Hydrophobia (XBLA) – Review – Xbox 360

Hydrophobia, by definition, is the fear of water. The latest XBLA game, however, by the same name is, for the most part, unrelated; unless you fear water after you play the game or take into account the opening nightmare sequence then it makes sense. Hydrophobia is a visually stunning and interesting game that makes use of water in some interesting ways. It is the first game in Microsoft’s fall XBLA line-up called Game Feast and is creating huge waves in the industry with quite a mix of opinions.

Story: In 2015 the world has been filled with mostly water and deserts making it hard for people to build on and live. Two groups with differing opinions on controlling this population fight for the survival of many – or few depending on the group. One, called the Malthusians, is set on killing people to reduce the population and the other, the Cornucopians, want to try and use technology to maintain humanity on earth.

Hydrophobia takes place on a boat called the Queen of The World, the largest ship ever created which holds an entire, liveable city. You play as Kate Wilson, an innocent engineer who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now she must fight the terrorist threat trying to take over the city while saving herself and her friends.

Gameplay: Initially set to be a retail game, Hydrophobia is a downloadable, episodic 3rd person action adventure game with the sole mechanic of water and survival. Most of the game takes place below the city where the engineers would spend most of their day as they work on the water and electrical systems for the city. However after the attack, instead of work, it’s basically you against patrolling Neo Malthusians. Shortly after the intro and when things start to go bad, you find out that all security systems have somehow been reset. All you level one security access codes no longer work and as you soon find out, the Neo Malthusians have created their own access codes which you need to find and use. Hydrophobia involves a simple but repetitive gameplay structure – run, find frequency keys, find hidden ciphers, gun down enemies, decrypt doors, repeat. This structure wouldn’t be so bad if the gameplay wasn’t so frustrating. The gameplay is progressive and you will almost never find a dull moment, but Hydrophobia is filled with very frustrating gun fights and a confusing map or lack of progressive navigation. Be prepared to die and get frustrated A LOT because if using the basic stun gun, and most of the time you will, enemies take forever to die. Using a stun gun, Kate can rapidly shoot enemies, move small objects like barrels and bodies with a single shot or she can use a charged pulse to drop enemies to the ground or blow up explosive barrels. This gun is useful and although it has infinite ammo, it takes a really long time to kill enemies – it is a stun gun after all. Eventually you will find other ammo that you can swap and use, but that doesn’t last long so you’ll be back to your basic stun gun. In combination with the weak stun gun, it would have been nice to have seen some sort of execution attack or hand to hand combat to kill stunned enemies. This would have greatly reduced frustration and ultimately made the game much, much more enjoyable.

Although you will find yourself in many gun fights and it seems like it is more of a third person shooter, Hydrophobia isn’t about the gunplay. You will spend a lot of time running and swimming through water-filled hallways, as well as climbing and locating hidden ciphers that are written on the walls. Through strategic planning and timing, enemies can be swept off their feet with a strong current or even killed with this current if it is big enough. Other ways to kill enemies are with the use of gas leaks, exploding barrels, and exposed electrical currents from fuse boxes or damaged electrical wire. The amount of combos you can do is pretty interesting, but as I’ve said before, the basic gameplay mechanic is very frustrating.

One of the things I really enjoyed was the use of your Mavi – a screen that can be used to scan the area for hidden messages and ciphers, to interact with doors, hack consoles or even to take control of cameras. Hacking consoles is done by matching frequency waves within a certain time. Failing to hack it within the given time doesn’t really hinder you because you can just go back in and try again. I was expecting it to lock you out or something but hacking consoles is only done to progress through the game so that idea wouldn’t have worked I guess. Interestingly, there is also a 3D map. You can switch to a 2D top down map as well. The 3D map view is nice but I found that the destination point was above or below a level in blank space, or at least it seemed like blank space until you were on the same level. This caused a lot of unnecessary back tracking, confusion, and frustration.

Once you complete the main campaign, a new mode called the Challenge Room will be unlocked. This is a small circular type room with a watery floor, a platform that runs around the room against the wall, explosive barrels, and large storage containers in the middle of the room. This is a 5 round survival mode of sorts where each round, 10 enemies spawn and you must defeat them. In addition the guns you get in single player, Kate now has the ability to manipulate water to create towers and move objects in the water with this tower. It’s a neat concept, but the rounds are quick, no co-op or endless mode and the frustrating gunplay and cover system is still present.

Graphics/Audio/Presentation: When you look at screenshots and video of Hydrophobia, the game looks stunning. Especially at the start of the game when you see the city during a 10 year celebration event and the introduction of a new technology that will save the world, it looks awesome. Hydrophobia was one of my most anticipated games of 2010 and was hoping it would blow me away. The beginning of the game did but then you go under the city and play in hallways and rooms that all resemble the same concrete and behind the scenes look that I was not expecting. I was expecting some more variety in the environments. It wasn’t until the end of the game when this variety came back and I got to see a little more of the city or upper levels of the boat. The main thing about the game is water. Using the HydroEngine, Hydrophobia has some great almost realistic water. It splashes off of walls like you’d expect. When breaking a wall, the pressure of the backed up water will push enemies off their feet and even when you walk through waist-high water you will be forced to walk slow. The voice acting is subpar with little to no emotion or fear in the voices but at times this emotion and fear does come through and really make the moment shine.

Overall: Hydrophobia by design is a really neat game. The use of the Mavi for exploring hidden messages and ciphers on the walls is cool and the ability to remotely open doors via the Mavi and cameras create some interesting moments. However, the frustrating gun fights, cover system and poor navigation makes the game less exciting than I initially thought. Seeing that the game is episodic makes me hope that the next game will come out very soon and incorporate many requested features for a much more enjoyable experience. As I said, Hydrophobia presents an interesting sci-fi world and even has a fun back-story via the site but the gameplay mechanics felt clunky ultimately hindering the overall experience.

Pros:
-Interesting world and back-story
-Stunning graphics at the start and finish
-Occasionally fun use of water
-Great water effects
-Hidden messages on walls
-Smart AI that will make use of cover or slowly find alternate route
-No loading, aside from after the frequent death

Cons:
-Frustrating and clunky combat and cover; die a lot
-Poor map and navigation slowing progression; confused a lot
-No variety between hallways or rooms
-subpar voice acting

Game score: 7 out of 10

An XBLA copy of this game was provided to the reviewer for reviewing purposes from the publisher

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