Deadfall Adventures

Story:

Deadfall Adventures is loosely tied into the series of books about the adventures of Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard.

If you ever heard of the 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines or seen one of the movie adaptations, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, I implore you to check them out.

Allan Quatermain was an English professional big game hunter and adventurer. We're playing as James Lee Quatermain the great-grandson of Allan. He's an adventurer too and maybe a big game hunter, but instead of being English, he's American.

In the year 1938, he's approached by Professor Henry Jacobs and agent Jennifer Goodwin, who represents an unnamed US government agency tasked with opposing oppose Nazi archaeological operations.

Both James and Jennifer are going on a mission to secure the Heart of Atlantis before Nazi's will. While on the mission, heroes will be fighting Nazi and Soviet soldiers as well as some undead creatures.

Sure, the story is full of cliches: James is a rough no-nonsense sarcastic "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" type of guy, while Jennifer is "smarts-and-hot-know-it-all" occasionally filling in the role of damsel in distress.

There's nothing you've never seen before, especially if you're a fan of Indiana Jones movies. You know the stuff: ancient tombs, priceless artifacts, nazi scientists, and scary undead monsters.

Graphics:

Despite being a budget title from 2013 made by the Polish team, the game looks surprisingly nice.

Locations are varied, even if you'll spend most of your time in tombs, you'll visit the dry sands of Egypt, icy Arctic plains, and moist Mayan jungles.

All of those are pleasant to look at, even if often you get hit with the signature Unreal Engine 3 texture pop-up.

Monsters do look gross, artifacts are shiny and alluring.

Character models are...fine. Although they do stare at you with that dead-eyed look like they're looking straight through you.

Animations on the other hand...are not fine: the way characters move in cutscenes is all jerky and weird, and facial expressions and lipsync are pretty much non-existent.

Well, at least the game is nicely optimized, played it both on old and new PCs.

Audio:

No suprises on that front. Sountrack is a bit bland, it's trying its best to create an atmosphere of an adventure movie, but sadly fails.

Gunshots and explosions are fine, although I think I've heard the same sound on more than one weapon.

Human enemies are constantly shouting commands and monsters produce their horrific noises too.

Voice acting is...there. Sometimes its competent, but mostly it varies from okay to bland. Since it's a budget Polish game, German and Russian accents are silly as hell. 

During gameplay, both James and Jenn exchange jokes and funny-ish remarks. Yet again, it swings from pure cringe to silly.

Gameplay:

The game is mostly split between adventuring and fighting: 50% - shooting humans and mummies, 50% - puzzles using flashlight, diary and compass.

Gunfights are a little on the easy side. Enemy AI can't provide any challenge. Human enemies are mostly hiding in cover while showering you with grenades, while undead have only one tactic - run straight at you.

However, with undead enemies, you have to focus the light from your flashlight on them, removing their "armor" and making so you can kill them with a couple of bullets. Otherwise, you will waste an entire magazine to kill one mummy.

This mechanic may seem annoying, but it's not. It's also nice that you can use your flashlight as a weapon and a tool for solving puzzles. Besides, you can use a variety of stationary traps found almost in each tomb or temple to kill enemies.

What about your arsenal? Oh, there are plenty of different guns to satisfy your killer needs.

But – there is always a "but" - you're able to access those weapons ONLY if you downgrade your game version to a previous one. Developers, in their infinite wisdom, released "Update 2", removing 70% of available weaponry, even in single-player. For what reason, I do not know.

Puzzles are quite easy: avoid traps, flip levers, and shine light into gemstones. Even if you don't know what to do right away, just look around or check your handy journal and you'll find the solution.

As I've mentioned before, you can find artifacts. Some are hidden in plain view, some will take a minute to find. Use your hand compass which will show you the right direction towards the collectable.

Also, the collectables give you skill points, split into three path:

• Warriors Path enhances combat abilities (e.g., reload speed, weapon accuracy)
• Life Path boosts health and stamina
• Light Path increases flashlight damage and effectiveness against monsters

The truth is, the effects of those upgrades are pretty much unnoticable. I upgraded all of those and the only thing that I noticed changing is the "power" my flashlight.

There is multiplayer and survival modes (including coop survival) but since this is a niche poorly reviewed budget title from 2013, the multiplayer is dead.

I've been able to play survival mode. It's fun for a short while, but playing solo gets boring sooner than you think.

Bugs:

Besides the uppermentioned weapon removal, I've experienced a couple of bugs.

1. A pillar with a button I needed to press, messed up its XYZ position and floated up in the air where I wasn't able to reach it, thus softlocking me. Thankfully, I only had to replay the level from the start and it worked just fine.
2. In a level with a moving bridge, I fell down and instead of being killed by an invisible death wall, I stayed alive, not being able to do anything until I restarted the last checkpoint.

Other than that, hitboxes sometimes would bug out, so I couldn't grab a treasure from a certain angle or undead enemies being able to hit me despite being relatively far from me.

Deadfall Adventures is like a cheap B-movie: full of clichés, bad acting, and stupid dialogues, but still addictive and fun. It is almost a parody of Indiana Jones and it bears no resemblance to the source material it takes inspiration from. Yet, it's still fun. The game doesn't overstay its welcome, you're in and out in about 8-10 hours.

And honestly, I miss those types of games.  Everything is overblown, overcomplicated, and overpriced.

In my opinion, reviewers in 2013 were to harsh on this game, giving it 3's and 4's. It's a solid 7-7.5 in my opinion.

If you have a couple of bucks and you see this on sale, grab it! Just don't forget to downgrade your game for more gun variety.