The story also had a lot of potential, but in their eagerness to create a solid story developers Massive simply went overboard. There is enough conversation between characters to fill an entire adventure game (and you know how much chitchat they usually contain), and since it's mostly crammed into cut scenes between missions it's simply too much to take in or even care about. They've tried to add flavour and a bit more realism to the game by including inconsequential chats with shop owners and waitresses, but they instead prove entirely pointless. After one mission I counted how many times I had to skip through dialogue pages before I could play the next mission and the number totalled an insane 72 pages. You'll be grateful for the option to skip conversations too because the acting is truly terrible. Remember the wooden voice over Harrison Ford did for the original Blade Runner cut in the hope that the film studio wouldn't use it? Flint, the main character, constantly sounds remarkably similar to Ford at his intentional worst. The other characters sound as if they're high on drugs, very slow readers or have recently inhaled helium, and all of them grate on your nerves almost instantly.
As I said I didn't finish Aquanox because it was far too frustrating, and that's saying something when I managed to slog through the dreadful Daikatana for a review. When I wasn't tearing my hair out because of the controls, it was the overly difficult objectives found in a number of missions that were sending me round the bend. All too often I'd have to slog though the easy first half of a mission over and over while I worked out how to complete a difficult objective in a second half such as avoiding mines while relying on an ocean current to move rather than my engines. Aquanox totally fails to live up to its potential as an enjoyable blast due to some fundamental flaws that will, if there is any justice in this world, send it plummeting to the bottom of the sales charts.
The Verdict: There's so much frustration here that even the polished graphics can't make up for it. Just skip it, even if you enjoyed the demo - in the full game the sluggish controls quickly become far more of an irritation than they were in the demo.
By Pete Closs
Editor
[Aquanox was developed by Massive and published by Fishtank]
