Advent Rising

I can't understand, unfortunately, how this Game has been rated so positively. I think it's grots-bad. Why? Because Opponents just spawn like that, mostly just behind the Character. It is impossible to feel about the current Fighting. You look over a slightly larger, extensive Area. No Opponent can be seen, so you run off. Suddenly there is an Opponent behind the Character, you reel. Now you turn around again and sware-there are another 5 Opponents right in front of the Character. They could not have got so close in the short Time had they come to the Area far outside. Super Spwan Technique! (Irony!) Another Example? Behind a fallen LWK are 2 Enemies. An Estimated total of 4 or 5 Opponents would have Space behind this TRUCK. So you turn the two Opponents around and all of a sudden 25 (!!) more Enemies all come out from behind this TRUCK. So as the TRUCK lay around in the Area it would have been impossible to let a total of 27 Opponents take Cover behind the TRUCK. You can only play this Game if you put absolute Zero emphasis on being Close to Reality, and just want to baller like stupid. For my Part, I don't like something like This (unless Serious Sam ^ ^). That's why I rate this Game as bad and of course I don't give a Buy Recommendation! EDT: I still played it a little further, then got the shield ability at some point. Here it is noticeable that Enemies can shoot through the Shield, push their Weapons through the Shield, even jump through the shield. So where is the Benefit of the Shield? Really a Garbage game!

EDIT: Wanted to revisit this review and give it a bit more thought.
Kind of a passive-agressive review since I would recommend this game and not recommend it at the same time!

This was such an ambitious game back in the day: gunplay, psychic powers, epic story, huge universe. Set-up was there, delivery kinda failed.

Let's start with the story: Orson Scott-Card (Author of Ender's Game and other highly-reviewed sci-fi novels) was attached to the script. And it's a good story of survival against a terrifying alien armada that is hellbent on destroying everything human has touched. The characters were written wholesomely so some twists and turns were exciting to watch. Universe is set up great, alien races are distinct and distinguishable. But then again it's nothing that new (especially now). We've seen it already before so the ball was in the gameplay court. Aaaaand...

Gameplay is okay. You've got the basic gunplay (futuristic guns, pew-pew) but the focus is on the psychic abilities that the main hero possesses. And they are quite something: you've got teleports, telekinesis shennanigans, some aoe bombs. While they're all great, most of the time you utilize them only to kill another bunch of enemies. It's a bit repetitive. Which is why the gameplay is simply okay.

Music is great, it's no joke they hired an orchestra to deliver some epic tunes to accompany you during the whole story. The acting doesn't let up as well, there are some seasoned VAs that worked on this project.

So what went wrong? Well, it was the first game of the company that in the past made art covers for games. So the number of bugs, freezes, framedrops and crashes for Xbox release was overwhelming enough to generate some bad reviews and hype. Later when they released Windows version it became better and more manageable but the damage was done.

I have very warm memories of it but I won't play this game. It didn't age well and a bit of a cliffhanger ending doesn't make its case for replayability.

I think with more polish Advent Rising could have become Mass Effect, Halo or other game universe set in space with different races.

Unfortunately, it's a hidden cracked gem of old that most of people would likely skip.