Hydrophobia Review

Game:  Hydrophobia AKA Hydrophobia : Prophecy
Year (s):  2011
Company:  dev.  Dark Energy Digital
            pub.  Dark Energy Digital
Engine:  HydroEngine
Type:  Third-Person Shooter (loosely), Platformer
What I Paid:  a few bucks
Game Time:  just over 7 hours, first time, on default

Obligatory Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6kbOIcrJqE


Game Type

I label this as a third-person shooter because you have a gun and there are enemies to shoot.  However, there's only a few dozen bad guys; you'll be spending most of the short game climbing, jumping, and swimming around.  There are some puzzles, but the game holds your hand and tells you what to do, so I wouldn't call it a puzzle game.


Plot

Very little plot.  Some time in the future, overpopulation is a problem.  You are a girl on a giant boat/city.  A few dozen terrorists set off bombs and start shooting people (their answer for overpopulation is murder).  Areas on the ship are in various states of fire and flood, and you are trying to escape. 

The ending is completely inconclusive.


Water Everywhere!

The big sell of this title is the water physics.  They did a great job of accurately portraying how water floods in to an area, sloshes around, and interacts with objects.  That being said, the graphics are average, and, ignoring physics, I think BioShock had graphically superior water.   

In roughly the last ten minutes of the game, your character gains a "hydro-kinetic" ability.  This allows you to make a water tentacle, which is functionally a crappy gravity gun. 


Gameplay

In addition to the above mentioned jumping and swimming, the game offers one gun.  There are five types of ammo, but you'll only regularly use the initial type.  You have a device that can open doors from afar and infiltrate camera systems (then, it can open doors in the camera's viewing area). 

There are some electrical hazards to overcome, and fires to put out by flooding.  I read that the more damage you do to the environment (explosive barrels and such), the more flooding.  So, navigating rooms can be different depending on how you play.  I honestly did not notice this factor in-game, but it sounds cool.

After completing the campaign, the Challenge Room is unlocked.  I was hoping this would be puzzle-based, but it's just arena combat.  Five rounds of bad guys, with increasing difficulty.  I didn't care enough to bother with the Challenge Room. 


Final Thoughts


The dynamic fluid physics are well done, and I liked some of the puzzle aspects.  However, the puzzles were tediously simple, combat was rare and simple, and there was basically no plot.  The hydro-kinetic thing was underutilized, and some of the key bindings were clunky.  The developers had some neat ideas but just didn't flesh them out.  So we're left with just another gimmicky 7-12 hour game.  Not recommended.