I gave Adam’s Venture a try because I’m a fan of Indiana Jones and globetrotting adventure stories. Right out of the gate, I’ll admit this game is extremely lame, but it’s one of those weird beasts that is so good at being lame it starts to circle back around to being charming, in an ironic hipster way. I can’t tell if Adam’s Venture was an indie passion project, cheap cash-in to ride off Uncharted’s success, or an attempt at an educational Bible game.

First thing to start with is the gameplay. While the trailers make this game out as something in the vein of Uncharted, Emperor’s Tomb, or Tomb Raider, with a mix of platforming, puzzles, and combat, the reality isn’t so. This is more like a Frogware Sherlock Holmes game. No combat at all, just lots of puzzles. You travel to an “exotic” location and walk around solving puzzles to reach the lost treasure. There is a little platforming involving a grappling hook, but nothing too challenging. The controls are a little janky and very much indicative of the game’s budget, but as someone who has a soft spot for these types of games thanks to Sherlock Holmes, I wasn’t too offended by it.

What did aggravate me were the puzzles you had to solve. Some are logic puzzles that involve matching colors or connecting wires in the right order, nothing too heinous. The other half of the puzzles that make up the game are what I take offense to. These are math puzzles. I do not like having to use a calculator to complete my video game. For me, math puzzles seem like the laziest puzzles you can add to your game. That’s why they’re usually reserved for those cheap PC games shoved on the shelves next to the real games in the glass cases. Basically, unless you like math, have a guide handy to skip through this algebra homework.

The graphics in this game are about to be expected for a budget game from 2009. The game has this odd filter over everything that gives the world a greasy, overbloomed look, similar to Alekhine’s Gun. Still everything looks distinct enough to know what’s what’s. There’s also some music that isn’t too bad, but is probably from a stock adventure movie soundtracks store.

The story and characters of Adam’s Venture are what makes this game charmingly lame. The story is a nonsense mishmash of Indiana Jones, adventure tropes. Your main character, named Adam Venture, because why not, works with his father in locating the Garden of Eden. You find a lead in France, where a professor has unearthed an old Knights Templar tomb that has the clue to finding Eden. Turns out the professor works for an evil corporation that wants to find the Garden. This game is set in the 1920s, so just a little too early for Nazis to be the bad guys. After you find Eden, for some reason I can’t remember, you are put on the trail of Solomon’s Temple. The corporation seems to want to loot the Temple, which is under Temple Mount, but it’s revealed they actually don’t care about Solomon’s Temple. They are just digging under Temple Mount to plant enough explosives to destroy it and start a religious war. Again, this plot is just all over the place.

I also can’t tell if this game was made by a Christian studio trying to make a Bible game disguised as an adventure puzzle game. Bible games are usually poorly funded affairs with more passion than talent, so I could see this as being one that was able to get a little more funding and skill behind it. While Indy has gone after his fair share of Christian artifacts and there’s usually a scene explaining the history of said artifact, this game seems to really want to teach you about the Garden of Eden and Solomon’s Temple. It just has a much more religious bent than most globetrotting adventures. It never gets really preachy though, which makes me doubt if it is meant to be a Christian game or not.

Our “hero” Adam is very much trying to be an Indiana Jones or Nathan Drake type of devil-may-care, charismatic, adventure hero. And even with the voice actor giving his best, it doesn’t really work. His witty dialogue comes off a little dumb and too chauvinistic most the times. He’s not totally unlikable, because he’s just so lame. He’s like that puppy who just doesn’t know any better. Then there’s his poor love interest, Evelyn Appleby. Yes, Adam & EVElyn, and her last name has “apple” in it, because subtlety be damned. She is a professional, hard-nosed woman who doesn’t have time for Adam’s advances, at first. There’s times where they get in an argument where she has a legitimate concern, Adam says what amounts to “Come on, I’m a man, I got this.” and she replies with a “Well, okay. I suppose you’re right.”. Her deliveries of these lines sound like how I’d expect a character that’s a satirical parody of this cliche would deliver them. Again, a lot of their dialogue is very cringy, but it seems ineffectual enough to not be too ‘problematic’.

All in all, I’ve bought candy bars that cost more than this game. It’s a nonsensical story with terribly written characters and puzzles that range from homework to okay. It doesn’t take up too much time, and I was able to platinum this game, not exactly a bragging right though. This is not a good game, but it may be a “good bad” game for the right crowd, probably the Mystery of the Druids crowd.