Silver Lining: Hydrophobia and the fearless mingling of ideas
‘Silver Lining’ is a column from freelancer Taylor Cocke dedicated to highlighting moments of real potential in less than perfect games. This week he examines Hydrophobia from (the now defunct) developer Dark Energy.
Hydrophobia has all the makings of a great game, but where it fails is commitment. The Dark Energy Digital-developed game attempts to do too many things at once, but never succeeds at any of them. What’s frustrating is the clear potential each idea had, and the huge divide between what its characters are ostensibly feeling and the gameplay itself.
Exemplifying this lack of commitment is the amount of times Hydrophobia shifts between genres in the first act alone. Opening with a dream about drowning, Hydrophobia transitions from a platforming section drawing heavily from the Uncharted series, into a physics puzzler, before finally settling into a cover-based shooter.
Hydrophobia doesn’t execute any of its selected genres well enough to warrant the middling amount of time a player will spend to learn each. In some cases, the design decisions made in some sections undermine some of the game’s good ideas, which only led to disappointing critical reception.
Gallery: Hydrophobia (9/27/10)Continue reading Silver Lining: Hydrophobia and the fearless mingling of ideasSilver Lining: Hydrophobia and the fearless mingling of ideas originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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