This is my first try at reviewing games and apart from a few questions in exams I don't have much experience in reviewing anything. Oh well here goes.
By the way the following review has big spoilers but your not likely going to care.
Undertow is an arcade games on the Xbox 360 and takes it place with many other games that no one else cares about and is only ever bought to raise Achievement points.
Undertow is set in the near (it's always near in post apocalyptic games isn't it) future in which the entire world has been submerged in water that has come from......somewhere. Well this is never really explained. Humanity (or the English as that seems to all be that's left) was saved by an "Admiral" who united mankind and was able to fight of marauding pirates who only want to loot and pillage so they can pimp their submarines or something. When I first heard this I thought that it sounded pretty original and might set undertow up to be a good. I was wrong. The first mission has you play an Iron Marine; the most elite fighting force of the deep has supposedly never lost a battle. After this fairly simple training mission you're rewarded with a cut scene between a shady person in the shade and a man who feels it necessary to wear diving equipment and carry around guns and knives indoors. I soon found out that Scuba man was a pirate who I would know be playing as and the man in the shade was the "Admiral" who is so evil he finds it appropriate to laugh maniacally after every spoken word.
After this cut scene the idea of a plot with any from of sense was thrown out a porthole but I thought to myself "fuck it and role with it" so I kept playing it for a little longer. Well as you play through you have to fight many random battles with random submarines but you soon end up having Scuba man say "wait these capture points that looks just like the other capture points is different.....something strange is a foot". It then turns out that the "Admiral" was evil (big surprise) and planned for you too end up swimming with the fishes since the start of the game and only used you for his own gain to do something evil (do I need to point out that the plot makes no sense). After an easy fight you are given another rather random and non essential cut scene explaining that you pissed off some "dude" and that he wants Scuba man and his Scuba friends dead. After a fight with this dude you take the role of the "dude" who is apparently a scientist and has a son who is really fucking annoying. An entire mission had some whiney little brat complain about how you're doing something wrong and that you should make friends with the pirates who are firing missiles at you. This was about the time I decided that the campaign wasn't worth my time.
The combat is incredible frustrating and will piss you off no matter how "elite" you are. Undertow plays like a cross between Geometry Wars and Battlefield in which you move around in a 2D screen capturing spots and eliminating enemy players. At the start of the game you chose one of four classes (Fast speed weak power Scuba man, Medium speed medium strength Armor man, slow speed and high Strength Super Armor man and the submarine) and start at a single point. You then hold down both Joysticks and go off to capture other points and hopefully kill the "bad" guys. The game play can be summed up as a wet failure.
Games can be won by capturing two out of three capture points, staying in front of a choke point and holding down on the right stick, killing everything that runs into you. The combat is bland and samey and really fucking annoying. The missiles and bullets don't always go where your pointing and this causes many "Why is he not dying" moments. It also gets annoying when a little Scuba man is able to walk (err swim) up to your submarine and kill you because the missile didn't go where you wanted it too.
The screen is also filled with too many things going on at once, and while this works with Geometry wars that have contrasting colours and shapes this DOES NOT work on a game that has blue spheres on a blue background. Far too many times I had no idea what I was doing or where I was or who I was. However the annoying thing was that most of the time I came out a winner because the game only requires two working thumbs to play.
As you get kills you can level up but leveling up doesn't seem to do much and you can only level up each class 2 times. Chances are you'll only play as the class that works anyway so leveling up shouldn't matter.
The graphics of the levels are fairly nice and complex but unfortunately ruin the game play. The sound is nice but you can only listen to Glob Glob Glob for so long before you want to don a pair of concrete shoes and go for a swim.
Undertow has multiplayer and I, a self confessed multiplayer whore, am incredibly pissed off at the multiplayer. It takes forever to have a full room and chances are the host is sitting back and deliberately not starting the match to piss you off (he is only doing part of what Microsoft has done). If you're lucky enough to join a game that plans on starting then you find yourself playing with 15 other people who plan on firing nonstop the entire time to get a lucky kill. This game lacks the insane Geometry War skills needed to get high points and the teamwork and strategies needed to defeat the enemy in Battlefield. This ruins the multiplayer aspect of this game but I suppose multiplayer wasn't ever expected to be any good. If you've ever played CoD4 and been constantly killed by a random grenade from across the map then that moment pretty much sums up this game.
It was about this time I realized this I had an odd feeling to drown this free game and go play CoD4. And that's exactly what I did.
Incase you don't known undertow was made free for a little while to make up for the problems with the Xbox live servers over the Christmas break. If you feel like you missed out on something by not getting this game during the no price period then don't feel bad, you haven?t missed out on anything. If you are annoyed at the fact that Microsoft thinks that giving this up for free for a week is enough to cool many gamers anger then you are absolutely right and I support your plan to attack Microsoft HQ, here you can borrow my sub.
By the way the following review has big spoilers but your not likely going to care.
Undertow is an arcade games on the Xbox 360 and takes it place with many other games that no one else cares about and is only ever bought to raise Achievement points.
Undertow is set in the near (it's always near in post apocalyptic games isn't it) future in which the entire world has been submerged in water that has come from......somewhere. Well this is never really explained. Humanity (or the English as that seems to all be that's left) was saved by an "Admiral" who united mankind and was able to fight of marauding pirates who only want to loot and pillage so they can pimp their submarines or something. When I first heard this I thought that it sounded pretty original and might set undertow up to be a good. I was wrong. The first mission has you play an Iron Marine; the most elite fighting force of the deep has supposedly never lost a battle. After this fairly simple training mission you're rewarded with a cut scene between a shady person in the shade and a man who feels it necessary to wear diving equipment and carry around guns and knives indoors. I soon found out that Scuba man was a pirate who I would know be playing as and the man in the shade was the "Admiral" who is so evil he finds it appropriate to laugh maniacally after every spoken word.
After this cut scene the idea of a plot with any from of sense was thrown out a porthole but I thought to myself "fuck it and role with it" so I kept playing it for a little longer. Well as you play through you have to fight many random battles with random submarines but you soon end up having Scuba man say "wait these capture points that looks just like the other capture points is different.....something strange is a foot". It then turns out that the "Admiral" was evil (big surprise) and planned for you too end up swimming with the fishes since the start of the game and only used you for his own gain to do something evil (do I need to point out that the plot makes no sense). After an easy fight you are given another rather random and non essential cut scene explaining that you pissed off some "dude" and that he wants Scuba man and his Scuba friends dead. After a fight with this dude you take the role of the "dude" who is apparently a scientist and has a son who is really fucking annoying. An entire mission had some whiney little brat complain about how you're doing something wrong and that you should make friends with the pirates who are firing missiles at you. This was about the time I decided that the campaign wasn't worth my time.
The combat is incredible frustrating and will piss you off no matter how "elite" you are. Undertow plays like a cross between Geometry Wars and Battlefield in which you move around in a 2D screen capturing spots and eliminating enemy players. At the start of the game you chose one of four classes (Fast speed weak power Scuba man, Medium speed medium strength Armor man, slow speed and high Strength Super Armor man and the submarine) and start at a single point. You then hold down both Joysticks and go off to capture other points and hopefully kill the "bad" guys. The game play can be summed up as a wet failure.
Games can be won by capturing two out of three capture points, staying in front of a choke point and holding down on the right stick, killing everything that runs into you. The combat is bland and samey and really fucking annoying. The missiles and bullets don't always go where your pointing and this causes many "Why is he not dying" moments. It also gets annoying when a little Scuba man is able to walk (err swim) up to your submarine and kill you because the missile didn't go where you wanted it too.
The screen is also filled with too many things going on at once, and while this works with Geometry wars that have contrasting colours and shapes this DOES NOT work on a game that has blue spheres on a blue background. Far too many times I had no idea what I was doing or where I was or who I was. However the annoying thing was that most of the time I came out a winner because the game only requires two working thumbs to play.
As you get kills you can level up but leveling up doesn't seem to do much and you can only level up each class 2 times. Chances are you'll only play as the class that works anyway so leveling up shouldn't matter.
The graphics of the levels are fairly nice and complex but unfortunately ruin the game play. The sound is nice but you can only listen to Glob Glob Glob for so long before you want to don a pair of concrete shoes and go for a swim.
Undertow has multiplayer and I, a self confessed multiplayer whore, am incredibly pissed off at the multiplayer. It takes forever to have a full room and chances are the host is sitting back and deliberately not starting the match to piss you off (he is only doing part of what Microsoft has done). If you're lucky enough to join a game that plans on starting then you find yourself playing with 15 other people who plan on firing nonstop the entire time to get a lucky kill. This game lacks the insane Geometry War skills needed to get high points and the teamwork and strategies needed to defeat the enemy in Battlefield. This ruins the multiplayer aspect of this game but I suppose multiplayer wasn't ever expected to be any good. If you've ever played CoD4 and been constantly killed by a random grenade from across the map then that moment pretty much sums up this game.
It was about this time I realized this I had an odd feeling to drown this free game and go play CoD4. And that's exactly what I did.
Incase you don't known undertow was made free for a little while to make up for the problems with the Xbox live servers over the Christmas break. If you feel like you missed out on something by not getting this game during the no price period then don't feel bad, you haven?t missed out on anything. If you are annoyed at the fact that Microsoft thinks that giving this up for free for a week is enough to cool many gamers anger then you are absolutely right and I support your plan to attack Microsoft HQ, here you can borrow my sub.