Platform: Steam
Genre: Puzzle
Completed: 12/07/2024
And we're back with a new round of games. It has taken me a while to get through my first one, not because the game was long. I originally had a week break, before committing to a new cycle, but at the tail end of that, I pinched a nerve in my neck which knocked out my shoulder for another week. Even now, at the time of this post, I was not back to full strength in my left arm. The perks of getting old!
I first came across Adam's Venture several years back and the title stuck with me. It was probably a demo or a downloaded copy, but back then I hadn't played enough for it to have a lasting impression. In fact, when I came across the title again on Steam, I wasn't entirely convinced it was the same game I played because I didn't recall it having "Chronicles" in the title.
But after playing a bit, enough of my memory was jogged to feel confident it was the same game.
As I played through the game, I found that it was mostly a puzzle game - almost like a watered-down Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider game. But I wanted to give it a chance. The opening premise seemed good - the search for the Garden of Eden. And being puzzle-focused didn't necessarily mean it was going to be bad.
Oh no. That was reserved for other reasons...
First, the characters were cliched and annoying. The voice acting was like watching a poorly made YouTube Korean-to-English cartoon. It was bad and cringe. But I put up with it. I even ignored the poor choice in the lead characters' names: ADAM Venture and EVElyn APPLEby. I mean... obviously, on a quest to find the Garden of Eden we needed those names.
Where it started to get disappointing, however, was the gameplay itself. A lot of the time, it felt like I would walk a bit (sometimes maybe do some basic platforming) and then solve a puzzle. If you were lucky you would get two puzzles to solve or need to find an easily located item to access the puzzle. But once you completed the puzzle/s you would have finished that section and moved into the next.
At first, it didn't seem like a big thing, because I thought that things were building up and these were just checkpoints, but before I knew it - six sections in, and the first episode was over.
But that's ok. Just because the first episode is over doesn't mean anything. Things are building up and... wait... we're no longer searching for the Garden of Eden? That's it? We unlocked it; greedy professor ran in; scary-looking smoke monster chased after him; we fled and that's it?! Maybe we return to it later? Nope. Episode two, while it does continue where Episode 1 left off, centers around Solomon's Temple. Episode 3, the final episode, is mostly a flashback, with the final section picking up where Episode 2 left off.
After I finished the game, I felt the whole thing was incomplete. Or rather, the entire story was just slapped together without real thought. The game never really explored the Garden of Eden; or explained what the smoke creature was. It never even explained why the Temple of Solomon. It just happened to be the center of focus for the second Episode. And then in Episode 3, the antagonist - who, if I heard that singular dialogue correctly, is not only in charge of the sinister organization but your uncle - plans to blow up Solomon's Temple to incite a religious war so that he could sell them arms and profit off of it.
I knew there were some games out there with bad storylines, but I was impressed by how much they dropped the ball with this one. They had the potential to probably come up with a decent plot, but they barely even had the skeleton of one! And the game felt incredibly rushed. If things had been fleshed out better, maybe the story could have been explored a whole better.
And it gets worse.
Adam Venture's Chronicles is actually 3 previous titles collected together. I discovered this when I completed Episode 1 and noticed that the achievement said I "completed the full game". Initially, I thought it must have been a mistake, but I decided to look into it.
What I learned was that originally, the three episodes were three separate games: Adam's Venture: The Search for the Lost Garden (2009); Adam's Venture: Solomon's Secret (2011), and Adam's Venture: Revelations (2012). No wonder I had my doubts about whether I was playing the same game because it was very likely I originally had Adam's Venture: The Search for the Lost Garden. Discovering this absolutely stunned me. I thought the 3 episodes together made for a short easy game. I could not believe that they actually sold each episode separately. I feel that if anyone ever bought them back when they came out, would have been scammed out of their money.
Oh, and there is more. Adam's Venture Chronicles came out in 2015 (for PC) and then a year later Adam's Venture Origins came out. I have this game also, having bought it at the same time I got Chronicles. I am not going to lie, I didn't really research the game and assumed it was a prequel. But no. Origins is a re-imagining of the three episodes.
I was originally planning to play Origins in my third go-around, but now I am not so sure. Maybe I still will, and then I can compare it to Chronicles. Enough time will have passed that it should feel like a fresh play-though. And hopefully, they will have re-imagined enough of the content to make it a little more interesting.
All in all, I was disappointed with this title. While I knew it would never contend with Indiana Jones; Tomb Raider or Uncharted, I had at least hoped it would offer some interesting enjoyment. And sadly it was lacking in both the interesting and the enjoyment.
At least it's one more title completed. Now onwards to B with BioShock Remastered.
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