Waterworld
Half an hour, half an hourGenre: adventure - platform
Publisher: Ocean Software
Year: 1995
System: SNES PAL
Gameplay Score: 1
Gameplay Notes:
Three modes of play - boating, swimming, and platforming. Boating is kind of fun but the other two are horrible yet playable. The boating stages are top-down and feel like a water based Desert Strike. You float around and fire your gun at the "Smokers" on their jet skis and power boats. You take next to no damage, making these sections stupid easy. Swimming is painfully slow and tedious. The objective is to collect stuff and then swim up to the surface with your haul. Enemies float around and take away your air/health. Finally, the platforming stages see you fighting enemies with a sword and then guns that you pilfer from fallen enemies. The controls are floaty and jittery, with movement similar to other prerendered games like Demolition Man and TimeCop. Playable but pretty bad.
Level Design Score: 3
Level Design Notes:
Every stage follows the tried and true Western creed of "kill or collect everything". I hate this so much. The stages follow the movie's plot so I can't fault the variety on display here, but no one will study this game's design. The inclusion of shops between some stages let's you power up your boat here and there.
Theme Score: 3
Theme Notes:
Waterworld is a terrible movie but I think it makes a decent premise for a game. You're a lone scavenger out to kill and then protect and finally rescue the girl. It's a perfect mix of video game tropes. Unfortunately the presentation here is incredibly lazy. The whole package feels incomplete, like the game was rushed. For examples, between stages there's a screen with the same background of the big bad and your character staring at each other with a couple of lines of text in the most mundane font you've ever seen.
Art Style Score: 3
Art Style Notes:
Prerendered artwork that was so popular for licensed games at the time. Not as ugly as TimeCop, nor as drab as Demolition Man. A worthy effort anyway.
Audio Score: 5
Audio Notes:
Some of the best chill music of the era. The title screen, map screen, and underwater sections have awesome tracks that David Wise would be proud of. The platforming song isn't my favorite but the rest are top notch. Even the sound effects are on.
Overall Score: 44
Review ID: 3933
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