When you see the likes of Lara Croft and Nathan Drake embarking on grand adventures, putting their life on the line and taking out hundreds of enemies along the way, you can’t help but feel inferior when playing as Adam Venture. In fact, you can’t help but hate Adam Venture with every word that comes out of his smug-ass face. You don’t kill anyone in Adam’s Venture Origins and although it has some fun puzzles, it ultimately doesn’t feel like a fun adventure.
Out now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC, Adam’s Venture Origins is a remaster of an episodic adventure game that came out in 2009. This package brings the entire game together with better visuals and smoother experience. The result is a game that doesn’t feel quite up to snuff when you compare it against other adventure games out there in the market.
In the game you play as Adam Venture, an adventurer trying to uncover the secrets of the Garden of Eden and stop the evil Clairvaux Company. While this makes him sound like the good guy, he’s just an unlikable jackass that seemingly doesn’t give a shit about anything. Not only that but he’s pretty damn sexist too, treating his father’s assistant like a weak frame that’s meant to look pretty. Sure the game is set in the 1920’s and this may have been the general thoughts on the situation but the writing isn’t particularly strong either making the shtick even worse.
The gameplay and puzzles themselves though are actually rather fun. Some of them become really intricate and interesting but always have logical conclusions. You’ll have enough at your disposal to figure it out and when things click, it really does feel good. Some puzzles are simple and require very little effort but the ones that cause the real challenge never felt that frustrating because it was relatively easy to understand what was asked of you.
The promise of “next-gen visuals” doesn’t quite fulfil that promise. While there are many areas you visit over the course of the game, some of them look completely bland and lifeless. Sure there has been some texture work but its overall presentation is still not up to snuff compared to what you would see on this generation of consoles. Some areas though feature some nice little touches that just bring so much more to the game but none of it will grab your attention for very long. Animations also make the game look not of this generation. They’re janky and just don’t look very good. When characters are engaged in dialogue, it looks bad. The way the eyes moves as well as the mouth when they talk almost falls into nightmare fuel category.
Adam’s Venture Origins is such a hit and miss game but mostly falls on the miss side. The puzzles are genuinely really fun and are always a treat to discover a new one. The only problem though is that almost every other aspect of the game diminishes all the fun. The main character is an absolute jerk too meaning you might not want to care about the story after just a little while.
One venture not worth taking 2/5.
★★☆☆☆
Jason Redmond
Adam’s Venture Origins at CeX
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