PlanetDreamcast | Games | Reviews | Deep Fighter

Deep Fighter Page 2/2 You're feeling very sleepy... - Review By Mad Carl The Bad Doing our part to destroy the local ecosystem. Submarines are one of those neglected genres of gaming, much as World War II was until just recently, So it's nice to see some underwater action come our way. However, if Deep Fighter is anything, it's digitized valium. Simply put, this game is boring. There's nothing going on, and when there is, it's probably boring. You'll sit there, controller in hand, trying to herd some fish around, when you'll suddenly start awake, wondering if you actually fell asleep or were only starting to drift off. It's almost like driving for twenty hours straight, and your body finally decides that it needs sleep even if you are hurtling along at eighty miles per hour in a steel coffin. Then, BOOM!, you realize what's happening and pull off to the side of the road to get some rest. When boring things aren't happening, then what is happening is probably you dying. The weapons your submarine is equipped with are some of the weakest and most ineffective weapons this side of MagForce Racing. They're so weak, that the fish swimming around you can take several shots to kill. The first real sub to sub battle you get in will most likely end in your death, since the enemy's weapons are so far superior to your own. It doesn't seem to just be your sub, either. Your teammates will drop out of combat quicker than you can say "what, was I asleep?!" The enemy picks them apart in a hurry, as they don't seem to be able to defend themselves, or even help put dents in the enemy. Then there are the graphics. As pretty as the world can be at certain angles, at others it is simply a sea of foggy blue crap. As a result, most of the time that you're playing you won't be looking at anything. That's a shame, since Ecco the Dolphin has shown us that underwater games don't have to be all about the fog. The landscape is rather low-poly. (That crevice looks like a good place for a nap...) There are also some issues with the plant life at the bottom of the sea. They're mostly two dimensional sprites that become pixilated as hell and disappear when you get too close to them. In fact, most of the art in this game feels slightly rushed, almost as if the rough drafts were deemed ready for prime time and slapped straight into the game. Moving on, I have to warn you now: this game has live action FMV (and because of that, it's on two discs). That's right, in this day and age, people are still including half-assed video briefing sequences using live (bad) actors on ugly blue screen stages. Bad acting rules the day as the story unfolds between missions. Admiral Lynn (who both looks like Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and suspiciously has the same name as the lead programmer) barks plot developments and mission briefings at you as he chews up scenery. It also gets downright creepy when he suddenly stares into the camera and addresses you, especially since the rest of the time the video sequences have been shot from various angles like any conventional film. Note to the gaming industry: Nobody has ever, not since video compression was invented, made a good, well acted, well directed video sequence for a game. Never. Why? I don't know. But I, for one, am tired of watching your entertainment abortions. So please, for the love of all that is good and right and decent, stop making bad video cutscenes. Last of all is just a little tiny thing that kept gnawing at me as I played. The opening scene of the game is a rather nice fly through of the ocean surrounding your sub-aquatic civilization. However, that sequence begins up on a beautiful beach full of swaying palm trees and sunshine. It looks like the perfect place to build a hut and live out the rest of your days eating Mary Ann's coconut cream pies. Instead, we're living underwater where evil people are attacking us with their subs so often that we're building a mother ship to get away from them. I just want to go live on that beach. There's never a reason given that I couldn't (nothing about nuclear war, or me having gills, or apes ruling the surface world). But, up on the beach, I might not have to watch Admiral Lynn overact, and to me, that's reason enough to go. The Final Word Deep Fighter is a game that will torture you with terribile acting, when it isn't putting you to sleep. Aside from the neat lighting on the sea floor, and some minimal underwater ecology, there isn't much going on here. Search elsewhere for your action thrills. Developer: Criterion Studios Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Sim Highs: Story that lasts across several missions, great controls, good music. Lows: It's boring, bad acting in bad videos, it's boring, so-so graphics, it's boring. Other: 1 player, VMU compatible (4 blocks), VGA Box compatible. Media: Intro (MPEG) - The intro flyby is mildly pretty, even if the music is too low to really hear. [Big (12.2M)] - [Med (6.6M)] - [Small (1.4M)] Mission Briefing (MPEG) - Watch for this guy at the Oscars. [Big (13.4M)] - [Med (7.2M)] - [Small (1.5M)] Gameplay 1 (MPEG) - Time to go collect some ore... *yawn* [Big (15.4M)] - [Med (8.3M)] - [Small (1.8M)] Final Score: (out of a possible 10) Visit this Game's Dreamcast Database Entry Previous Reviews Comments on this review? Mail Feedback.