Aquanox: Deep Descent
Aquanox Deep Descent is a first person underwater vehicle shooter, in which players control a variety of customizable ships to engage in fierce battles in the dystopian deep sea world of Aqua. In the near future the Earth's surface has become uninhabitable. What remains of humankind lives in former mining and research stations, deep below the surface of the sea. Born and raised in the only world we know, the loose network of underwater settlements, torn by the war for resources and dominance between various factions. Take control of a team of highly trained fighter pilots and experience an epic story in the dark world of Aquanox. Send your enemies down to Davy Jones' Locker with well-aimed torpedoes, shrapnel blasts, mines and more in a journey that takes you across the world's oceans and into the deepest trenches of our Earth.
Steam User 2
Came back to this game after playing it roughly a year ago, and ...
I can only sigh. I've loved Aquanox since I was a kid, and always hoped for a continuation of the underwater world. It had a lot of potential, and in a lot of cases I feel it's similar to the OG games where you zip around in your chosen ship and shoot things.
I can't help but cringe when I see obvious spelling errors, and it's a peeve when what I read is not the same as what's being said. What's the point then? You have to read the key bindings to realise that you can dodge to the sides instead of the generic up and down, how to turn on secondary weapons in the hammerhead, etc. It grates me when I'll get constant reminders to follow a damned pipeline in a mission but not tips on how to pilot the sub? Make it make sense.
It also irritates me when I'm listening to MAIN STORY dialogue and it gets cut off because I got too close to a SIDE QUEST area.
Not to mention that certain achievements are STILL broken despite the number of complaints. It's sad when players have to create software to get something in the game that should be obtainable by normal means!
Anyways, it's an okay game if you couldn't be bothered with the nit-picky problems that stick out like a sore thumb at times. I went a little crazy at the easter eggs in the game, but playing it the second time around is a bit dull and frankly, disappointing.
Steam User 2
Been quite a while since this game has been installed on my PC however I simply refuse to play it unless it can be done in VR. Vorpx was certainly tried (in vain) so it wasnt until the fabulous UEVR injector mod was released before it was played in full in glorious VR and it certainly wasnt dissapointing. The feel of actually sitting in the cockpit and blasting away at those underwater nasties is greatly satisfying. There seems to be an uneven-ess in difficulty however meaning the speed of which the players sub can be manouvered can make some battles quite the challenge. Played via the Valve Index with a generic handheld controller is all that is needed with the Steamvr Resolution up quite high at 2080 (approx) per eye. Dialogue for this iteration is kept at a minimum compared to earlier iterations of the game and mentions of mind altering sea flora is quite forgotten. Worth uit? Yes absolutely!
Steam User 2
Having played the first Aquanox (still playing through Aquanox 2 at the time of this review) I can say that this game actually stands as a rare example of a good reboot/prequel. In terms of gameplay Deep Descent has a blend of semi-open world exploration and vehicular combat. Personally I loved the combat in this installment as it felt like a good modernization of the original. I will say to those playing on mouse and keyboard that the game only tells you how to dodge vertically. I found out in the final boss fight how to dodge horizontally by accident. It's double-tapping the shift key while moving with "wasd."
Each of the available submarines available have a series of upgrades including changes to the hull, shields, engines, and fins. I admittedly would have preferred some trade off among the upgrades, such as higher armor at the cost of speed, rather than direct upgrades with no trade offs. But this is a minor gripe in my opinion and I always enjoyed seeing how the view from the cockpit would change with a new hull upgrade.
As for the story and voice acting, which seem to be the most criticized part of the game from what I've seen, I thought they were passable. The Aquanox setting has always been a character unto itself and the writing does a good job capturing that in my opinion. The direction and overall narrative felt a little jarring at times, but no more so than in the original. When it comes to the voice acting I thought that the characters were alright, with the only weak performance coming from one of the main characters, Kaelen, who very much feels like a charismatic cardboard cutout at times. Though this may be to give him enough voice to have agency while being blank enough for the player to imprint onto and feel active in the world. I would contrast this to the original Aquanox, where most of the characters were voice acted well enough to keep me invested...and then we have characters like Brewmister whose dialogue I always skipped or Boston Harper who was so obnoxious that his dialogue alone would break the setting for me at times.
If you're new to Aquanox this might be a good starting point, and it's still worth playing if your enjoyed the previous entries as long as you honestly acknowledge what those games were and what this game is. The setting is honestly fascinating and something I've greatly enjoyed, and Digital Arrow did a good job presenting it for a reboot/prequel. But Aquanox has always had a smidge of camp and flat acting. It's like a good novel getting adapted to a sci-fi channel original series. Overall, you should come into this game and the others in the series with an inverted view, learning to enjoy the setting while viewing the characters as backdrop.
7/10 - Would headbutt a whale with a DSF again.