quaNox is a fighting submarines game set in the year 2666, five years after the events depicted in Archimedean Dynasty, a previous game from Massive. Players take on the role of Emerald "Deadeye" Flint, the hard-boiled mercenary who starred in the first game. Off screen, before the game even starts, the ship Flint laboriously customized in the first game is stolen, and he has to start over with a wallowing tub. The Bionts, a bio-robotic civilization who were the villains of the first game, are also back. At first, their only presence in the game is the lingering wreckage of
their destroyed subs, wreckage which explodes on contact with other vessels,
but as the game progress, the Bionts' new plot and its terrible side effects
take center stage.
Meanwhile, Flint sets out to earn the money he needs to get a sub good enough to get his old vessel back. In this pursuit, he takes a series of assignments from various unsavory characters. Nearly all of the assignments involve combat, which is fine because AquaNox is a fighting game rather than a role-playing one. As Flint wins fights and gains money, he gets to shop among nine underwater subs, all of which can be outfitted with a selection of plasma guns, machines guns, laser guns and torpedoes.
The 30 single-player missions contain 40 enemies. Besides the human ones (pirates, smugglers and other outlaws) and the Bionts themselves, the repercussions of the Bionts' plot have unleashed actual sea monsters which must be overcome. Flint finds himself escorting, protecting, searching and (above all) fighting. Besides the single-player campaign, AquaNox contains four instant-action scenarios and also allows multiplayer play over the Internet.
A visual voyage that pushes the envelope
Players with a hot computer running one of nVidia's GeForce 3 video cards are in for a visual treat playing AquaNox, as it is one of the first games to take full advantage of the capabilities of that card's pixel and vertex shading. It is no joke to say that the graphics in AquaNox are among the best ever seen in an action game. The texturing is detailed and the colors are vivid. The coral reefs, seaweed, underwater mountains, alien and futuristic complexes, dunes and volcanoes all will knock players' socks off. Plus, the weapons animations and the explosion effects are brilliant.
The subs can be guided either with the keyboard and mouse or using a gamepad or joystick, but configuring the latter two is a non-intuitive, taxing process. With the first two, the hard part is getting the mouse sensitivity to a comfortable level. The action is very fast-paced, so players will want a high mouse response, but over-correction is much easier to achieve. At least it can be done. What can't be adjusted is that there is no option to save the game during missions. This really, really sucks, as more than one of them is timed. One small mistake in such a mission and players may as well quit out and start over. Just to make restarting even less desirable, the in-game cutscenes that start each mission can't be skipped. Good as they are, by the fourth or fifth time, they get a little old.
Lack of saving aside, the missions are action-packed. There are five levels of difficulty, but even on the lowest it is an adjustment to think and fight in three dimensions. The game really gives the feel of piloting a submarine. Foes come from all sides, which, while "realistic," makes it easy for players to get turned around and unsure of where their ships are, much less where the enemy is.
I am not the world's best 3-D thinker, so the combination of enemies on all sides and not being able to save mid-mission made AquaNox a real challenge for me. If, however, you are the sort of person who tracks vectors easily and revels in dogfight games, then you will find this game a great looking addition to your collection.
— Eric
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