Adam's Venture: The Search for the Lost Garden

Adam's Venture: The Search for the Lost Garden is the first episode in a new episodic 3D platforming exploration adventure game with some great visuals and a interesting story. In the game you play Adam, a archeologist in search of the Garden of Eden and a typical arrogant adventurer. 

The game really has some of the spirit of a point and click adventure, with some logic and inventory puzzles that would fit well within such a game. But unfortunately these puzzles are one of the least appealing aspects of the entire game. The “logic” puzzles, for example, are for the most part just the same puzzle over and over again; Which is simply finding the correct order of three sentences, a very quick thing to try all solutions for and you are given no hint to any possible order other then what would make logical and grammatical sense, so you very well might have to do this. The second main problem I had with the game is the emotion, or lack thereof, of the characters. In this area I just felt their was something missing right from the start, and particularly hated the way the protagonist takes off his hat to brush his hair with his hand. And even at platforming it is not particularly good, as I found the characters movements to be somewhat jerky and unreliable when jumping. Not that all of this does makes a huge difference, it is still a great looking exploration game.

Another topic I want to cover is the plot. It is a moderately interesting and based on Christian myths. But one thing that I do not think the game is is non-violent or that it teaches you Christian values. Sure, their are a few specific examples you could use for both of these, but I would say taking the game as a whole it does not hold true to either of these ideals. For non-violence their is a scene in the game with a gun and the imminent threat of death because of this and multiple ways for both you and others to die in the game, some sounding very gruesome. I also don't think their is any substance to any Christian values claim, but don't particularly want do some exhaustive analysis. Another topic that counts in my negatives for this game is the advertizing, I found it to be particularly unethical in its misleading and downright lying advertizements (which is only compounded by its Christian nature in my opinion).

Now I have said a lot of bad things about this game, but I did enjoy it and while their is a huge amount of room for improvement it is still a good unique title that I wish to see more games from. And the only real problem I have with it is how it seems it is being advertized, which more likely then not is in the publishers area of control (not that that is not a reasonable excuse not to buy a game).