Retro Review: Hydrophobia (Xbox 360)

<p>I rarely purchase games from Xbox Live Arcade&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m one of those weirdos that needs to have a physical copy for some reason&period; This O&period;C&period;D&period; of mine has kept me from some amazing games though&comma;<em> Hydrophobia<&sol;em> being one of them&period; Little did I know for seven years this small survival horror title was at my fingertips&period; Before I downloaded this game I read about it and it reminded me of one of my favorite survival horror games from two generations ago that took place on a ship as well&comma; <em>Cold Fear<&sol;em>&period;  As the game downloaded I got more and more excited to experience it&comma; and I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t too disappointed&period; I enjoy all things survival horror and even though this title was a tad short and somewhat frustrating&comma; I still enjoyed my brief time with it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The world is a vastly different place than we know in this game&comma; the human population has outgrown agricultural production&period; People are suffering&comma; people are starving and people are about to take action into their own hands&period; The story takes place on the ship <em>Queen of the World<&sol;em> and the big wigs of the world are aboard enjoying the ten-year anniversary celebration of the ship&period; Kate&comma; one of the engineers for the ship&comma; is enjoying an evening off when every electronic item in her apartment goes all screwy&period; She calls her pal Scoot who is on the ship and he keeps telling her to enjoy her evening&comma; little did they know they&&num;8217&semi;d both be getting more than they bargained for&period; A terrorist organization&comma; the Malthusians&comma; wants to save the world by killing a large chunk of its population has been smuggled board the <em>QOTW<&sol;em>&period; They plan on killing everyone on board and making a point that not even the Elites are safe&comma; well that&&num;8217&semi;s not happening on Kate Wilson&&num;8217&semi;s watch&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130275" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130275" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130275" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;05035648&sol;hydrophobia2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130275" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Hydrophobia<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Dark Energy&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Being an Xbox Live Arcade game the quality of the graphics was actually about as good as <em>Cold Fear<&sol;em>&comma; which isn&&num;8217&semi;t a knock&comma; but isn&&num;8217&semi;t what I expected out of a title from the last generation of consoles&period; Dark Energy did do a great job with the water graphics though&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;m assuming a game where your main enemy is water they had better be some good looking waves&period; The enemy design isn&&num;8217&semi;t that great&comma; they all look alike and sometimes you can barely see them&comma; I would aim my weapon until the reticle turned red then I would fire in hopes of hitting my target&period; The water and environment really hide the Malthusians very well&period; The most difficult parts of the game are the platforming sections&comma; even though this game holds your hand with destination markers the whole time&comma; you sometimes cannot find your way up&period; I fell to my death many times wondering where I was supposed to jump from and figuring out where to land&period; This made for some very frustrating do-overs during the latter part of the game&period; Had they tweaked the platforming a bit&comma; or made the areas to grab a bit easier to find this would have been a much more enjoyable experience&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The controls for <em>Hydrophobia<&sol;em> are surprisingly tight which is good because you&&num;8217&semi;ll have a hard time finding where to jump once you&&num;8217&semi;re platforming&period; Once you do see the pipe you need to jump onto be sure to press A&comma; that will heave you over there&period; When you encounter a door or an interactive object simply press X and presto the door will open or the console will turn on&period; When you finally get the gun&comma; which is pretty sweet&comma; press Left Trigger to aim and Right Trigger to fire&period; You&&num;8217&semi;ll need every bit of shooting perfection later on in the game when enemies are swarming you&period; Thankfully you get different bullets to put into the gun which makes killing baddies super fun and inventive&period; To proceed through the flooding ship you have to find ciphers to open locked doors&comma; to do this you press down on the D-pad to bring up your Mavi which scans the specially painted ciphers&comma; that the terrorists painted&comma; and uses them on locked doors&period; If you can&&num;8217&semi;t find the cipher you&&num;8217&semi;ll just run around the same area of the ship for hours on end&comma; so remember to scan around every now and then for information and ciphers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;130657" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-130657" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-130657" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;10&sol;18005515&sol;hydrophobia&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-130657" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Hydrophobia<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Dark Energy&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I enjoyed <em>Hydrophobia<&sol;em>&comma; I thought that it would be a little more scary seeing as the word &&num;8220&semi;phobia&&num;8221&semi; is in the title&comma; but there really weren&&num;8217&semi;t any scares&period; The only thing that scared me was the camera when I was trying to find the right door to leave through as I slowly drowned&period; You do get bang for your buck with this title&comma; I think I spent 5 dollars for it and it entertained me for several nights&period; It can&comma; however&comma; be completed in one sitting it isn&&num;8217&semi;t a very long or replayable game&comma; but it is fun while it lasts&period; And don&&num;8217&semi;t get your hopes up for any closure to the game either&semi; the ending is pretty open-ended and I doubt I&&num;8217&semi;ll get the closure I want and deserve&period; But if you want to kill about four hours of your day this is the game for you&comma; no huge commitment or 100-hour game here&period; A nice quick game for those of us who need to pad our games beaten list&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;