As a result of the Malthusian’s bombing campaign, the ship is taking on water all over the place and one of the game’s greatest elements is the way that it takes this hazardous environment and, rather than just using it in scripted sequences, actually turns it into a dynamic threat that the player must handle. Dark Energy have spent a lot of time developing a sophisticated modelling of liquid kinetics. So once a force is applied to a body of water you will see it travel down the lengths of corridors, dissipating and reacting to the physical layout around it; waves will rebound of walls, objects will get pulled along in the currents or trapped in little eddies and the player will get dragged under or swept along depending on depth and trajectory. It’s all very impressive and the movement of the water in particular looks smooth and is, at hectic moments, quite breath-taking.
The real gift of this system, though, is the way that the player can use it against their adversaries in the game. You’ll come across plenty of rooms with glass walls that have filled with water and contain barrels, boxes and the like. Stand right in front of one when blasting out the window and you’ll likely find yourself crushed by the objects inside as the water pours out in a large, concussive wave. Taking down the window from a more discrete distance, however, can often be used to sweep groups of enemies off their feet and can send explosive barrels drifting in their direction, primed for detonation. There’s a strong emphasis on using the environment to tackle your foes with hazards such as electrical cabling, gas leaks, the aforementioned explosive canisters (which can also send dangerous pools of fire floating downstream) and even simply drowning them.
This works well for much of the start of the game, with the player’s only firearm restricted to a glorified stun-gun, but somewhere around the halfway mark the title runs out of new hazards to introduce and begins rewarding the player with more and more powerful ammo types. When combined with the enemy’s almost preternatural eyesight, seriously limiting the stealth opportunities available, this means that much of the latter part of the game turns into straight up firefights, and the shooting mechanics just aren’t as well refined as the rest of the game. There’s still a few novel traps you can exercise such as remotely opening a door to drown an enemy squad, but these are few and far between. The underwater combat is nicely handled, thanks in part to the seamless control mechanics, with blood trails when wounded giving away your location to any enemies in the vicinity.
It says a lot that, while these shoot-outs are competently implemented, the most engaging part of the game is the first third where the player is simply tasked with surviving the environment and navigating their way around. It’s a truly immersive setting thanks to the clever pacing and physics-based elements the game adds, particularly for a genre that for much of its history has lacked this level of player interactivity. The sound design adds a lot to the superb atmosphere with the constant background crescendo of the groaning hull, sparking electric cables, steam pipes venting and rushing water making the game feel hectic even when nothing is going on. Besides the full-on effect of watching the water racing around the corridors and rooms there’s also plenty of nice little camera tricks, with liquid smearing the lens, applying distortion effects as it runs down the screen. The character models are a little simple compared to the world around them, with no attempt at lip syncing, and there’s a serious dearth of distinct enemy models. Overall, though, it’s a great looking game with lots of dynamic lighting and, barring these issues, you’d be hard pushed to tell it apart from a retail release.
The plot is particularly strong, picking up on a potentially real-world doomsday scenario and complementing it with a few hints at the main character’s backstory and past traumas. There’s a few genuine horror jumps thrown into the mix and a very unnerving, subtle start to a plotline regarding a young girl who attentive listeners will notice appears in the audio cues at several junctures. Particular praise has to go to the dialogue, with the player joined over the radio by her superior Scoot for much of Hydrophobia’s duration. His Scottish accent and wry, sarcastic wit are very endearing with some great one-liners exhibited, making the interplays between the two characters one of the highlights of the game, it’s so good that at times it’s like you’re listening to excerpts from Limmy’s Show. The only downside to this is that far too much of the time he actually gives away solutions to puzzle elements and this naturally shortens the lifetime of the experience.
The game will clock in at around four to six hours for the first playthrough, although for completionists there’s a number of level-specific challenges and hidden items to be found. By the end of the game it does start to get tiring seeing the same old below-deck corridors and engineering bays – it would be nice in the follow up release to see more of the expansive, diverse environments that are hinted at in the opening scenes. The game certainly provides a high-tension finale for its final act, though, and they’ve done a good job of nailing the pacing for an episodic story arc.
There’s a score attack-based challenge room available upon finishing the main story, which sees the player fighting off five waves of enemy soldiers. It’s quite simple to complete but they’ve carried over the combo scoring mechanic from the main game, meaning that to get the top scores you’ll have to experiment with a few different strategies. Despite this it’s still not very compelling, being based on a simplistic arena layout, and could have been a lot better had the designers created a more involved obstacle course exercising more of the environmental features that are found in the main game.
Hydrophobia is a fine example of the high level of quality now found on the console download services. It looks great, has some novel mechanics and a fantastic story. This first instalment also hints at a lot of interesting features that could be appearing in follow-up releases, but part way into Act Two it’s hard to shake the feeling that you’re playing by rote and that the game is recycling far too much content for its own good. It’s a highly enjoyable title and playing around with the physics system is a rewarding activity, but its high level of polish doesn’t completely disguise the limited level design and repetition found in the later chapters.