Once upon a time there was the Aquanox franchise, a blob made of polygons, underwater dialogue and atmosphere as if it were raining. The very first chapter of the saga, called Archimedean Dynasty, was a shuttle shooter (like Forsaken, Descent or many others) featuring an underwater setting that helps the name Aquanox to obtain the status of cult series.
Da Massive Developement it takes a leap forward of over ten years.
In 2013 the Serbian software house arrives Digital Arrow that through a Kickstarter manages to give birth to Aquanox Deep Descent, a hybrid prequel reboot that takes up the concepts set up by Massive and updates them to a more "interesting" topicality.
Did this experiment work?
Let's see it together
It's all at the bottom of the sea Tue.
We said.
Digital Arrow sets up a Kickstarter, THQ Nordic looks at the project and decides to sponsor it. Aquanox Deep Descent at the end, after a rather troubled development, takes shape and becomes a full-fledged video game.
The narrative is the one encountered in this kind of proposal: a thermonuclear catastrophe between the greedy powers of humanity has transformed the earth into a very different place from the one we know today. Humanity, in order to continue to survive, is transferred under the surface of the ocean which, thanks also to the melting of the ice, ended up covering the whole globe.
So now we no longer talk about land; the name of the new world born after this series of events is Aqua and is the stage where the narrative of the game moves. In a future far from that of the conflict that started everything, the protagonists of which we will be part wake up: four members of a mysterious project (code name Nammu), suddenly awakened from a cryogenic sleep without memory of what their purpose was. .
The player will very quickly find himself the leader of this group of reckless, with an open world at his disposal. Aquanox maps they are labyrinthine as only the sea depths can be, characterized by tunnels, caverns, ruins and areas populated by dangerous radioactive materials capable of damaging our vehicle. The game campaign, lasting about fifteen hours, will make us explore the length and breadth of the planet Aqua through a series of linear missions, never particularly exciting by nature and unable to raise the bar upwards.
Aquanox: Deep Descent, unfortunately, right away it fails to characterize its open world due to the serious lack of activity, perhaps in compliance with the lore of the game. The title possesses a campaign to follow, a series of secondary assignments and some loot to be found among the algae or among the high rocks of an abyssal formation; nothing that makes you jump in the chair with excitement and nothing that brings the title closer to a more modern open world in conception.
La narrative unfortunately it doesn't help to keep the attention high because of a not particularly inspired writing, with characters that are not exactly interesting and nothing really memorable that can take hold of the player's heart. Fortunately, a playful sector worthy of description.
Six degrees of freedom.
As we said in our preview, Aquanox Deep Descent is a 6DS, which is a first person shooter with six degrees of freedom. The title is composed mainly of fights between the player's vehicle and those of the opponents. The feeling of the fights perfectly gives the idea of a diver thanks to a general slowness that translates well into the idea of being under tens of millions of cubic meters of water. With mouse and keyboard the title he lets himself be played rather gracefully and within a few hours it also ends up expressing itself in its accessibility.
Our vehicle, equipped with one splendid interior which generates a sensation of pleasant immersion. The vehicle (which in the course of the adventure can be changed into another one) is equipped with different weapons, various accessories ranging from utilities to support objects and a series of applicable components that modify the characteristics of maneuverability, speed and general resistance. .
Vehicle customization takes place by paying a certain amount of resources and credits. This action, along with all the other non-action features of the title, must be performed within the ports where it docks. These serve as hubs to find missions, learn about characters from the game world or trade with the computer in resources to get credits but they don't add much to the game, resulting in jumble of menus that can be easily navigated.
The gameplay in essence it's solid and fun, where Aquanox is less cared for it is in the artificial intelligence of opponents and teammates. While the latter tend to be the classic foolish supporting characters on the battlefield that add nothing to the game, the former end up being death machines in case you end up outnumbered. This is because opponents tend to don't miss a single shot with their weapons, turning challenges into escapes in search of holes in which to face opponents one at a time. This trait of the opposing AI in fact nullifies the usefulness of dodging.
This kind of problem can be mitigated by the possibility of playing the main campaign of the game in co-op with three other players but this was not an experience that we could physically do. Aquanox Deep Descent also has one competitive multiplayer mode; unfortunately this too has not been experimentable by us due to theno players on servers, also thanks to the very young age of the title.
Nothing to say from the technical front to the title of Digital Arrow. Aquanox Deep Descent, which we tested on PC, is a great eye-catching video game with lots of beautiful colors and pretty good views. There are a good number of polygons on the screen and luckily they are used for the best. Without infamy or praise the sound, between dull music and sound effects on point.
We also point out one thing: the review came out a few days late due to an obnoxious crash that made us lose our saves. Clearly this seems to have happened only to us on the globe so we are willing to turn a blind eye to the matter.
Aquanox Deep Descent is a video game that deserved a little more care to fully blossom. The title has a gameplay that, net of a few problems, works and entertains. The sensation of piloting an object immersed in insurmountable abysses is there and gives the right sensations; to sin is the contour that does not serve as a driving force. The narrative of the title is not particularly effective, just as the characters or dialogues are not effective. The end result is therefore bittersweet, with a title that could offer much more with a different rationalization of what revolves around the gameplay.
