Adam Wolfe Review

Adam Wolfe puts players in proverbial shoes of the titular character. Wolfe is an investigator of the paranormal who is investigating the mysterious disappearance of his sister. Take to the streets of San Francisco where where crime and paranormal occurrences intertwine. You’ll either solve a variety of mysteries or get one step closer to solving the case of your sister’s disappearance.

Adam Wolfe is a point and click experience where players arrive on a scene and have to figure out how to progress forward by inspecting and interacting with specific items found in your surroundings. Thankfully, the game is helpful. When moving around the cursor, if a circle appears, it means you can inspect the item. While if Gears icon appear, you are missing an item to interact with it.

Items of use are stored at the bottom of the screen for easy access. What differs this game from other P&C games is that first you’ll find a magical watch that allows players to revisit the past. When finding clues with a time on it, using the watch to match the time will show players what happened to keep the investigation moving forward.

You’ll also find mini-games where you’ll need to piece puzzles to get the full picture; for example, you’ll find torn up newspaper you need to piece back together for a new clue. An other feature is Adam’s Magic Eye. It lets you highlight specific clues that need to be put in specific order of how things went down. There’s also a nifty little Hint icon that you can use if you find yourself stuck. It does need to recharge after each use though, so you can’t spam it.

The game looks fine; given it’s point and click nature, it has a cartoonish/comic book feel. And with its dark theme, the color palette is overall dark and drab as a faithful representation of the game’s story. On the audio side of things, there’s nothing to write home about. The voiceover work is fine; most lines are delivered without a shred of emotion. I know Wolfe is a supernatural detective, but jeez, facing off against a walking flame for the first time should evoke *some* emotions; whether it be fear or surprise.

While there isn’t anything inherently wrong here, let’s not hide the fact that the point and click genre isn’t for everyone. It’s a slow paced gaming experience where players are also to “randomly” try to interact a variety of items to uncover clues that’ll help you progress further. Also the fact that even combat is a point and click mechanic is a big nuisance. Why take a mechanic that is usually fast paced and bring it to a slow crawl.

While not a fan of the genre, Adam Wolfe really caught me by surprise. As you get older, you have less and less time to play, and having a Hint option allows players to get through this in a reasonable amount of time. The story is interesting, mini-games and puzzles are actually, for the most part, enjoyable to play. That being said, the P&C genre is not ideal with a controller and the developer did miss an opportunity here to make the game more lively by even making the combat point & click. Adam Wolfe is the ideal game to jump in the genre while long time fans have something new to chew on.