I took a gamble and spent more than I normally would on a game like this, and I'll be honest, Adaca was a pleasant surprise. Not without its faults of course, but for one person to design a game like this, the passion on display is commendable.

By far, Adaca revels in its environments and sheer scale of some areas. While this is something I was pleased to see, I was arguably more impressed by how the game utilized large levels, big fights, explosions, and the sort while maintaining a crisp and stable framerate. Mind you, Adaca isn't far off from Roblox in texture quality, but it's still a welcome level of polish.

It also does quite wonderfully in the weapon selection as well. The sheer amount of weapons in this game can be a touch overwhelming at times, but where the impact of new tools is lost, there's the variety in combat to gain. You'll have favorite weapons of course, but thanks to varying enemy arsenal, you won't stick to two faves quite as often as you would in other games. It's a surprising and welcome shakeup.

There's even a surprising amount of content to boot. Along with the 6 or so hours of content provided by the game's three episodes, you also have the Zone Patrol mode which is more non-linear and open-ended. I haven't dabbled into it too much yet, but it's still a fun distraction from the campaign fare and brings a welcome bit of value. Combined with more than enough secrets, there's a lot of meat for big fans to dissect.

However, this is an imperfect beast in two key areas. The most noticeable of the two is in AI design, which ended up being wildly inconsistent on the game's second highest difficulty, Revolutionary. Sometimes I'd enter an area and see an enemy act like I'm not even there, or an enemy's teammate wouldn't hear me introducing a shotgun round to his buddy's skull. Other times I'd enter an area and have my healthbar disappear. It wasn't too distracting, but there were a good handful of BS deaths I experienced throughout my time.

The other major issue lies with music, of which the issue is variety. 95% of the music choices are purely ambiance which aren't bad for their usage, but never serve to heighten a particular encounter. The only track that properly got me interested was the game's final boss, and even that wasn't a standout.

Even with these faults though, I'm pleasantly surprised by what this single dev managed to pull off with their first project. It's got the fun factor, a smorgasbord of weapons, and varied locations that all sell their spectacle well. I'd love to see how the dev might adapt their creative weapon style to a game that focuses more heavily on it like a roguelike. For now though, I think they have a bright future ahead of them.

DISCLAIMER: As of writing this, the game is missing Episode Three (make your "Valve can't count to three!" jokes here or something) and I am not going to be discussing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R-esque game mode here.

So games that are inspired by "X" aren't inherently a bad idea. I adore when developers are passionate about a game that they feel the longing to recapture the magic again but put their own spin on it.

ADACA is, without question, Half-Life 2. But it isn't so much as trying to spin on Valve's incredible formula, more so just providing more of Half-Life 2's pillar foundations on a budget.

ADACA has a loop of combat, explorations, and light puzzle solving. Much like Opposing Force, ADACA is focused on its combat. Not only do you have a wide arsenal to play around with, you also have the benefit of the gravity gu- I mean biotic arm, that can fling objects at other enemies. You can even grab their own weapons! How very neat.

The combat is fine. It's pretty much just Half-Life 2 with a dash of Halo.

I played on Hardened and enemies were a very mixed bag. Either they would bug out in spectacular fashion, running around in circles or not shooting at me when I walk up to them, or have the deadly precision of a world-class assassin. It was a complete mess.

Weapons were fun to use and you did have a wide variety. However, most of them were variations of an archetype.

See, with an FPS, I like when games give you a bunch of weapons to play with. Sure, its unrealistic to have someone carry fifteen firearms on them, but who gives a shit? Half-Life giving you a plethora of weapons but ones you got to keep (mostly) at all times made me remember the weapons a lot more. With an FPS, I think the restraint of limiting yourself to one of each weapon category can make the weapons feel more memorable that goes beyond visual and audio design. Half-Life has a weird arsenal, but its because of that bizarre weapon catalogue combined with you having full access to it all times made the game work for me.

In ADACA, there are so many weapons that fulfill the same role, its the issue I had with Halo 4 and 5. Too many weapons that do exactly the same thing. It almost felt like a looter at times with how often you were switching up weapons from enemies. This wouldn't be a bad thing if the game didn't lock you to only one small arm and two medium to large firearms. I found this to be so antithetical to the weapon arsenal it wants you to play around with.

Now, for the narrative, I hope you like Half-Life 2 base game with some minor additions because that is all your getting.
You fight the, "I swear to god its not the Combine, we promise" in an attempt to locate someone from obtaining an AI...? I think? The story is not this game's strongest point. In fact, I can count multiple times one character always started their dialogue with, "Holy shit!"

I'm not the master of dialect nor a stranger to frequent reuse of words, but good lord I was not expecting every opening line to begin the same.

Its a hotchpotch of varying science fiction concepts. Nothing stellar or particularly noteworthy.

The set piece variety is more akin to Half-Life rather than Half-Life 2. Locations are varied enough with outdoor and indoor environments but they aren't used to their advantage like the game it so clearly wants to be. See, Half-Life 2's missions were so different from one another. They were their own individual moments built around a concept or a major gameplay mechanic in Half-Life's pillars to make some really incredible moments.

In ADACA, your shooting and maybe doing a platform puzzle which amounts to you moving a platform with your arm. Any other puzzles are sticking a battery in a socket. I can't say its bad, because it is just Half-Life, but that's what I criticized Blue Shift for being. Just more Half-Life. There aren't any vehicle sections, scarce number of physic based puzzles, no Sandtraps moments, its just a very water-downed Half-Life.

I may have been too harsh on this game which clearly does feel like a very personal project and maybe the third episode could be really good and tie this all together but I am not holding my breath.