Aqua: Naval Warfare Review



This is war!

Twin stick shooters have become an increasingly fun addition to Xbox Live Arcade games, such as the highly successful and addictive Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 that proves that fairly straightforward gameplay can be great fun. Aqua has released and has attempted to improve on the dual stick shooting formula with a steam punk theme, upgrades and boats, lots and lots of boats. In fact, there is so much water in this game you might have to install a toilet in front of your television, just in case. So, do you dive in to Aqua or is the water too cold?

Aqua is set in a futuristic steam punk world, where naval warfare dominates the military and a massive war is fought between two sides armed with massive weaponry. The main character called Benjamin Grey, whose name has a disturbing relevance to mine, commands one of the best ships out there, taking on the enemy with his cheesy accent that gets very annoying at times, accompanied by chief engineer Polly Edison, whose voice is a lot less irritating. After finishing a raging war victorious, a curious treasure hunt leads them to find that allies are not to be trusted. The story of the game is fairly bland and not very exciting, but voice acting is fairly good all around, with the exception of Benjamin Grey, who puts my name to shame. *shakes fist*

Big bosses in Aqua.

You drive a naval warship, fairly small yet a force to be reckoned with. The game is played from a bird’s eye perspective which is suitable for the genre. The wide variety of allied boats and enemies you encounter is fantastic, with each enemy having its strengths and weaknesses. Boss battles are slightly disappointing, however, where no strategy is required generally; just drive around shooting the hell out of it from any direction, whereas bosses should have required spots to be taken from or specific weaponry. Asides form that, the swarms of enemies prove challenging at times but nothing life threatening.

You can make various modifications to your warship, through unlockable upgrades and a good variety of weapons. You have three ships to choose from, a fast but weal vessel, an all rounder and a heavy gunship, each having their advantages and disadvantages. Personally I would have liked to have seen a system in the game where you could use points earned by killing enemies to purchase upgrades and weapons, which would have been more suitable in my opinion. Squads are a useful addition, allowing you to commandeer a squad of four various types, with squad commands useful and easily accessible. This has been executed well.

The guy with the annoying voice.

The graphics of the game are pretty good quality for an Arcade game, although the settings of levels are too similar with each one. Weather effects such as rain are great additions, and both movement and drops of water are accurately reflected in the ocean. The lack of settings ruins the game, with structures all looking too similar after playing several episodes. Gritty sound effects are good, such as the chunky noise of the Gatling gun shredding hell on enemies.

The game will last you a good five hours with a strong campaign mode, and then there’s the Skirmish mode, which is similar to Gears’ Horde Mode, where you must fight infinite waves of opponents, getting increasingly challenging, with three maps to play on, and your task is to maintain the highest score possible without sinking like the Titanic. There are two multiplayer modes to sink your engines into; Arena and Chase. Arena is basically Skirmish with two players, and Chase is similar to Halo 3’s Rocket Race, where two players competitively try to reach checkpoints and sink vessels in order to score points. The lack of Xbox Live multiplayer is a disappointment, plus a co-operative campaign would have been a welcome addition.

Overall, Aqua is a fun shooter where its flaws in setting and lack of modes are made up by a decent sized campaign, variety of upgrades and enemies. This ship is still on its sails.

Reviewer: Ben Gray