The Case

Deadfall Adventures takes us back to the old days where the word “adventure” stirred up images of Pith helmets and archaeologists visiting far reaches of the Earth, exploring the remnants of a civilization long before ours. Coming to us from The Farm 51, the developers behind the very interesting Necrovision and the less-than-stellar Painkiller remake Hell and Damnation, will Deadfall Adventures tickle our lust for adventure or make us just want to cancel the flight and stay at home?

The Trial

In Deadfall Adventures, you play as freelance adventurer-for-hire Indiana Jo- I mean James Lee Quatermain, currently living off his grandfather’s - famed adventurer Allan Quatermain - name. During Allan’s time as a traveller, he uncovered things so amazing that people just thought he was insane, including James. However, when he’s hired by American agent and former colleague Jennifer Goodwin, he will uncover the ruins of an ancient civilization… so on and so forth. You know the drill. Ancient artifacts that, when put together grants the user a mythical power, played here by the “Heart of Atlantis” and you must retrieve all the pieces before the bad guys - here played by the Nazis and at one point the Russians - get a hold of it. The story is so ridiculously played out that I can promise you, without a shadow of doubt, everything you expect to happen will happen. No surprises, no unexpected plot twists, everything follows the standard formula of the most generic adventure games.

The characters are equally generic and it’s reflected in the voice acting. The characters are at times devoid of any emotion, as if the voice actors just wanted to get the recording over with. James, the “realistic” hard-boiled gun-for-hire who doesn't really care about anything, gradually has a change of heart throughout the game. Jen, the sidekick/love interest, seems to know everything and just wants to prove herself to James. You will be hearing her spout “Still think I’m a rookie, Quatermain?” so many times that you wish your enemies would just kill her off once and for all. Instead, she keeps getting captured by them, which forces James to lower his weapon and do something to rescue her, or get knocked out by an enemy. Then, there’s the Nazi doctor who wants to control the power of the artifact. Shocking, isn’t it?

The gameplay is pretty formulaic as well. Just think Call of Duty, but every so often you stop and do a puzzle designed for a third-grader. Well, maybe Call of Duty isn't very accurate. It’s more trying to be Call of Duty, but falling at the first hurdle. The guns all feel very weak, which they are. Not only are enemies bullet sponges to the point where you are lucky if two shotgun blasts to the face at point blank range is enough to kill an enemy, but the weapons also suffer from this ridiculous spread. The rifles are basically automatic shotguns. On the topic of shotguns, the ones in Deadfall Adventures are bad. Really bad. You are better with just using your pistols at close range. Don't worry though, you have regenerating health that makes it so when you get hit, it looks like you have ketchup on your screen and can take plenty of damage, so most fights are cakewalks.

There’s an upgrade system that rewards you for finding treasures, but it’s pretty poorly executed. Your upgrades are far and few between because each upgrade requires a ridiculous amount of treasures to unlock. If they had just kept the treasures being arbitrary collectables, it wouldn't be very different, because the upgrades don't really do anything special. You know, increase health, increase stamina, decrease recoil, etc. There are two upgrades that reduce the horrible spread, but they aren't worth the effort either.

As for finding the treasures, you might think that exploration sounds like fun, but Deadfall manages to prove you wrong by giving you a compass that points you in the direction of the treasure, taking the exploration out of this game about exploration. The puzzles aren't great either. The majority of the time, it’s as simple as “pull out notebook, match the symbols”. It’s even worse when it’s a puzzle you have to complete to continue the story, because the support characters will loudly vocalize how to solve it every 5 seconds. Yes, I know that rope doesn't look very strong. What I’m trying to figure out is how to cut it, because shooting it doesn't seem to be doing anything - and I don't see anything that could cut it! Though, I will give credit where credit is due, there are some puzzles that are interesting and fun to solve - but only about three.

The multiplayer isn’t anything special either. It’s one of those deals where the multiplayer is halfheartedly added after the fact. There’s a cooperative survival mode where you fight waves of enemies and last as long as you can. You are given limited ammo in an attempt to encourage the use of traps to your advantage, but since your melee attack is a one-hit KO, you really don’t have to. There’s also a versus mode that is essentially Call of Duty with traps. It’s fun for about five minutes before you’ll start getting bored.

The only thing that really stands out about Deadfall Adventures is how functional it manages to be. It’s almost bug-free, it controls like it should, and looks nice. Not jaw-droppingly amazing, but still adequate. The environments change almost every five minutes, so the levels never really feel same. The music is fitting and everything sounds like it should.

From a technical standpoint, it’s pretty good aside from the AI, which isn't outright horrible, but still gets stuck running at walls and has a tendency to repeat its lines of dialogue way too often. The blood effects are completely horrible and their neon-ketchup appearance looks more suited to a cel-shaded game based on a comic book. This may sound like a minor nitpick, but with the amount of shooting you’ll be doing, it becomes really annoying really fast. Unfortunately, while the game might have good glue, it still holds together one of the most tired experiences you could think of.

The Verdict

All in all, Deadfall Adventures is just boring. Nothing is inherently terrible. It’s functional, runs well, and has varied and fairly nice environments. It may not be the “Wow, that was bad” kind of bad. It’s the kind of bad game that you play through once and forget about the next day. The kind of bad that could be passed off as satire. There’s a reason these adventure type media died out, and that is because people simply got bored with them. That isn’t to say that it can't be done in a new, exciting way. Just that it hasn’t - in a long time.

Case Review