I just finished the first episode of
Adam's Venture (thanks to GATS for gifting it to me). I thought I'd post my expanded Steam review here since I know some people were asking about it and I was curious myself. Links are not really spoilers but show the embarrassing puzzles that make up the core of the game:
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Adam's Venture is a 3rd person 3D
action puzzle adventure where you, your girlfriend and a famous professor have set up base camp at what you believe to be the gate to the Garden of Eden. Your job in this first episode is navigating the desert ruins below, solving puzzles along the way for the fragments needed to unlock the gate. The game clocks in at just over 2 hours, involves no combat & very little platforming.
This episode was an utter disappointment. The first thing you'll notice is movement & camera often work against each other, although you'll quickly adapt. The real letdown is the core content: childlike puzzles & linear exploration. Literally half the puzzles in the game
are posts containing three phrases which you must rotate into order, and are insulting to the intelligence of anyone capable of reading. A slightly less offensive puzzle repeated throughout the game is a
3x3 grid of roman numerals where being able to add to X is vital. Only two original and interesting puzzles exist in the entire game, but are not enough to salvage it. Considering the genre and that the game makes no positive use of the 3d environment for exploration, puzzle or platforming purposes, it would have been better off as a mediocre point and click.
"Secrets" (hidden in plain sight) in the game come in the form of words you're supposed to input on the official site for bonus content; (un)fortunately, I only saw a place to input for episode two. Graphics are a mixed bag; I couldn't force the jaggies out no matter how I tried (Nvidia) and there were some
extreme brights and pixel-rock-in-your-face moments. VA & writing were just as mixed with the professor's hollering and the game's attempt at humor making me cringe on a regular basis. Something positive: the limited soundtrack is surprisingly good and is reminiscent of something Medwyn Goodall would compose.
But this is the end of the 'venture for me. I'd probably recommend it to Joe, but expect most others would only find disappointment.
