Hydrophobia was released last year on the Xbox LIVE Arcade and was met with a lukewarm reception from most critics. The game is a 'survival-adventure' that takes place aboard the Queen of the World, a massive ship which is essentially a floating city. You play as Kate Wilson, an engineer-cum-heroine who is left fighting for her survival after a terrorist attack on the ship. I'll start by saying that whilst the plot is occassionally interesting it isn't told in the greatest way and so really just serves to move things along steadily, throughout the title you'll be in contact with a colleague called Scoot. In the original Hydrophobia release Scoot had a somewhat Scottish accent (I say somewhat because honestly, the voice acting was mediocre at best and the accent changed with each scene) and one of the changes being made in Prophecy is the character of Scoot, they have completely remodelled the character and gone is the horrible 'Scottish' accent.
Dark Energy decided to bring in some talent this time around and replaced Scoot's original voice actor with Oliver Vaquer, who has also done voice work for GTA: Liberty City Stories and The Warriors videogame. I'd love to say that it's an improvement and I suppose in some ways, it is. But honestly, Scoot has now gone from a clumsy sounding Scottish engineer who, despite the terrible voice acting in the first release, was somewhat likable, to an arrogant American who, for the most part, seems completely indifferent to the fact that you're fighting for your life whilst he's sat drinking coffee in an apparently safer part of the ship.
What's more, Scoots original character model added to the clumsy vibe of the character, he was slightly chubby and came across as a bit of a coward, but a likable one nevertheless. The new model just makes him look like some generic thirty-something character that you can find featured as nameless NPC's in pretty much any other game out there. What's worse is that Vaquer, who is undoubtedly usually a very talented voice actor, comes across as bored most of the time. The 'improvement' in Scoots voiceovers also highlights the truly horrendous voice acting of Kate, making it far more noticeable.
Fortunately, that change is pretty much the only one I was unhappy with. I played the original Hydrophobia release on the XBLA and thoroughly enjoyed it for the most part, there were some frustrating moments but it was an enjoyable romp with some interesting mechanics and some awesome water physics. So, I'll be straight up and say that I loved Prophecy. I have a great deal of credit for developers who listen to their fanbase and actually make changes based on fan feedback, I get the feeling that most developers nowadays would have looked at the criticism the initial release got and thought 'We'll make the sequel better' but not Dark Energy, these guys took Hydrophobia back to the drawing board once already and released a patch for the XBLA version called 'Pure' which contained some major updates such as graphical improvements, physic enhancements and an improved camera and now they've done it again, releasing Prophecy.
Many of the changes are instantly noticeable, the game looks really nice, Kate's character model is alot more detailed than in the initial release and the environments look great too. The star of the show here however, is the water. The water is simply fantastic, it looks spectacular and is pretty realistic for the most part, behaving as you would expect it to. I did find myself wishing the water was 'heavier' at times, sometimes it just doesn't feel substantial enough. When a door opens and a massive surge of water comes towards me I expect to be knocked off my feet and flung around like a ragdoll but most of the time Kate simply covers her face with her arms and is simply pushed back a step or two before becoming submerged, with that much water hitting me sometimes I'd like to feel like I'm fighting against the elements. The AI also doesn't seem to be effected too much by large amounts of water, quite a few times I'd open a door and watch the waves crash into the enemy only for them to simply stand there and continue shooting at me, on other occasions they would fall over but wouldn't be swept along with the current, instead simply laying where they had fallen before getting back to their feet to resume their assault. For a game that's designed around the water mechanics it can at times feel very hit and miss. Nevertheless, for the majority of the game interacting with the water is a highly enjoyable experience and drowning your enemies never gets old.
You only ever get your hands on one gun throughout the whole game, a small pistol known as the LP4 (The LP stands for Life Preserver) that can carry a range of ammunition. Initially you only have access to the sonic pulse rounds but to be honest even after finding all the other ammo types later on in the game I still relied heavily on my pulse rounds. Unlike the more advanced ammo types, pulse rounds are unlimited, you can tap the fire button to fire a single shot that won't do much damage but can be fired quite rapidly if you keep tapping, this sort of firing is pretty useful for maneuvering barrels towards unsuspecting foes whilst they're ducking behind cover as it's not powerful enough to cause the barrel to explode. Holding the fire button allows you to charge the pulse round, you can hold the button indefinitely so there's no time limit on releasing your charge allowing you to start charging from the safety of cover before leaning out and firing off your shot. The charged up pulse shot will cause barrels to explode, it can also break weakened walls and knock down enemies, though a single charged pulse won't kill them, it usually takes two fully charged pulse rounds to kill an enemy.
Other ammo types you get access to include an explosive gel shot that detonates after ten seconds or can be detonated remotely and a shock charge that works similarly to the gel except that it produces an electric current on detonation as opposed to an explosion. The gun serves its purpose well enough but is really just an excuse for you to think up more and more over the top ways to execute your foes using the enviroment. About three quarters of the way through the game you get access to some Hydro Kinetic abilities that allow you to manipulate the water. This is, by and large, one of the coolest aspects of the game. Your wimpy pistol suddenly pales in comparison to this Godlike ability and you feel completely overpowered as you use the waves to toss your enemies to-and-fro likes puppets, crashing them off walls and forcing them underwater until they drown, it really is an awesome mechanic and controls pretty well too, it also changes the pace somewhat as it introduces some simple puzzle gameplay with an emphasis on utilizing your newly earned kinetic powers to manipulate the environment by moving debris away from doors or stacking crates across an electrified water source so that you may cross, simple puzzle elements really but it serves as a glimpse of what could have been if Dark Energy had taken it further. The only real issue I had with the kinetic abilities are that the water clips through the environment, for example if I'm stood on a walkway and the water is underneath I can take control of it with the kinetic abilities and raise my water tower only to have it go straight through the walkway, it's not very realistic obviously and does detract from the experience a little, but other than that it's an awesome feature. If you ever decide to make a sequel Dark Energy then take note - more emphasis on kinetic abilities please.
This leads me nicely onto the the combat mechanics, which for the most part work well enough. As I said above, you play the majority of the game using your pistol and the environment to defeat your foes and the game also offers a decent cover mechanic, it's not the best cover mechanic I've seen in a game but it's functional enough for the most part. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the AI, they're rather stupid, they'll occasionally use cover themselves but usually they'll simply just walk towards you, firing off their shotgun while you're on cover, or they'll stand and shoot from a distance allowing you to deal with them easily. The games difficulty ramps up later on but mostly due to the fact that you are faced with more and more enemies rather than any increased intelligence with the AI. To be honest I could have done without the combat completely and played the game as a survival-puzzle title with an emphasis on manipulating the waves to solve environmental puzzles whilst trying to stay alive, maybe with some light combat elements sprinkled on top for good measure, unfortunately the game is quite the opposite and is pretty combat heavy, I'm not saying that is necessarily a bad thing, it just would have been nice to see more emphasis placed on the kinetic abilities and overcoming the challenges set down in your way by the flooding of the ship.
When you're not fighting in Hydrophobia, chances are you're either swimming or climbing. The platforming elements work fine, you can climb certain pipes and places that you can climb are rather obvious and noticeable, generally standing out so you don't ever really find yourself feeling lost. I do have a couple of gripes with the climbing mechanics, the first would be that for somebody who's apparently afraid of water and is stuck on a flooded ship, Kate takes her sweet time climbing period, but especially ladders! I dreaded having to climb a ladder because the process is just so slow, climbing down the ladder and into the water she does just fine as she slides down neatly, but climbing up and away from the water and you'd think she was more scared of heights or climbing than of the water. It's not a major gripe but a gripe nevertheless, secondly dropping down from a ledge can be hit and miss at times, whilst it's alot more consistent than it was in the initial release it's still not spot on and I found myself falling to my death on more than one occasion due to the wonky drop mechanics which, unfortunately, are only made worse by some occasional camera issues. Thankfully, the camera has also been improved since the first time around, but it does still cause some frustrations throughout your adventure.
Finally I guess I should touch upon the story, the game took me approximately 7 hours to complete on the Normal difficulty setting. I did a little bit of exploring but not enough to collect all the hidden items littered through the Queen. Depending on your skill level I'd imagine you could rush through it in just a few hours or you could explore every inch of the ship and make it last a little longer if you're that way inclined, it's a decent length for a budget downloadable title and I have no complaints in that regard. Unfortunately, the game ends rather abruptly leaving many questions left unanswered, now I know that there are secret documents hidden throughout the game, many of which I didn't find, and that they go a long way towards answering many of the questions brought up during the main story but I was left feeling rather unsatisfied once the credits had finished rolling; Yes I did wait until after the credits to see if there would be another cutscene or something along those lines to help wrap things up a little better, unfortunately there was not. Despite the anti-climatic ending I did enjoy the story, it was rather original and raised some interesting questions about our morality.
Hydrophobia: Prophecy is not a sequel, it's a remake of the original Hydrophobia and then later, hydrophobia: Pure and even now, after its third iteration, it's not a perfect formula. However, whereas other developers would probably have looked at the criticism and thought 'save the changes for the sequel' Dark Energy decided that wasn't good enough and have now made three attempts to perfect their game and realize their original vision, for that I think they deserve a huge pat on the back. The fact that the game even has a dev feedback button on the pause menu, allowing you rate up or rate down certain elements of the game (Such as graphics, sound, gameplay etc.) really shows their dedication to making the game the best that it can be. At the moment Hydrophobia: Prophecy is unfortunately only available on Steam, but I sincerely hope they are able to bring it to the Xbox LIVE Arcade in the future and allow those who stuck by and supported the title after its poor critical reception to play this updated version because honestly, this game is a great experience worthy of both your time and money.
Hydrophobia: Prophecy Gets An Official Game-Pad: 8.0/10
Comments
RSS feed for comments to this post