Adera

Adera!!! It’s not too challenging but it’s solid & enjoyable game with beautiful graphics . . .

Adera is basically a Mysterious-a-like point-and-click adventure title, with the first episode for free and a further four paid-for episodes. It’s a growing business model in gaming, used most famously by The Walking Dead, and it will be interesting to see how it does on the Windows 8 platform.

Graphically it’s probably the most advanced free Xbox LIVE game released on Windows 8 thus far and given the genre it’s not really surprising. As each scene doesn’t involve any action in the same way a First-Person Shooter would, it allows the developers, Hit Point, to up the ante graphically without becoming too taxing on your computer.

The game comes with full audio, and plenty of cut-scenes to provide some narrative as you explore the desert in search of your grandfather, who was presumed dead but now appears to be behind a mysterious message given to you by your father.

The voice acting doesn’t quite hold up to the quality of the graphics, and comes across very much like early attempts at video game voice acting used to, where some lines were delivered perfectly and others were stilted, often not helped by a stiff and unrealistic script.

Likewise the storyline is a bit of a clunker, as the heroine encounters repeated supernatural phenomena all the while musing on how concussed she must be, which starts to feel like something of a self-parody. In all honesty it’s fine and does the job, but given that the developers have stated how they wanted to shake up the genre it’s surprising how much of the game feels a tad by-the-numbers, albeit thoroughly enjoyable.

The puzzles themselves aren’t particularly taxing, though the odd one might stump you for a while. Nonetheless they’re good fun to play through and the game has been littered with hidden collectables in an attempt to provide some variety and re-playability.

While few of the puzzles will cause you much concern, it’s worth bearing in mind that you do get an achievement for completing Episode One without using the ‘Hint’ option at all. So if you don’t spot this and casually click ‘Hint’ to see what it does (not because you need help, obviously, ahem) then you’ll have to replay through the whole episode again just to unlock that achievement.

The rest of the achievements revolve around progressing through the main storyline and finding all the collectables, with the odd speed achievement thrown in that unlocks if you complete a puzzle under a set time.

Thankfully if your internet signal cuts out it doesn’t crash you out of the game, and the Live Tile tells you how many collectibles you have found so far, which is a nice touch if not a little basic. Enjoy