Deadfall Adventures Review (PC)

fair
key review info
  • Game: Deadfall Adventures
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: Yes  
  • Reviewed on:
Deadfall Adventures review on PC

In terms of explorers and adventurers, Allan Quatermain from H. Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines is the ancestor of many other, more renown heroes like Indiana Jones, Nathan Drake, or Lara Croft.

In Deadfall Adventures, players take control of his great grandson, James Lee Quatermain, who is enlisted to foil the plans of Nazi Germany by exploring ancient tombs filled with enemies, monsters, and plenty of puzzles.

With the promise of delivering a great action adventure experience that emphasizes not just first-person shooting but also puzzle solving and exploration, Deadfall Adventures seems like a great experience.

Does it deliver or should James Lee Quatermain leave the adventuring to other, more capable heroes?

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Meet James Lee Quatermain ...
... a man of many talents

While Allan Quatermain was a pretty original hero, his great grandson, unfortunately, isn't, as in Deadfall Adventures James Lee is nothing short of an Indiana Jones wannabe. While he doesn't use the traditional whip and hat combo, he is full of one-liners, innuendos concerning his female employer, and taunts for his enemies.

The adventures Quatermain and his allies go through are a mixed bag, as they take players from traditional settings, like Egypt, to some areas that are slightly more original, like Guatemala.

The plot is pretty straightforward, as both Quatermain and his enemies are after the Heart of Atlantis, an ancient artifact of great power. Like any great treasure, finding it involves a lot of travel and plenty of puzzles, not to mention a variety of dangers.

In terms of actual gameplay, Deadfall Adventures is an action adventure title that relies on shooting from a first-person perspective, not the traditional third-person one. This choice is a bit intriguing, but it makes solving puzzles or exploration rather difficult.

Throw in the fact that the shooting is unreliable, the weapons feel mostly the same, and that enemies can take a lot of body shots before they're taken down, and the many firefights become a tedious affair. Things get a bit more exciting when monsters intervene, from mummies, to mutants, and more.

In terms of puzzles, the game certainly has its fair share of challenges. These mostly rely on interacting with ancient traps but, fortunately for James Lee, his great grandfather left him a trusty notebook detailing the solutions, or at least hints to all of them.

Unfortunately, their difficulty varies greatly and so does the help you get from the notebook. While in some cases the solution is rather obvious and hinted at, in other segments you can't even tell what the game wants you to do.

Like any self-respecting action adventure game, Deadfall's environments, while rather linear, are filled with different hidden treasures, which you can find using your great grandfather's compass. Unfortunately, these treasures are tied directly to the skill progression system, meaning you must find them should you want to upgrade your health stats, your stamina, or even the power of your flashlight (yes, really).

The character animation is also a troublesome aspect as, while the heroes look pretty good, the actual movements aren't life-like at all, particularly when it comes to their mouths during dialog scenes. The scripting is problematic, as AI-controlled allies will sometimes teleport to your location after a firefight ends.

Besides the single-player campaign, Deadfall Adventures also packs in both a competitive and a cooperative multiplayer mode.

The competitive experience includes all sorts of different game types, from regular Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch, to more intriguing ones like Capture the Artifact, Treasure Hunt, or Lone Wolf. All these modes are relatively fun, but the shooting is still wonky, so your experience won't be that impressive.

The cooperative mode is a classic Survival experience that pits up to four players against waves of special enemies, including different monsters. Supply drops appear after a time and you can certainly play this experience alone on one of the three difficulty modes. Unfortunately, they're quite tough and, once again, the dodgy shooting makes the whole experience a letdown.

In terms of visuals, Deadfall Adventures looks pretty good overall, using bright colors and decent textures, but the fact that it's powered by the Unreal Engine means it suffers from texture pop-in and a few other glitches.

Voice acting is a bit lifeless, while the soundtrack tries to recreate famous portions from movies and other action adventure games to some success.

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Explore different locations ...
... and solve puzzles

Conclusion

Deadfall Adventures is an ambitious game that, unfortunately, disappoints through its wonky shooting, its hit and miss puzzles, and the rough character animations. While it could've been a really impressive experience, it ends up being a lackluster one. It does offer quite a bit of content to go through, but a lot of work is needed to make the shooting decent enough.

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story 7
gameplay 6
concept 7
graphics 7
audio 7
multiplayer 6
final rating 6.5
Editor's review
fair