Prophecy has a really innovative gameplay potential, but it`s wasted in a very short and half-finished game.
The queen of the world gets attacked by the Malthusians, who call themselves after Thomas Malthus who predicted this whole over population crisis. Their plan is to simply kill lots of people to fix the over population problem.
That`s where the game protagonist - Kate Wilson - comes in. She`s a system engineer who finds herself trapped among the chaos inside the ship, and she has to escape, and along the way uncover more of the Malthusians plans aboard the queen of the world.
The attack caused multiple hull breaches in the ship, and made the water flood most of it. And since water plays such a big part in Prophecy, the developers created the Hydro Engine, which is capable of simulating great amounts of water very realistically. By opening door or breaking windows, you can cause water to flow into rooms. Every encounter with your enemies can play out differently. You can just take cover and shoot at them, or submerge the room and the take the fight underwater. All of this is handled beautifully by the Hydro Engine. The water isn`t just a particle effect, it interacts with all the objects around it and inside it, and a big enough wave can push you around or slow you down.
The graphics are decent, but they`re mostly covered by a horrible blurriness effect. It`s not a motion blur or depth of field, but something that looks rather like a very bad quality antialiasing.
The sound design is good. From the sounds of waves crashing down and filling rooms with water, to bullets being fired under water. The voice acting can sometimes sound weird, but it gets the job done.
Water is very important element in solving the puzzles in Prophecy. Sometimes you`ll have to flood a room with water in order to swim up to higher areas, or open doors to direct the water flow around and put out a fire that`s blocking your way. However while the puzzles aren`t really hard, it`s made even easier by the ridiculous objectives system. instead of letting you think, the game tells you specifically what to do. Like "Put the air-filled barrels inside the big container to make it float". The puzzles could`ve been much more fun without this forced help.
The game has a platforming element. It`s nothing innovative, just jumping across ramps and scaling up pipes. Though the otherwise great controls feels a little quirky during these sequences.
You have a PDA like device that can be used for various tasks, like showing your objectives, hacking doors and cameras, navigating a 3D map of the ship, and reading the information you collected through your exploration. The hacking mini-game is very similar to the one in Splinter Cell DA. You have to scale a sound wave to make it match the moving one behind it.
While playing you`ll come across several files and documents that sheds some light on the world that Prophecy is set in, the ship, and some characters.
The combat works like any regular third person shooter. You can take cover behind objects, and lean out of cover to shoot.
Kate can only use one weapon, a handgun. However you can equip it with multiple types of ammo. The basic ammo type shocks people, and the bullets leaves air ripples in it`s trail. It`s unlimited, but it`s also very weak, it takes several shots to take down an enemy. Later in the game you`ll find regular bullets, which works normally as expected. Electrified bullets, that you can use to electrify the water and kill multiple enemies at the same time. And finally, the sticky ammo, which sticks to any object fired onto, and then you can trigger it to explode remotely. All these kinds of ammo are very scarce, so you`ll have to be very conservative with using them.
Early in the game when you only have the shock bullets, you`ll mostly have to rely on the environment during combat. You can do things like shooting gas pipes to take out nearby enemies, or opening doors to let massive waves sweep in and do your work for you. Eventually due to some story developments gain a power that lets you control the water. You can use it to manipulate the water, creating waves and moving them around. And even lifting up heavy objects and throwing them on your enemies. The controls for this ability is really confusing, but it`s still fun to use. Unfortunately once you gain this power, the game ends half an hour later, so you don`t get to have much fun with it.
The game is really short, but it`s for the best since there`s not much you can do, nor there`s a variety in gameplay or enemy types. So maybe this was a good length to avoid being repetitive. However it ends abruptly without making any sense, while the final boss felt more like a mini-boss, and the fight itself was very short and easy.
Hydrophobia Prophecy is running on an engine that`s capable of all sorts of cool stuff, but unfortunately the game`s developers wasted a lot of it`s potential with a very short game and a very little variety in gameplay options. It could`ve been much better, but it`s definitely worth playing.