AquaNox

no checkpoints mid long missions

For this archaeological dig into past gaming, enter the world of Aqua- not quite Waterworld, but the surface is absolutely off limits, and post nuclear-apocalypse, everyone's imprisoned beneath in an endless watery night- Aquanox. Let me outsource someone better versed in describing this game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlYK84fCVoY As for me, the game felt like Crimson Skies underwater. But you're not flying, you're floating in six-degrees of freedom peering into murky depths for submersibles and submarine ships looking to give you a bath. I say come for the submarine combat, stay for the absolutely unhinged characterization of all the characters, main, side, and tertiary, under the TALK button- everyone's basically feeling the pressure, like they're imprisoned, and everyone's coping in any number of unhinged ways- it's absolutely mental (I love it!) If you get confused, remember it was made in Germany circa 2001, so you can look at it, as I did, as an exhibit in various social and political discourses of the time. Also, some things get weird in translation... A note for anyone needing to use console controllers- your triggers don't register as Joystick Buttons, they register as a "Scroll Throttle", so when you're configuring controls (and you will have to, experiment in Instant Fight and all), make sure all degrees of movement and rotation are accounted for. The game basically assumes you're using a twist-joystick with hat-button.

Day 1 of Unplayed Backlog I couldn't have started this off with more a bang if I tried. The story cutscene just starts off with some SeaPunk aesthetic and an overloaded story dump with weird sound effects going crazy in the background during the narration. So my best guess as to what is going on is the Flupians attack because they like murder, they get fended off. Meanwhile, the group called the Democrats destroy what is left of government in hopadopolis. While political unrest runs rampant a deep sea-ted racism for the Florbians of Palopis reaches a tipping point. You play as Phineas who doesn't care about any of exposition explained at all and just wants credits because he's a broke boy trying to upgrade his Zoocaboose. Now have fun figuring out how much of that is accurate and how much is made up watching the steam trailer, results may shock you. As for the gameplay , you'd think being underwater it would be eerily quiet but you're completely wrong. It's filled with sound of bombastic EDM music and the sounds of explosions and literally everything is an explosion: Metal Scraps? Explosion Shooting Bubbles? Explosion Your Long Lost Uncle? Explosion Filing your tax before April 15? Explosion and at the end of the day. It's endearing. I'm not sure if I will take a deeper dive on this game but for $5 it definitely gave me a good chuckle.

Controls are messy, strafing doesn't even seem to work, healing is seemingly impossible (no key assigned for it or notice if it's an automatic thing). Was probably good in its day but time has marched on.

If it weren't for the sun-shafts, (unreachable) surface above and auto-levelling, it may as well be taking place in space. There's little in the way of scene-setting for an underwater environment: There's a complete lack of wildlife until the storyline demands it and the clouds of plankton may as well be clouds of inert astral gas. The missions are strict and linear; you have your set play area and no scope to venture beyond it. And the missions consist of the typical "blow this up" or "protect this" objectives. They also don't have checkpoints so if you fail then all your work is undone and it's back to the start of the mission. Gameplay-wise it's a lot like the classic Descent, but with auto-levelling orientation as there is no separate roll control; however at no point are you required to find your own way as there are always waypoints telling you where to go. The story is clichéd; you'll have experienced similar in other games, not just of the era. The visuals are decent if you're a fan of the late 90's/early 00's look in games. I quite like the style of the era but modern gamers will likely find them underwhelming. Your wingmen are both unhelpful and irritating as when they have their own roles in missions, they take their sweet time in doing it, with you having to stop and wait for them to get on with it. And when they are joining in the fight their dialogue options are limited and you'll hear the same soundbites over and over. Speaking of which, the action music is atrocious. It's the most 90's soundtrack I've ever heard and it's completely out of place in this game. Finally you'll also encounter numerous bugs: Vessels under your protection driving into things and damaging themselves, wingmen flying in circles when they're supposed to be doing something, your vessel getting stuck on nothing and unable to move, CTD when restarting a mission; and so on. As a fan of the era and of aquatic games, I was looking forward to playing Aquanox. But it's just not good enough; not least because there's little to no sensation of being underwater and in the end it plays like a weak FPS.

Lots of talk, little action. Audio for all conversations. A boring and confusing story. Bad save system,bad music and chatter. And no explanation for the control. Bugs and poor balance. With a discount, it's good for one playthrough.

Aquanox is a deep-sea underwater cockpit-view dogfight game in the footsteps of the descent series of the late 90s. It’s also the successor to the 1996 submarine game “Schleichfahrt”. The dystopian setting itself is quite interesting: humankind had to escape earth’s surface after a devastating nuclear world war and found shelter in the planet’s deep oceans. Population centres are at least 1500m deep and full of crazy people trying to cope with underwater life in confined spaces. Science is given great leeway to experiment on genetic alterations making it easier for humans to survive the great depths. But crime is equally rampant with different factions fighting for power and resources. The player is a mercenary accepting any well-paid job, hunting down people or in other terms cleaning up the ocean floor, sometimes getting tangled up in the ambitions of some politicians. After about 7 hours play time, here’s my pros/cons list: Pro: + dystopian underwater setting + crazy, weird, likeable people living underwater + visiting different cities and areas + some interesting characters + Still good graphics even today + portrait of a dysfunctional society struggling with life in the ocean + interesting story twist at the very end Cons: - Generic underwater cities and structures - Missing diversity in underwater landscape - Rather dark - Very slow, dragging main plot - Repetitive, generic search & destroy missions - Hard to manoeuvre the ships - Issues with modern mouse controls & speed - Tedious mopping up enemies at the end of some missions - Some missions very difficult, even unfair (e.g. EMP restrictions) - Tech / cyberpunk setting a bit convoluted - Pretentious “relaxed / cool” slang / dialogue - Many dialogues include a decent amount of puberty level profanity and showing off - Repetitive, boring music - rather mediocre voice-acting - Waiting 20 seconds for a mission to end without anything happening, sometimes I can choose to leave the mission myself - Shallow story develops into generic supervillain threatening to destroy earth and then awakening some ancient ocean monsters - Ocean monsters explode like ships when getting destroyed - many ship designs wouldn't make sense underwater - feels like a bit too flashy techno setting Conclusion: Although the setting itself is quite intriguing, the game itself is lacking variety, motivating mission design and some deeper story. Dialogues are mostly including puberty level profanity at the beginng with some show-off attitude and only some background information and story development sprinkled into them. Some characters are interesting, but most rather shallow. Players will like this game if they enjoyed the Descent series and an underwater dystopian setting with arcade-style dogfights. Rating: 4/10 points

Очень много скучной долгой болтовни и довольно примитивный геймплей. Может для своего времени игра и была интересна за счет своего необычного сеттинга, но сейчас - просто нет.

diese gut

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