ADACA – Review

Boomer shooters have become increasingly popular in recent years. A lot of people had a great time during the heyday of first-person shooters like DOOM, Unreal Tournament, Quake, and Wolfenstein, and those games are still popular today. It’s no surprise then that a slew of indie games aimed squarely at satisfying that craving for a dose of nostalgia have been released. All of them intrigued me, and I’m not even a big fan of first-person shooters.

The market is currently flooded with excellent “boomer shooters.” There are a lot of them—Dusk, Amid Evil, Ultrakill, Prodeus, Project Warlock, and HROT, to name a few—and the market can get flooded. Another one appears like a growing sunflower in the dense forest every few weeks. A lot of people want to know if you’re familiar with Valve’s incredible Half-Life series. If they were so popular, why haven’t we seen knockoffs and replicas? There have been remakes before, such as Black Mesa, but not many others have dared to match its difficulty… until now.

ADACA was created by a single developer as a labour of love; it is a strange hybrid of the physics-based, narrative-focused gameplay of Half Life and the horror-themed exploration of STALKER. It was released at the end of July for $25 USD, and it’s been gaining steam in the gaming community ever since. Since I’ve invested some time into the game, I can now say that I’m one of its many fans. Even though first-person shooters aren’t my usual fare, I’ve been known to get sucked in on occasion. Games like Half-Life and other shooters with deep character customization options and realistic gunplay always have my attention. I’ve spent a lot of time with games like the STALKER series, Arma 3, Ravenfield, Cyberpunk 2077, and Ready or Not.

I’d like to express my appreciation to Siris Pendrake, the developer who provided the code used in this evaluation. If you’re on the fence about buying the game, I recommend trying the demo first. I’m glad to see demos making a comeback in the gaming industry, even if their utility can be debated. Performance and figuring out how the games will function, especially on the PC, can be a game of potluck. Proof-of-concept versions are useful for testing. No one wants to buy a game in hopes of playing it and find out it doesn’t function!

It’s nice to play a game that feels like it was made in the same era as the Half-Life games, but ADACA is so much more. It’s a lot of game for the price, with lots of different layers and mechanics. The following are part of the latest update:

(1) Campaign — A linear, episode-based story mode (containing two chapters at the present time of around twenty levels total)

Secondly, there is Zone Patrol, a semi-roguelike mode with a non-linear open world full of different missions and quests.

3) A sizable explorable area where players can try out the game’s various weapons, vehicles, and other equipment.

There should be a never-ending battle mode, number four.

A lot of content, especially for a shooting game, and there will be more episodes in the story mode in the future. The great thing about these modes is the variety they provide.

The player assumes the role of secret agent Jessy Thorn in a tense struggle for survival. Although the visuals aren’t particularly impressive, ADACA does a good job of standing out thanks to its clever combination of elements from shooters like Half-Life and others. Playing here is reminiscent of a trip to the cartoony, Playmobil-like world of a children’s video game, and that’s not a bad thing. Very thoughtful planning went into the layout of the environments and world, with plenty of hidden areas and backstory to discover. ADACA is one of the games that looks better with a low-poly environment. The scenery is stunning, and the atmosphere can be quite frightening.

The excellent gravity cybernetic arm, diverse arsenal of weapons, and tight shooting mechanics make for a challenging and novel campaign. Combat is fluid, and there are always opportunities to turn the tables on your opponent. You can use your gravity arm to pick up and throw various objects at your enemies. Put the police in a foetal position and take their guns. There are challenges in the form of puzzles and perils in the natural world that must be overcome. While there is a linear progression to the campaign, there are also branching paths to take. The game’s alternate modifiers are a neat feature because they expand the player’s tactical options. Changing the types of weapons enemies use at random could add variety. Perhaps more significant explosions, though. Make your enemies harder to defeat? One could also go that route. The AI of the enemies appears to be fairly solid, and even the easiest difficulties present a fair amount of difficulty to keep the player on their toes.

Zone Patrol is an entirely new kind of game, drawing inspiration from the STALKER series’s freeform design. Play through the game’s optional missions on a massive, non-linear map filled with dangerous enemies, warring factions, bizarre creatures, and a deluge of backstory. When I was playing at night, it reminded me a lot of a horror shooter, and there were plenty of scary moments. Only the story mode of ADACA would make it worthwhile, but alas! These two game modes he made are very distinct from one another. The sheer quality and scope of the game’s ambition, especially in the form of Zone Patrol, is astounding. The player must rely on their own wits and the game’s journal to keep track of their whereabouts in this mode, as there are no map markers to indicate the way. Basically, you get two games for the price of one here.

Both a sandbox environment and an arena mode are available for added creativity. Experiment with a variety of weapons, or enter the Endless battle map to join a faction’s fight or simply observe the carnage. Regardless of one’s interests, they’ll find something here.

The advantages of ADACA are numerous. Fantastic art direction and setting, a compelling story, a variety of game modes, tight gunplay, and responsive controls should all appeal to a wide audience. If there are any drawbacks, I can’t think of them right now. The game is generally reliable, but its performance varies from time to time. Though it’s been reported to work fine on a wide variety of hardware, some users have experienced issues like those I did with their GTX 1060 Max-Q laptops getting too hot to touch. Locking the framerate at 60 frames per second has helped a lot.

So far, I’ve only encountered a couple of minor visual hiccups, but no actual crashes. Early in the campaign, I encountered a bug that caused my character to become stuck in lava, requiring me to restart the game. In addition, it would be nice if there were multiple save files for the campaign mode to lessen the chance of data corruption. It’s possible, so I’d like to see additional precautions put in place. These are merely cosmetic problems, and the developer has been responsive and helpful in providing regular updates.

Overall, ADACA is a remarkable undiscovered treasure, and I’m grateful to have found it and to be able to give it a fair shot. True, also. This game can be enjoyed on the Steam Deck.