Advent Rising is a prophetic title. Truly this is the advent of something singular. This is an action adventure set to the backdrop of a rich universe and powerful story, rather than a typical title of this genre which props up an ancillary story that weakly assists in driving the action.

Written, directed and produced as a movie, Advent Rising truly feels like a cinematic experience, and every great movie has to start with an outstanding screenplay. In Advent Rising we have one of the most adept and skillful writes of our time, Orson Scott Card. Truly an icon in Science Fiction, Card has also written plays, poetry, fiction in multiple genres, non-fiction and now, screenplays. Best known for the Ender series of science fiction novels, Card has won multiple Hugo, Nebula and other awards. Truly this is a gifted storyteller.

And those gifts shine in Advent Rising.

For the first time I truly felt like the story was not only integral to the game, but actually pushed the action along. The characters are rich, deep and unique. The setting is well structured and the personal and political environments are rational, thought provoking and best of all, believable. This isn’t some lame tent pole prose about space marines on the moon diving into the seventh level of hell. These characters are real characters, with personalities, sarcasm, witty dialog and faces (sorry Master Chief).

Even the credits read like a movie one-sheet with acknowledgements for Director, Screenplay, Producers, Technical Director, Lighting etc. Throw in a gaffer, key grip and plug for a catering company and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

The structure of the gameplay follows the movie format. First, as in most games, you are introduced to the characters and setting through a high quality cinematic. Following every cinematic you will need to take active control and negotiate a task or series of tasks and objectives. During the active control sequences the game uses a mostly standard, first person shooter style, keyboard and mouse control system. I say mostly standard because there are some very obvious, and for a slacker like me, somewhat awkward key sequences that are unique to Advent Rising. For instance, you can equip and use a weapon in each hand. Oddly enough, the combat combination of H.A.Z.E. blaster and Talmage rocket launcher is pretty effective. Yes, the rocket launcher has limited ammo and a long reload time. But when pushing through a tunnel or hallway packed with Seekers, those rockets can really do some damage. The problem is trying to find ammo. I often could not maintain any serious amount of ammo and was constantly running out of rockets. So I settled for the H.A.Z.E. blaster from the human side and picked up the Seeker G’Kol Acolyte. The Acolyte is the slower of the two, but both are the primary weapon of each army which makes it fairly easy to get and maintain a decent amount of ammunition.

Ammunition management is important. Unlike most shooter style action games, you cannot have a stockpile of weapons in Advent Rising. So, while you can carry a weapon in each hand, those are the only two weapons you can carry at all (aside from grenades). Sure you can change weapons at any time by just running over the weapon of a fallen enemy or ally, but running out of slugs in a major firefight is a quick way to get a checkpoint reset. To pickup and swap out weapons you simply run over them like you would an ammo pack and select either the E key to load that weapon into your left hand or the Q key to load a weapon into your right hand. The R key forces a reload on both weapons and the G keys throws a grenade. Melee and the use of a melee weapon is executed with the F key or the Shift + Spacebar combo which executes a special melee attack. On top of all that, you have to remember that each weapon has an associated weapon skill. As your skill improves with each weapon, you become far more effective at utilizing the unique capabilities of that weapon. Once you reach the third mastery level with any weapon, you can begin using alternate attack modes. Enabling the alternate modes is as simple as pressing the number 1 for your left hand and 2 for the right hand. The mastery levels are important because whenever you pick up one weapon, you will drop the one you currently are holding in the selected hand.

Did you get all that? It’s not that there are so many keys, just that everything feels a bit…off for me. Then again, I’m not a heavy FPS player either so it may just feel awkward because of my lack of experience.

Now here’s the good stuff! “Flick-Targeting” is an awesome technology that almost allows even the lamest posers (such as myself) to at least attempt to keep up with the most savage action. Here’s how it works, simply “flick” the mouse wheel up to target enemies on the left and “flick” the mouse wheel down to target enemies on the right. Once an enemy is locked you continue to track them until you “flick” to a new target, cancel the target or until the target is dead or destroyed. This is hugely beneficial because you can now keep moving, jumping, crouching and strafing without having to manually track the target.

The action is fast and furious, the seekers and their pets move fast. Really, really fast. No, seriously. The three legged meth-heads run like they are on fire, make lightning fast leaps that would make even the most steroid addled Olympic Long Jumper blush, and bounce off the walls like a psychotic super-ball. An ugly psychotic super-ball. Jokers like me would be pushed to the limit just trying to keep the crosshairs lined up on just one of these toads, let alone a dozen or more as they come jumping over balconies, walkways and overpasses. “Flick-Targeting” is not just a sweet feature, it is an absolute necessity. There is no way you can target, track and evaluate the enemy when they are coming at you so fast. Hell, when your objective is to hold an elevator platform and allow the injured to escape, you are likely to be besieged on all sides and only care about holding down the triggers. Jam those triggers down and start spinning, using “Flick-Targeting” to rapidly switch enemies.

To augment the intense combat, the players can smack the T key and toggle between first person and third person views. If you’re a heavy FPS gamer you will likely benefit greatly from the first person view and even those who rarely partake in shooters will find great benefit from the first person view in particular situations such as when driving Scythe or manning an anti-aircraft turret (hint: the AA guns can hit things other than aircraft). It is important to keep in mind that not all of your powers will operate in the first person mode. The only one I know for certain requires the third person mode is the Lift Power?

I did mention powers didn’t I?