Aquanox - Dredging up an ancient treasure
Hello there, folks! Michael here. So, we've played another old game, and we've come back to tell you about it!
This time:
AquaNox
In this particular setting, the survivors have fled into the depths of the seas, building a very cyberpunk-ish underwater dystopia.
You could call it "Aquapunk", perhaps? Anyway.
I didn't actually play this particular game as a kid. I -did- however play AquaNox 2: Revelation, which we eventually wanna get around to as well. But we figured we'd start here.
The game that started this franchise was actually called "Archimedean Dynasty". We tried that one as well, but to be frank, that game's aged poorly, we think. Couldn't get into it.
AquaNox, however -has- aged fairly well, so here we are!
So i'll give Amalia the floor and let her tell you about....
-Graphics-
Well okay, you can clearly tell it's an older game, of course. But it does have the advantage of being one of those older games that'll happily accept modern resolutions and run perfectly fine without any glitches.
Not sure whether that's down to good maintenance and compatibility patches or the game was just "born" very compliant, but it's rather nice, anyhow.
Though yeah, with that said, AquaNox doesn't really stand out in terms of it's looks, beyond the obvious fact that everything is underwater. If we told you to imagine an early 2000's action game, you'd probably imagine something pretty close to it.
...because oh boy, this game gets a little special. Now, sound effects, weapon fire, etc. are all fine and perfectly adequate, but there's 2 standout features, here:
For one, there's the music. Now, back in the early 2000's this game's soundtrack probably didn't stand out much, but now?
It's an amazing time capsule. Check this out!
We kinda love it, honestly. Makes us wanna do naughty things with our synths.😜
But then, there's the other thing that stands out about the game's sound. And oh my, you are not prepared.
It is, quite simply, glorious schlock. 😉
Thankfully, the writing also perfectly aligns with it, providing us with wonderful lines like these:
There's a good amount of story and lore dialogue in port, and plenty of mid-mission chatter, too!
So if it ain't plain to see, we kinda love the way this game sounds. It makes for an absolutely bonkers experience!
But of course, sound alone doesn't a game make. There's always the important question of...
Some of the dialogue is story-important, some of it gives you side-missions and some of it is just there for lore and world-building.
And well, to be frank, this game may have overwhelmed us a bit at first. But not because of complicated controls or anything.
See, this game came out long before dialogue systems became a standardized thing. So, those crazy, hammed up dialogues?
Once you select who you want to talk to from the hub menu, those dialogues just play. No pausing, no selection of responses, no replaying dialogue.
So it's fairly fast-paced plot developments, delivered through stunningly cheesy voice lines that play exactly once, unless you reload your save.
Yeah, if you're gonna be playing this game, brace for that, because we got totally swept up and had a hard time following what was going on for the first couple of missions.
You get used to it, though! AquaNox is kinda like a person who speaks really fast. You just have to learn to adapt to it.😉
The other activity in the hub areas between the missions is to buy new ships, weapons and equipment. AquaNox is one of those games where you always get to trade stuff in for it's full value, so you never actually lose money beyond using torpedoes and sonar decoys, which are consumables. Fear not though, because this game is fairly generous about money.
So what about the meat of the game? The action gameplay? Imma let Michael tell you.
Well, the most succinct description we found for the in-mission gameplay of AquaNox is "pleasingly uncomplicated".
It's an old-school action game, and it feels like it. You move, you shoot, you switch weapons from time to time and maybe press the button to drop a noise decoy if the torpedo warning is going off.
Most of the missions are fairly quick, and we never found ourselves stuck or unsure of what to do.
There are some standout weapons that have more of a cooldown between shots, meaning you wanna aim more carefully, but you get a big burst of alpha damage as a result.
Most of the weapons also require so-called E-shells, which is an ammo type that regenerates based on your generator upgrade level. Mind you, there doesn't seem to be an upper limit to how many E-shells can be generated, so it'll constantly keep generating more ammo throughout the entire mission, meaning that you'll rarely have to think about ammunition, if ever.
Except for the torpedoes!
Because yes, of course, an underwater action game needs torpedoes, and there's 10 different types in the game. Though in all fairness, they pretty much all work the same. Press lock button on target, select torpedo as weapon, fire. All but one of the torpedoes are target tracking, and the difference is mainly just in agility/tracking ability and damage.
Oh, and there's the limitation of how many you can carry. The starting ship can go into missions with a maximum of 4, while the ship with the most room for torpedoes can carry 14. And there's no mid-mission ammo pickups. Mind you, missions tend to have a few dozen enemies, so you can't just torpedo your way through the whole game. Their role is more like that of grenades in regular shooters.
Some of the torpedoes have passive sonar tracking, while others are -optical- tracking, and everyone who knows anything about submarine combat just started crying while reading that.😜
There's also a couple of torpedoes that are meant as EMP weapons, which do more "system" damage than kinetic, stunning enemy ships rather than outright blowing them up.
Actually, speaking of EMP weapons, there's a cluster of missions about halfway through the game that involves heavy use of EMP weapons because of story reasons. (Without spoiling anything, during this part of the game, you're fighing an enemy force that isn't outright bad.)
The thing is, the only EMP weapons available in the game are a couple of torpedo types (Which you can only carry a few of), and the so-called EMPactor (Yes, really). The latter becomes your de facto weapon of coice during those missions, and frankly, it's a bit painful. The EMPactor is one of the less fun to use weapons in the game, with a slow fire-rate, slow-moving projectiles that need lots of target lead and generally underwhelming performance.
.... and the worst thing? You don't actually need to use it during those missions at all. The game kinda lies to you, implying quite heavily that EMP weapons are required, but if you just use your normal pew-pews, it's totally fine, the enemy pilots will always eject and get out safely. We found out when we forgot to equip the EMPactor and went into one of those missions, then noticed the ejection capsule animations. Huh.
But overall, those few missions were the only time the game really annoyed us. Beyond that, it was pretty fun. The missions are quick, the action punchy and the whole experience overall is really simple and straightforward. Thoroughly refreshing from a modern perspective!
So, before we conclude our look at AquaNox, let me put down a few words about the...
-Story-
Well, look. You just read a whole post of us praising this game for being an old-school action shooter. And well, the story kinda fits that mould, too.
...yeah, like that. high-pressure yeast and cinnamon-flavoured insects. None of this stuff is ever explained or even mentioned again, so the lore isn't exactly -deep-, but it certainly is varied and creative!
So, why don't i hand it back over to Amalia, so she can give you our...
-Conclusion-
Well, it's probably fairly obvious that we enjoyed our time with AquaNox. In fact, it was a thorough blast!
Like we said earlier, there was a period of adjustment as we got used to the game's pace, but once we got into it, the whole experience was consistently entertaining, both during the missions and in-between.
In our time, where games are bloated with crafting systems, tens of hours of filler content and microtransactions, it was just so refreshing to play a game like this again.
It feels simple to play, while being original and interesting. Also, our total playtime ended up at 12.6 hours, so playing this isn't a long-term commitment, either.
So yeah, if we got you curious, Michael and i thoroughly recommend this game. You can pick it up on Steam or GOG for just a few bob.
That'll be it from us! Hope you enjoyed your read, and until next time, have a good one!
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