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Adam Venture is back exploring caverns and solving puzzles in the newest episode from Vertigo Games.
Statistics
Game Title: Adam's Venture Episode 2: Solomon's Secret
Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
Developer: Vertigo Games
Systems: Windows PC
Players: 1 (Story Mode)
Other Features: None
Story
After the earth-shattering events in Eden's caverns, Adam and Evelyn find themselves in a Clairvaux aircraft with a whole lot of explaining to do. Soon, events take a dramatic turn for the worse, and once again Adam finds himself holding the faith of the world in his hands.
And this time, in more ways than he could ever imagine...
Gameplay
When I played the first episode I was not sure what to expect. There is some action-based segments to the game but Vertigo Games is definitely targeting the "adventure" segment. It's not just the "non-violent gameplay" as they advertise it. While some sections have you hiding from guards and jumping/climbing the bulk of the gameplay involves solving puzzles. Episodic games tend to be of this genre. For example, you have Sam and Max and the Monkey Island titles.
In the first epsisode the the puzzles and traps were always symbolic, tying into a Bible verse given to you by these statues with rotating discs. This could potentially make the episode difficult if you were not already familar with the Bible stories. But in this episode most of the puzzles are math-based or object puzzles. As far as I can recall the only two puzzles related to the Bible involved Solomon's lineage and the story where the king's judgment threatened to cut a baby in two. Of course, the story itself makes reference to aspects of Solomon's life.
Like in the first episode, there are hidden treatures scattered about in tucked away areas. I criticized the first episode because the treasures provided no benefit. They might have read that review since this episode now provides a series of codes that will unlock bonus content on their website.
In my review for the first episode I said, "Considering this game uses Unreal Engine 3.0 I was surprised to find out there was not any built-in joystick support." Well, they fixed that in the second episode. The keyboard-only-based controls are still available as standard but if you plug in a Wired XBox 360 Controller for Windows it'll be automatically detected. This improved the fun factor in my opinion since this style of adventure gameplay is not really suited to a keyboard. The only critique I have left is that this feature was never advertised so many gamers may miss out.
Presentation
Graphics and sound on this game are very good, far better than most casual games being released in episodic form. This is largely due to this being the only episodic series, that I'm aware of, to use Unreal Engine 3.0. When I reviewed the first episode I had not upgraded my home PC in years. Well, since then I went with an AMD quad core and a HIS Radeon HD 5700 series. So the graphics were brilliant and smooth the whole way throughout.
The artists did a good job on the first episode. Well, if anything the second episode just improves on this foundation.
The pacing and the cinematography of the storytelling has improved greatly from the first episode. Cornball banter abounds as usual, but it's purposeful so if you're into that type of dialogue you might find it humorous. The cutscenes are spread evenly though the game as to keep the story moving.
Once again, the character animations do their service but are not great, with the faces mostly expressionless. The voice acting for the primary characters has improved so the voice actors do not sound like they're reading their lines. Minor characters still have this issue, though
In the first episode the professor and Evelyn seemed to be more props, used only as a foil for generating conversation from Adam. This time around the characters were fleshed out more, with Evelyn being more interesting and a conspiracy from the enemies.There's even the potential for a budding romance...if that ever gets through Adam's thick cap!
The Conclusion
This is what I said in the preview I wrote last week. At that point I had only finished the opening section of the game.
"As a hardcore gamer the only knock I have against the game so far is the gameplay...it's far too simplistic! That was the primary complaint I had with the first game. The puzzles were interesting but the overall difficulty was so low that it made the game feel like a training area that many games use to introduce gameplay concepts. The first section at the airport used colors to highlight objectives. For example, the pipes were red and items of interest had glowing green sparks. They even used animated textures to point out what to do at certain points. It's like the developers took extra effort to hold your hand the whole way through.
So far the episode is entertaining but I'm not sure what target demographic Iceberg Interactivve is aiming for. Many PC gamers with the hardware to run an Unreal 3 powered game tend to be hardcore gamers. I suppose the genre should be considered akin to puzzle/adventure games like Myst. But those titles tend to have some stumpers that take quite a bit of thinking. The problem is that since this game is broken up into episodes I feel that the diffulty of the second episode should be significantly higher than the first."
Well, I have to take most of that back. This episode answered all of the major criticisms I had with the first. On top of that I understand why the first section was designed as it was. The first section really is a training area to teach the player the basic controls before getting into the meat of the gameplay. After that the handholding disappears and they ramped up the complexity of the adventuring and the puzzles.
Really, at this point all I can do is repeat the end from my first review. They've definitely improved upon the series but... "As a standalone title the one fallback is that this game is a one-player game only with no online content or no unlockable story extras like extra stages or extra weapons. Instead, it is just a static one-player story game with a lot of depth but once you beat it, you either shelf the game in your collection, trade it in for credit, or replay the same story."
The only other major knock I can make is that the first episode inherently imparted some moral messages while this episode does not. This episode discussed aspects of Solomon's life but really there was not a moral point being made. It cannot be construed as a parable even. Instead, the focus is on building up the conspiracy surrounding Clairveaux. Not a bad thing per see, but this is quite a shame considering that Solomon's writings cover many varied topics and that both goals could have been met.
In any case, a must-buy if you like a good story or you're an adventure gamer looking for a good game to play on their own.
Buy the Game from the ICE Store!
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