Hydrophobia Review (360, XBLA)

I’ve got that sinking feeling…

If the past century as taught me anything, it’s don’t build any form of civilisation around or even remotely near to water. Rapture. P&O Cruise-ships. Bognor Regis. The chilling isolation of being completely surrounded by nothing else but an uncontrollable force can bring on fearful bouts of paranoia, and there’s no one to turn too when civilisation collapses/you get salmonella/you get sick of the sight of brown. Hydrophobia would rather focus on the quaint idea of your own home slowly sinking into the sea. And hell, it’s petrifying.

Hydrophobia is set in the near future, where humanity has taken a somewhat radical approach to the crisis of over population; plonk the rich on a luxury cruise boat called the ‘Queen Of The World’ whilst the rest of the world suffers on land. Upon the tenth year anniversary party of the ship setting off, terrorists bomb the hulls of the ship causing it to slowly sink down into the sea (and delaying the fireworks display). Although engineer Kate Wilson’s primary goal is to get the hell out, conditions are forcing her to slowly unravel the schemes of the nautical nasties.

HydrophobiaIt doesn’t take long for your greatest enemy in the entire game to kill you; water. As the hull is breached, the sea slowly begins to pour in any which way it can, and the ship becomes an hourglass with you trapped into it. Even when it’s only lapping at your feat whilst you try and take a breather, the crisis still grips hold of your psyche and panic is all too easy to seep back into your mind. Pretty soon most of the ship is flooded, and the inevitable diving sequences provoke the same sickening, choking feeling that takes over any calmness.

The reason behind the constant fear of drowning that runs throughout could be down to the engine the title proudly boasts. Developed for three years, the purpose of the HydroEngine is to accurately replicate not just the look of water, but the physics that a room full of it would take upon your frail body should you accidentally open a door to a room filled with it. Should a gas pipe detonate around a petrol can (and being your typical survival horror bad luck charm protagonist, they will), petrol fires will present new obstacles to overcome, often caused by your own hand.

Although you can’t fight the inevitable floods, you can attempt to tame them and even use them to your advantage should you come across any terrorists logically slaughtering anyone in the fiery flooding wreck by jumping into the fiery flooding wreck. Your only weapon against the maddening crowds of mass murderers is a multi-purpose pistol that’s undergone a famine of any useful ammo that’ll kill anyone. The only feature with unlimited supply are shock waves. The best these can do is numb enemies into submission and an eventually unimaginative death, but used tactfully with the environment can cause some pretty nasty kills. Force an explosive barrel open and your opponents become literally baked. Snipe out electrical wires above their heads and, though not an exceptional solution when surrounded with water, fries anyone in the vicinity. Blasting open a window will flood the area with water and sweep anyone of their feet, causing them to drown should they be numbed. It’s a novel system of combat, one which requires you to constantly be aware of your surroundings, seeing everything used to your aid can also completely backfire. Should you truly bugger up and let too much water into the area, combat will continue underneath the invading sea. Yet seeing as the controls beyond walking aren’t exactly streamlined, darting about the water in an aim to dodge incoming fire and prevent your fingers becoming pretzels is near enough impossible.

The sheer atmosphere and intriguing story gets mashed down

Though the water effects are impressive and the combat intelligent to begin with, it isn’t enough to carry it through the six or so hours of gameplay. As the difficulty increases and more terrorists/obstacles begin to stand in your way, it feels like the game itself can’t take the pressure and presents another unstoppable force that cannot be controlled; glitches. At random moments, pure air would send Kate flying in any direction. The camera decided to start twitching about above Kate’s head just in the middle of a fire-fight, and at one point electricity arched from the ceiling across the room to my head, causing Kate’s spine to practically disappear, snapping her backwards and forcing her to compulsively limbo like a Flump caught in the Large Haddron Collider.

In a weird way, these inexplicable deaths are actually something of a positive once you really start getting to know the protagonist you’re leading. Kate slowly begins to unravel as this wet blanket with the sea only making her even soppier. She likes to shout expletives to really drive how much trouble you’re in frequently and only around half an hour into the crisis manages to finally figure out that “The ship is sinking!”. Though controlling an emotional wreck isn’t exactly fun, it’s not helped by the frustrating, agonising, brain curdling, integrity shuddering, suicide tempting, eye ball clenchingly terrible voice acting performance of Scoot, Kate’s apparent boss and the one who attempts to aid you through your travels. Scoot sounds like a rejected cameo from ‘Father Ted’, a quintessentially camp Irish Man who feels the need to fill in every death defying set piece with jokes that wouldn’t even raise a chuckle from canned laughter, and needless to say, he’s a man capable of killing practically any mood with his voice.

HydrophobiaOn top of destroying practically any atmosphere the game, Scoot also provides bugger all in terms of help. There never feels like any sense of direction to the proceedings, with Scoot shouting ridiculous objectives such as ‘Go to the AVP room and disable all the Cycloconverters’ as if they’re standard appliances found in anyone’s garden shed. In order to access door, you will occasionally have to go into first person and scan environments with an infra-red unit, allowing you to find keys to access different parts of the ship. Perhaps it’s psychological warfare, but when you have no sense of direction in locations so dull they begin to repeat themselves over time with no way out but to undertake yet another little scavenger hunt, you truly lose the will to carry on.

Sure, the water effects are certainly a talking point, but they’re not a selling point. It seems every pro Hydrophobia throws in, a con is just waiting to stick to its shoe and trail around like a piece of toilet paper. All the novel ideas begin to overcomplicate themselves the more the game progresses and though start off strong, are never truly used imaginatively to their advantage. Any hazardous objects are simply bundled together in a six-pack, or are nowhere to be found. The sheer atmosphere and intriguing story gets mashed down with terrible characters, so much so that glitches force you to commit suicide at any given time. With a little more work in design, this could have been a fantastic XBLA title, yet with so many practicalities letting it down, it’ll be hard for some to find a reason to save Hydrophobia from sinking.

The Good: Impressive graphics and water effects, Combat concepts are fun to play with…
The Ba
d
: …but grate with overcomplication later on, Terrible voieovers ruin any chance of building atmosphere, Can frequently die from nothing at all


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2.5 2.5 / 5

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