ECTS 2001AquaNox hands-on

As one of the first games to be announced with optimizations for the GeForce3, it's to be expected that AquaNox is a good-looking game. For example, atmospheric, if somewhat murky, environments take advantage of a number of nice effects--like sparkling surface light that filters down--that give a very good sense of being underwater. But naturally, graphics don't make a game, so we took the opportunity to play several missions from the nearly complete game at ECTS.

Even though it does use the aquatic setting quite well, it's immediately clear that AquaNox is very much inspired by space shooters with detailed stories like the Wing Commander games. The futuristic submarine that players pilot is slow compared with a stereotypical space fighter, but it turns just as nimbly. Even with the ability to strafe from side to side, the slower movement means that players won't often avoid incoming enemy fire with simple dodges, but the first-person shooter technique of circle strafing can be quite effective. The missions we played focused on parts of the story with human opponents, and enemy attack waves often mixed fighter subs, large slow ships, and bottom-hugging ground vehicles. The submarine's ability to turn, along with its rapid-firing weapons like the Gatling laser and plasma cannon, mak it pretty easy to take down lightly armored fighters. The submarine also carries powerful torpedoes to take out bigger targets. A simple sonar map at the bottom of the screen shows nearby terrain in relief as well as friendly and opposing craft.

The game's story puts players in the role of the mercenary pilot DeadEye Flint. There's quite a bit of dialogue to set up the missions, and missions contain several smaller objectives to keep the action moving along. While we couldn't get a good sense of how the overall story unfolds, in our short time with the game, we saw several interesting plot twists, and the in-mission drama in general seemed on par with the likes of the FreeSpace games.

AquaNox is now just being polished and localized by developer Massive Development, which was recently acquired by JoWood Productions. The game is scheduled to ship in the US around October 20. The German version will ship slightly earlier, at the beginning of October. For more information, read our in-depth preview of the game.