Advent Rising $37.99

Ruined · 05-31-2005, 01:15 PM

edit: game sucks, do not buy it

Bananaslug79 · 05-31-2005, 04:38 PM

Wow, nice find Ruined. I have to admit the trailer excited me having no knowledge of the game. I played "The Dig" a long time ago and loved it; never finished the damn thing (hard game with a great storyline and atmosphere).

I love Outpost.com.

Ruined · 06-02-2005, 03:26 AM

I'd cancel the order if you still can, it looks like the devs blew it - or at least the game isn't worth more than $20.

Reaver · 06-02-2005, 04:34 AM

I've read that the game is good aside from some serious slowdown in the graphics. I'll check into it when it hits $30.

Ruined · 06-02-2005, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reaver

I've read that the game is good aside from some serious slowdown in the graphics. I'll check into it when it hits $30.

More than just slowdown. Apparently mid level crashes, event triggers not going off right so you have to restart the mission, music cutting out, etc, add to the fun. And apparently near the middle of the game the slowdown becomes horrendous.

Too bad, Majesco was on a serious roll there.

Reaver · 06-02-2005, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruined

More than just slowdown. Apparently mid level crashes, event triggers not going off right so you have to restart the mission, music cutting out, etc, add to the fun. And apparently near the middle of the game the slowdown becomes horrendous.

Too bad, Majesco was on a serious roll there.

Fo' true?! Damn....

Ruined · 06-02-2005, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reaver

Fo' true?! Damn....

Yeh, this is one of those $10 if you want to play a game with a cool story despite tons of technical flaws games at best.

Bananaslug79 · 06-02-2005, 04:54 PM

Ruined, have you actually played the game or are these claims from a review?

It's too bad, the game looked really intriguing.

Ruined · 06-02-2005, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bananaslug79

Ruined, have you actually played the game or are these claims from a review?

It's too bad, the game looked really intriguing.

tons of negative professional and consumer reviews all say that same thing, pretty clear the game has major technical flaws. Still might be fun, but not worth $38 IMO.

Ruined · 06-03-2005, 12:54 AM

some more info, here is a teamxbox review of the retail disc, apparently the review copies that went out had more bugs:

http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/944/Advent-Rising/p1/

Apparently the retail copy is still filled with bugs and slowdowns, just not as much as the review copies.

Still might be worth picking up once it hits $20

Reaver · 06-03-2005, 02:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruined

Still might be worth picking up once it hits $20

Yeah, sounds about right. Here's hoping the next one, should there be a next one, gets more time and effort put into making it flawless.

Ruined · 06-03-2005, 05:21 PM

Heh, pretty funny. This is some of the stuff wrong with it:

Graphical issues - choppy framerates, especially during and after cinemas, when a lot of stuff is going on in the screen, and sometimes randomly for no seeming reason.

Lockups - game seems to lock up 1-2 times for most who have played it through

Geometry problems - player getting stuck in walls (requires game load of last checkpoint), player falling through geometry, enemies getting stuck in walls, enemies going through walls

Event issues - some scripted events do not trigger properly randomly (requires game load of last checkpoint)

Sound issues - music cuts out randomly, sound skips/stutters at times

Environmental problems - some items such as elevators do not always work properly (requires game load of last checkpoint)

***

I have to wonder, with all of these problems, why didn't they spend the money they spent advertising the game in front of Star Wars and put some of it towards fixing this laundry list of glitches? And they have the nerve to charge $50 for it? Wow.

Reaver · 06-04-2005, 01:45 AM

There really is no excuse for a game to launch with this laundry list of problems. Really. One or two, maybe, but all that? Not on your life. Especially with it being such a high profile title. They damn well should have known better. I won't buy it and reward them for their lack of effort or concern.

Ruined · 06-04-2005, 02:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reaver

There really is no excuse for a game to launch with this laundry list of problems. Really. One or two, maybe, but all that? Not on your life. Especially with it being such a high profile title. They damn well should have known better. I won't buy it and reward them for their lack of effort or concern.

After reading some of the forums, I think I have solved the framerate issue. It seems those with 128mb RAM XBOXes (i.e. modded or Debug Kits) can play the game with a perfectly fine framerate.

Therefore, I postulate that GlyphX optimized the game for a 128mb debug kit instead of a 64mb retail XBOX not realizing the hardware difference!

A few things to consider:

* The XBOX debug kit has 128mb of RAM. It is possible they did not fully test the game on retail (64mb) XBOXes, optimizing and thinking all ran great on the 128mb debug kits. Remember, this is the first game GlyphX has made a game for the XBOX, they might have thought the debug kit was the same specs as the retail XBOX.

* If this is the case, that the game was optimized for 128mb of RAM, the problem is not easily fixable at this stage in the game, though it is fixable to some extent. The most feasible option I can think of is making the way assets load more dynamically to minimize memory usage, however this would require a lot of work. Prior to the game being released, they could have reduced the filesize of textures or split up maps in order to fit everything into 64mb, but this would be too big of a download for a patch. Still, more dynamically loading assests is possible and would be the primary way to fix this problem since it would be a small patch.

* Since the XBOX uses the Windows kernel and has a hard drive, it is likely that virtual memory is available to games. With this the case, if the game is programmed to use say, 100mb of memory, only 64mb of that will be physical RAM, while the rest will be on a swapfile on the HD. If this is the case, the reason some may see lots of slowdown while others see only some may be due to the speeds of the individual hard drives in each XBOX (they are different). Also, if one XBOX's hard drive is more fragmented than another, this could also lead to worse performance with virtual memory. This would also explain why the levels slow down at the beginning, because it is copying the stuff that is supposed to go into the 128mb of RAM that XBOX does not have onto the hard drive's much slower virtual memory instead.

Sounds like a pretty big goof up but I would not be at all surprised considering how the game turned out.

05-31-2005, 01:15 PM	#1 (permalink)
Ruined It's Good to Play Together Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: NJ, USA	Advent Rising $37.99 shipped edit: game sucks, do not buy it __________________ For every shadow, no matter how deep, is threatened by morning light. Last edited by Ruined : 06-02-2005 at 04:07 AM.

05-31-2005, 04:38 PM	#2 (permalink)
Bananaslug79 Actor Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: The Land of Mary	Wow, nice find Ruined. I have to admit the trailer excited me having no knowledge of the game. I played "The Dig" a long time ago and loved it; never finished the damn thing (hard game with a great storyline and atmosphere). I love Outpost.com. __________________ -Spoon!

06-02-2005, 03:26 AM	#3 (permalink)
Ruined It's Good to Play Together Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: NJ, USA	I'd cancel the order if you still can, it looks like the devs blew it - or at least the game isn't worth more than $20. __________________ For every shadow, no matter how deep, is threatened by morning light.

06-02-2005, 04:34 AM	#4 (permalink)
Reaver Metrosexual in Training Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Beyond the outer rim...	I've read that the game is good aside from some serious slowdown in the graphics. I'll check into it when it hits $30. __________________ My personal website (get updates on my novel) The Dead Robots' Society (a podcast I co-host with other writers on writing)

06-02-2005, 04:54 PM	#8 (permalink)
Bananaslug79 Actor Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: The Land of Mary	Ruined, have you actually played the game or are these claims from a review? It's too bad, the game looked really intriguing. __________________ -Spoon!

06-03-2005, 12:54 AM	#10 (permalink)
Ruined It's Good to Play Together Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: NJ, USA	some more info, here is a teamxbox review of the retail disc, apparently the review copies that went out had more bugs: http://reviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/944/Advent-Rising/p1/ Apparently the retail copy is still filled with bugs and slowdowns, just not as much as the review copies. Still might be worth picking up once it hits $20 __________________ For every shadow, no matter how deep, is threatened by morning light.

06-03-2005, 05:21 PM	#12 (permalink)
Ruined It's Good to Play Together Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: NJ, USA	Heh, pretty funny. This is some of the stuff wrong with it: Graphical issues - choppy framerates, especially during and after cinemas, when a lot of stuff is going on in the screen, and sometimes randomly for no seeming reason. Lockups - game seems to lock up 1-2 times for most who have played it through Geometry problems - player getting stuck in walls (requires game load of last checkpoint), player falling through geometry, enemies getting stuck in walls, enemies going through walls Event issues - some scripted events do not trigger properly randomly (requires game load of last checkpoint) Sound issues - music cuts out randomly, sound skips/stutters at times Environmental problems - some items such as elevators do not always work properly (requires game load of last checkpoint) *** I have to wonder, with all of these problems, why didn't they spend the money they spent advertising the game in front of Star Wars and put some of it towards fixing this laundry list of glitches? And they have the nerve to charge $50 for it? Wow. __________________ For every shadow, no matter how deep, is threatened by morning light. Last edited by Ruined : 06-03-2005 at 05:43 PM.

06-04-2005, 01:45 AM	#13 (permalink)
Reaver Metrosexual in Training Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Beyond the outer rim...	There really is no excuse for a game to launch with this laundry list of problems. Really. One or two, maybe, but all that? Not on your life. Especially with it being such a high profile title. They damn well should have known better. I won't buy it and reward them for their lack of effort or concern. __________________ My personal website (get updates on my novel) The Dead Robots' Society (a podcast I co-host with other writers on writing)

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