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Hydrophobia takes place during the mid 21st century aboard a city-sized luxury vessel known as the Queen of the World. Earth’s population has exploded to the point that the demand for food outpaces agricultural production, and thus competition is fierce for what food remains. While the corporate entities who built the Queen of the World live like kings, the desperate global conditions have given rise to a terrorist organization known as the Malthusians, who intend to right the global balance by killing most of the world’s human population. The tension is set early on, as protagonist Kate Wilson finds herself escaping from an elevator after an explosion within the first few minutes of the game. Soon after, she comes across electronic signs flashing the slogan, “Save the World, Kill Yourself.”

Most of Hydrophobia’s storytelling is handled through collecting documents scattered throughout the game, meaning how much players glean of the story and background depends entirely on how much effort they’re willing to put in searching for it. Without collecting documents, Hydrophobia’s plot follows a depressingly “go here, do that” formula, with Kate going from one place to the next, crippling systems to disrupt the terrorists, and interesting plot developments are few and far between. Then there’s Scoot, the only character in recent memory to give Jar Jar Binks a run for his money in a “Most Annoying Character Ever” competition. Scoot is a treasure trove of terrible jokes and bad one-liners wrapped in a grating accent, that come across as both shockingly immature and impossible to believe in the context. The ship has been attacked by terrorists, people have been killed, and Scoot’s going on and on about how he hopes Kate makes the chief look bad… what? Are you five?

Little hope can be found in Hydrophobia’s ending either, which severely disappoints. I get that Hydrophobia is part one of an episodic game, but this is the wrong way to deliver episodic content. Instead of releasing a game with it’s own episode story arc tying into a larger whole, or at least some sense of conclusion, Hydrophobia’s ending comes completely by surprise, slapping a “To Be Continued…” across the screen when I thought I was in the middle of a mission! That’s an extremely unsatisfying way to leave fans waiting for what’s going to come next, which will likely make gamers feel like they bought one-third of a game, and not a complete stand-alone experience.

Exciting combat could have saved Hydrophobia, but that can’t deliver to its potential either. Use of the environment to kill enemies through fire, water, electricity, or gas had potential, but combat often boils down to waiting for an enemy to wander too close to that cliche red barrel and then pulling the trigger. Players will find multiple different types of ammo throughout the game, including some regular ammunition that turns Hydrophobia (briefly) into an ordinary third-person shooter. For every sublime moment like attaching a sticky gel round to an enemy’s back and detonating it when he gets too close to another enemy, there’s a dozen moments of waiting for an enemy to obligingly wander near a trap. Rather than making players feel like they’re being inventive with their use of the environment, combat quickly becomes a slog, which the level design does not alleviate, as each corridor looks a little too much like the last, with not enough differentiation to make different parts of the ship distinct from each other.

Hydrophobia’s water effects are outstanding, with waves rolling across the ship like an ocean in a bottle, and Kate gets tossed around by them realistically. Unfortunately, the game’s fascinating core concept gets wasted in poor storytelling through bland (and in Scoot’s case, obnoxious) characters, and gets married to a combat system that feels dated rather than innovating. Episode 2 has a lot of work to do to atone for the opening act’s failings and unsatisfactory conclusion.

Overall: 6 (out of 10)

3 1/2 out of 5 cookies!

Hydrophobia was initially released for $20 in the Xbox Live marketplace at the end of September of 2010. I’d initially downloaded the demo. I was semi-impressed, but not impressed enough to warrant the $20 pricetag. To the developer’s dismay the game garnered only luke-warm reviews and though it remained on the marketplace, the developer reworked the game, addressing the critic’s gripes and released a massive patch for it in January 2011. On top of a complete re-working of the games controls, they also put it on sale at a special price, only five bucks, for a limited time.

Considering the effort the developer went through, almost unheard of in the game industry, but certainly something familiar in the world of film – witness Oliver Stone and his 3 versions of “Alexander” trying to address the critical bashing – and the re-introductory price, how could I not buy this thing?

In fact, if your a gamer, how could you not buy this thing just on principle?

The campaign is pretty straight forward. The main character, Kate, is on a giant ocean-liner, Queen of the World. The introductory cut-scenes show the comparison of the Queen of the World to the Titanic in which it is some 30 times the size of the historical ship. The ship is attacked by terrorists and the adventure begins.

As large as the ship is, within the actual gameplay you never really get to explore much of it. Pretty much all the passages look the same, and a helpful arrow (which I’m guessing was part of the re-working as without it I would have been hopelessly lost, wondering what to do next) shows you which direction to go at all times. The controls felt a lot like Tomb Raider, which worked perfectly.

Graphically, we’re essentially looking at a Playstation 2 or original Xbox Game. There’s a slight sheen over everything so nothing really stands out as crisp and clear. Considering the price, this is completely tolerable.

But enough of the criticism. Where the game really shines, and the entire purpose of it, are the water-effects. Although water has been done more beautifully in other games, it has never quite behaved as it does in this game. According to Wikipedia, The HydroEngine was developed for nearly 3 years by Dark Energy Digital. This game is its first showcase, and it is coolio!

Remember in Titanic, when Leo and Kate are trying to escape the innards of the ship as water pours through the hallways? That’s pretty much the entire game, and it is rendered well. You open doors and oceans of water pour through, water laps and rolls back and forth through hallways as you wade through it. Its the highlight of the game and keeps you going through the 3 hour campaign just to see more of it. It also explains the developer’s decision to re-work the game’s weak points since the entire point of it is to showcase the water-effects.

Bottomline: The $5 special is over, but the game is still 1/2 of its original price. For $10 you really can’t go wrong, and you’re also supporting a group that obviously cares about its product in a way that’s rare in not only the game industry, but any industry for that matter. Not many artists respond to critics by actually addressing the concerns – most just get defensive.

The water effects are pretty amazing, and hopefully they will be used in a full-priced, high-budget game so that they can really be put on display in an environment that truly deserves them.

After you finish the campaign there is a second game-mode that’s basically puzzle-solving in which you have the power to control water. Although it was fun to send waves crashing here and there for a bit I didn’t get that far into this part, as sans the story it didn’t really keep me coming back. Lastly, the story ends abruptly, almost episodically, not with so much of a cliff-hanger, but just sort of right in the middle of the action – almost guaranteeing a that this is only the first part of something much larger.

Lots of potential here, and at a bargain price to boot. Here’s the trailer:

Note: I really want to start blogging regularly again, but honestly, it takes me time. It’s not so much the writing, but the editing that turns a 1/2 hour essay into an hour and a half of grammatical correction, picture insertion, re-reading, etc. I also used to be concerned with having a ton of shit to say with a formal intro, body, and conclusion. For sake of more content, and so I actually enjoy it again, I’m gonna try to stop giving a crap so much and just post away – damn the consequences.

I hope you drown

XBLA
2010

Snaps:
This game has absolutely no idea of what it wants to be. After three hours of playing this garbage, I have absolutely no idea what it is about. You play an excellent swimmer who is afraid of water. What? Then you start shooting terrorists because you are the worlds best shooting and swimming engineer. An all around horrible game. I’d hate to be one of those poor people that payed $15 for this. Hell I hate having payed for it at all. Props on their own water engine though.
Burn It

As part of a water-themed Deal of the Week promotion from January 31^st to February 6^th, Xbox Live Gold members will be able to buy Hydrophobia Pure for just 400 Microsoft points – half the current price!

And that’s not all…

Anyone over the age of 18 downloading the Hydrophobia Pure will be entered into a sweepstake with a first prize worth $4500. The winner will be able to choose a cruise vacation to a total value (including spending money) of $4500 (US residents only – UK residents can select a beach vacation to a value of $3,000 with a further $1500 for applicable prize taxes and fees). A further 5 winners will each receive 4,000 Microsoft Points.

For full details, and terms and conditions of this awesome deal click on www.xbox.com/hydrophobiasweeps

“This is an great offer; at 400 Microsoft Points ($5.00) there has never been a better time to dive in and experience the changes we have made to Hydrophobia – AND the sweepstake makes this a perfect storm ” – Pete Jones, Joint Creative Director

Details of Hydrophobia Pure can be found at www.Hydrophobia-game.com

26 October 2010 – from 10 am to 7pm
27 October 2010 – from 10 am to 5pm
Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, London, N1 0QH

We’ll have the new Think Tank Photo Sling-O-Matics, Logistics Manager, Hydrophobia 300-600 v2, Retrospective and Multimedia ranges on show, as well as the Orbis ring flash.

Award winning photojournalist and multimedia expert Edmond Terakopian and Snapperstuff’s newest member of the team Angus Thomson, as well as founder Helen Atkinson will be on hand to answer all your questions on our gear.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Hydrophobia seems decent, but it also seems like an HD PS2 game. Definitely a good call to release it at $15. As a piece of cheap-Fu it’s worth a look.

Enslaved is now on my radar. I thought the demo was fantastic. The whole vibe reminded me of Jak & Daxter, in a way. Comes out tuesday, I may grab it when I get back from Chicago.