises !

2005-04-05T04:27:00.000-07:00

Hi all ! Apologies for the cheezey post title. ;)

This is my blog dedicated to the upcoming game for Xbox and PC - Advent Rising.

Why would I bother setting up a blog for this game ? I'll let you in on a secret - this game is going to be BIG.

This game is going to be a classic (I hope) as it promises to deliver a truly epic story that will completely immerse the player through its gameplay. The futuristic premise looks a winner to me, and the look of some of the wide open environments is amazing.

The best example I can find to give you an idea of what I’m getting excited about is the trailer that has been around for a while. You can download it from the official site in Small, Medium and Large formats.

Through the coming weeks I’ll be posting from Copenhagen, Denmark on why I think this game will stand out from the crowd and could really deliver on its potential. There’s more to this game than nice artwork and trailers!