AquaNox | a Review
originally published on 11/08/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the admiral of Aqua, G.E.M.Simov, an absolute menace for the kiddie pool. Today, I’ve swam up to you folks to tell you about AquaNox.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
AquaNox is a weird fucking game, pardon my french. And I mean it. I can’t quite put a finger on it, but this game is, essentially, a flying simulator, but instead of flying, the player is deep underwater. The gist of it is that the player controls some kind of seacraft that can move forward, backwards, to the left and to the right, and can also direct their movement in a 360 degree zone around itself.
That seacraft also has guns, and the player uses those guns to do things. In essence, the Gameplay boils down to:
Swim around.
Kill goons.
And it’s that simple. I can’t really say much about the basic Gameplay, other than the fact that the player starts off in a really unfavorable position, due to the fact that they have the weakest vessel, out of all possible choices. As a result of that, the speed at which the player gets around is incredibly underwhelming, and the speed at which the player moves in space itself (and I mean space as in the surrounding area, rather than the cosmos) is also quite low, which leaves me wanting more.
Not only that, but the player’s options, when it comes to weapons, are really strange, and somewhat limited. One can fire torpedoes, which do more damage, but they take up ammo, which costs credits. If the player opts to buy new gear (new weapons) and ammo, they will, most likely, be unable to afford the better vessels that are, frankly, what the player should be looking to aim for, as they come with a far greater maneuverability and speed, which, in turn, makes playing the game feel a lot better.
The worst part of the whole debacle comes in the form of the aforementioned weapons. They feel weak and ineffective. The game, even though made to appear as though it needs the player to be fast and zoom around, is very unsatisfyingly slow. It takes obscenely long amounts of time to kill some enemies, and each mission (the game is split in a number of missions) takes longer than the previous.
The game just does not feel good to play. Even with a better ship, and better weapons, the increase in power is not really impressive, due to the fact that the enemies constantly become tougher and tougher.
Overall… It’s not good. It has a foundation that seems interesting, and I want to call it solid, but, due to the fact that that foundation IS the entirety of the game, I cannot overlook the fact that the most important thing - movement - is so poorly done. 1/3
Presentation
AquaNox has two types of screen. One of them is the menu screen - in which the player can customize their vehicle and interact with some other characters, progressing the story - and the other is the GAMING screen, which involves the player controlling their seacraft and killing goons, slowly.
The menu screen looks quite good - the aesthetic that the folks who made this game have gone for is, frankly, really intriguing. As soon as I launched the game, I was greeted with this dreary, somewhat droning music that was simply imposing and mysterious, which really had me feeling a great desire to see what was what. The design of the menus themselves is great, and the feedback the player gets for pressing buttons is spectacular.
The smoothness of those menu screens is really, REALLY something. Compared to games that have come out in the last there years, AquaNox still has an astonishingly good menu screen, and the feedback the player gets, as well as the rapidity at which screens change, is fascinatingly good.
The GAMING screen is where most of the graphics one would usually associate with a game go. It’s 3D, and it’s… Very bare-bones. Now, I don’t know how to describe it appropriately, but, for a game from 2001, I felt as though it was doing its best with what it had. The missions were set on maps that seemed somewhat samey, and the only means of navigating around them appropriately was through the use of waypoints that were set by the game itself. It does not look bad, but it does not look good, either.
I have to point out that the music I mentioned - the good, dreary, mysterious stuff - is only around on the main menu. The menu-screens, which technically have the player waltz about a station of sorts, have mostly ambient music of a crowded place. It sounds decent. The GAMING screen music, however, is just… Some weird techno/rock, which is the same for every single mission, almost, and it’s an insane tonal shift from what BOTH the main menu, the cutscenes (which are pretty great), and the menu screens set up.
The game has a lot of voice acting in it, and that voice-acting is quite good. I don’t think I can complain about it at all. Overall, the presentation is really good, at some places, but it comes short in others. 2/3
Story
This is the part where I sit down and say - what the fuck?
Turns out this game WAS a sequel to something - which I found out only because I looked it up on Wikipedia. The first game is called Archimedean Dynasty - which is nowhere near AquaNox - and it’s OLD. I figure I should’ve played that one first, but I was done with AquaNox by the time I knew it existed.
So, the story picks up after what happens in Archimedean Dynasty. As a result of that, if one has not played through that one, they might be a bit confused and befuddled… But only a bit. The story is relatively standalone, with the main character being recognized as a decently big deal, but he’s not calling the shots - he’s doing jobs for others and he is taking part in big events, but nothing major.
The mystery of Aqua - the world - is present and, I think, that might be because the setting could have been established in Archimedean Dynasty. Thus, it remains vague in AquaNox, as a result of which it is really intriguing - frankly, it is the only thing that had me going by the time I reached the later stages of the game. I just wanted to find out more, to explore this weird, fucked up, strangely humorous and very political world. It was great.
The story is fantastic. 3/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Unfortunately, the gameplay was so bland and unpleasant, I can not give AquaNox the legendary point. It is as simple as that. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. Unexpectedly high grade, frankly. I’d recommend finding a playt-hrough on YouTube and diving in the world, instead of playing through the game. It’d be far worse of an experience to do the latter.
I put it in the bag of average games, disappointed that it could have been so much more, but it chose to be what it is.