Review: Hydrophobia

Hydrophobia is the first game being released as the flagship title to Microsoft’s “Game Feast” XBLA promotion, and coming hot off the tails of the recent Summer of Arcade surely gives them some pretty big shoes to fill.  So does developer Dark Energy Digital succeed at filling that footwear left behind by Lara Croft and Castlevania? Or are they donning concrete shoes and sinking to crushing depth of the ocean floor?  Find out in our review of Hydrophobia

Hydrophobia ( XBLA)
Developer: Dark Energy Digital
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Released: September 29, 2010

Hydrophobia is an interesting nut to crack. It is part platformer, part exploration game, and part action-shooter that is all influenced by the HydroEngine, Dark Energy’s proprietary liquid modeling engine.  You start off the game as Kate Wilson, a Systems Engineer who’s working on the “Queen of the World,” a city-sized luxury ship which was built during the time of a great global flood.  The ship itself has acted as a sanctuary to those on board while the flood has brought suffering to the rest of the world.  That is until it is bombed and taken over by a terrorist organization known as the Malthusians.  At that point is is up to Kate to escape from the slowly sinking, exploding, burning vessel.  The narrative itself is flimsy at best, and it’s filled with more holes than the ship it takes place on.  But you didn’t really download this game for story. You downloaded it to see things get wet.

This is where the HydroEngine comes in, and almost everything in the game is affected by it. Water will rush into hallways, carrying with it loose items such as boxes and exploding drums, and it will even effect character movement as well.  Your character will slow down a bit when pushing against the water. Panes of glass connected to flooded rooms can be shot out, sending water crashing in and sweeping enemies off their feet.

During combat this can be combined with Hydrophobias environmental hazard system. Very rarely will you just shoot an enemy outright especially since standard ammo isn’t found often. Kate is fairly weak, so she’ll have to use objects in the environment to get the upper hand. Exploding barrels (of which are everywhere for some reason), gas leaks, and electrical lines are just a few that can be used in tandem with each other to defeat foes. For example, you can shoot out a pane of glass to flood a room then shoot the electrical line to electrify the water killing anyone touching it.  It’s a fun system, and the game does a very good job at keeping track of it all and awarding points appropriately.

Kate’s main weapon is a gun that takes 5 different types of ammo. Sonic rounds (which are standard for the weapon) shoots a sonic blast that can be charged. These will only knock out enemies but knocking them out enough will lead to them drowning.  These rounds also have environmental effects as well and can be used to afflict all the hazards described above.  Other type of ammo she’ll come across are exploding gel, electrical rounds, auto-rounds (multi-firing bullets) and normal bullet rounds. Shooting, however, is a mediocre affair with scant feeling of visceral engagement being perpetrated on some completely dimwitted AI. To that end, enemies will have no problem waltzing into fire or an electrically charged panel to meet a completely self-imposed death.

Honestly, most of the fun in Hydrophobia is found in using the HydroEngine to the greatest effect.  Even just flooding a room on purpose can be surprisingly entertaining and in many ways Hydrophobia succeeds completely in being a fun tech-demo for the new engine.  Unfortunately, it’s everywhere else that it tends to come up short.

Hydrophobia is certainly an atmospheric game.  Small touches were added such as a “wet lens” effect for when the camera goes through any type of water.  The problem is that you’ll be going through water pretty much constantly. Combine this with some fairly dark areas and you have one major flaw with this game. Namely that there are parts of the game, underwater sequences especially, where you won’t be able to see anything.  This type of effect works great in a movie, and ads a wonderfully claustrophobic effect, but it simply becomes too much when you’re trying to control a character through time sensitive levels.  I died over and over again in places simply because I had no idea where I was going and ran out of breath before I got there.

It also doesn’t help that the map is extremely inconvenient.  There is no mini-map so you’ll have to hit select to view it. Panning, rotating and generally moving the map is excruciatingly slow in 2D mode.  3D mode is a little quicker but there is no way to hide areas that you’re not in.  This map desperately needed a toggle that would only show you the room you are in, connected rooms and nothing else.  Other areas are faded, but there is just so much that it makes the map look way too jumbled.

Kate’s lack of a recognizable breath meter is also a problem.  In underwater sequences you won’t know that you’re out of breath until it’s just about too late.  Sure the screen edges begin to turn red when it’s running low but most of the time I could hardly notice it in the dark with a wet lens. So as soon as I did notice it I was dead in the water.  I am also absolutely convinced that there are a few levels that simply cannot be done the first time through without trial and error.  There is one part of the game where you are locked in a loading bay and must hit two switches in order to drain the room.  I could only do it after dying 4 times to find out exactly where the switches were. Even after finding them I barely had enough breath to get them both hit. Unless I was psychic there was no way I would be able to do it in my first or even second attempt.  This isn’t “hard,” it’s just poor design.

Indeed, because of the low-light, wet-lens, and no recognizable breath meter, the underwater areas are some of the most frustrating portions of the game.  Indeed, sometimes the HydroEngine just becomes too much. It’s almost always there. There is such a constant barrage of water, waves, and water-waves carrying loose items that by the time you get to a point in the game where there is no water it’s like a complete breath of fresh air.  It feels as though the pacing should have been much slower at the beginning of the game, with the HydroEngine being slowly introduced. Something to build up the suspense and tension a little bit more. Instead you are instantly plunged into it and by the end of the game you are just completely tired of it all.

The general gameplay consists of Kate exploring, and backtracking, around the ship hacking consoles, pulling switches, finding keys and locating ciphers.  Ciphers are hidden on the ship walls and must be found using her MAVI (a universal tool that she uses to find hidden messages, and hack consoles). When found they are used to decrypt locked doors.  It’s an interesting idea but in the end it just felt like more busy work. Now instead of just having to find a key to a locked door, I need to find both a key and a cipher.  In some cases I would have to find this cipher while being underwater, with a limited breath, and low-light…with a wet lens.

There is limited platforming in the game and it works fine for the small amount there is.  Climbing is done by using the Y button and pushing the left stick in the direction you want to go.  It certainly isn’t automatic and was actually a nice change from the somewhat mindless platforming in a higher budget game like Assassins Creed. Strangely enough, I found the platforming to feel much more polished than the underwater swimming.

Hydrophobia uses a fairly standard checkpoint system and most of these are put in fairly good locations.  There might have been only one or two points where I had to redo some lengthy tasks after a sudden death. This is good, since death comes often in this game.  Either by running out of breath in the dark, or blown up by a barrel that washed up next to you during a firefight, or even by enemies you spawn behind you after reloading a checkpoint (happens on the last room).  Unfortunately, most of these deaths feel frustrating and unwarranted since they are caused by faults in the game and not by lack of gamer skill.

It should also be noted that Hydrophobia is also a fairly short game, even for an XBLA title and even for an episodic release.  The game ends completely suddenly with virtually no loose-ends taken care off. When the game ended I seriously thought I had another 3 hours or so to go.

When your time with the main game is up there is a challenge room which is basically a horde mode where you face increasingly difficult waves of enemies.  Strangely, Kate gets a power here that isn’t available in the game.  Here she gets a Hydro Kinetic ability which allows her to move water at command. It’s a good idea and I’m sorry that it wasn’t fleshed out for the main game.

Ultimately, at its best Hydrophobia is a fun tech-demo for a really neat technology.  At its worst, it’s a sub-par action title and a frustrating exercise in switch pulling and key collecting with some environmental hazard combat thrown in. Thankfully the hazard combat is enjoyable for venting frustration after you’ve died 4 times in a row because you got lost underwater.

Score : 60
(60-69%: Good - You’ll find some serious or distracting issues)