ADR1FT Reviews
ADR1FT makes something as exciting as space exploration a complete bore.
ADR1FT may have atmosphere, but it doesn't have much else. I wanted to like Three One Zero's lonely and despairing adventure into a destroyed space station, but it seemed to resist being enjoyable at every turn. What really confuses me is that so many of its problems seem to stem from the conception level, including a bizarrely wrongheaded narrative, terrible controls and a mystifying lack of freedom thanks to the oxygen meter. In fact, I'm not sure it was such a good idea in the first place, which is why it makes me cringe to think of the time and energy its developers put into realizing it. I would never presume to know their experience and call it a waste, but the wait certainly won't have been worth it for most of its players.
Without virtual reality support to increase the novelty this this would-be walking sim proves a disappointingly bland experience.
Coming from someone who followed it for so long, Adr1ft is massively dis-encouraging. However, I feel it might be worth it to a couple of folks who are looking for a more minimal and ambitious gameplay experience. Just keep in mind that it's far from perfect, and that most would be suited elsewhere.
Adr1ft is a game in love with space. It finds seduction in the void, and inside the debris of a botched reach for the unknown. I've never before seen space above Earth portrayed by such convincing beauty in a game. Alas, it is at the service of an unbefitting journey mired by clumsy movement and contrivances more heavy-handed than the story behind the disaster.
Overall, ADR1FT has good intentions, but it just fails to execute them phenomenally. Aside from the stunning visual moments — namely moments where you are in the open and can look down at the Earth as it is lit up at night, ADR1FT is a tedious experience that should have been just a 2 hour ordeal. The game's lack of urgency — other than the constant cycle of oxygen tank-grabbing, makes it incredibly hard to believe that my character is struggling to survive at all.
Adr1ft is a gorgeous game with a moving personal story, but its systems clash against one another, creating tedium and boredom throughout.
Despite all of this I still felt myself compelled to play it through, above and beyond writing this review. The age-old argument of gameplay being more important than graphics still rings true, but for those interested in flat-out gorgeous visuals then there's enough lurking here to perhaps warrant the price of entry. It's a superficial reason to like it, sure, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that was the main thing which pulled me through. To that end, from my experiences with VR I can comfortably see a digit or two being tacked on to the score for the sheer immersion present. Without the $600 headset though, this is about as flat an experience as I've had in a long while.
Adr1ft has a great concept behind it, but like many others it fails to execute it quite right. The game's lack of urgency makes it hard to believe that I'm struggling to survive in the vastness of space. It's bare bones gameplay may be fun for most,but its lack of interaction and simply drifting through the vastness of space is just simply boring. It can be beautiful to look at and its score is delightful when it's there. Adr1ft just doesn't bring enough to the table to make it a great outer space survival experience.
Beautiful and haunting, but fails to fully engage
Adr1ft is an absolutely stunning visual experience. It looks amazing and feels great to be in nearly at all times. That is until you progress to the point when you realize you're doing the exact same thing in a new sector of the ship, not even with different objectives or quick time moments to try to mask the fact that you're hitting enter to make yet another core and plug it in. The whole experience is relatively short, and while it's something to behold visually and feels good while in it, it might not be something for everyone.
Unlike Gravity, which spaced out its most fraught scenarios between moments of calm, it's in a constant state of panic.
Adr1ft hits an uncomfortable balance between visual novel and video game; it has too many video game elements and too dry a story to make a good first-person experience, and it lacks enough fun to make for a good game.
ADR1FT is a beautiful take on the space disaster genre, but ultimately one that not everyone will get pulled into. It's subtle, slow, and crawling at times, instead of intense, bold, or peppered with action moments. It could have used a bit of both personally.
Adr1ft is by no means a bad game, but it comes with a few key caveats. Its opening hour is fantastic, as you begin to piece together what has happened and perilously search for the next oxygen canister, but it's the back half of the game that severely lets this intergalactic adventure down. And despite the story and its setting being so intriguing, it's not enough to paper over the glaring flaws present.
Getting by on strong atmosphere (no pun intended), scenic views, and an intuitive means of controlling full three-dimensional movement, Adr1ft's repetitive fix-it missions make its second half a chore to get through. Some strong pieces of voice acting would've been put to better use if the story weren't so vague.
Beautiful as you could ask for, especially in VR, but exhaustingly repetitive.
The sense of awe only lasts for so long and eventually gives way to the tedium that comes from padding the length of a campaign through relatively repetitive missions and challenges. It is hard to shake the feeling that this could have been something special, at least in concept, that ultimately failed executing on its overall promise. Unless you have a VR headset that you are looking to justify, you may want to skip this rescue mission.
As a simulation of being marooned in space, Adrift is peerless. The sense of weightlessness, the sense of scale, just being in the world are all astonishing. But it's impossible to divorce the immersion from its mechanical failures, which sours what otherwise could have been a new high bar for narrative-centric games.