Hydrophobia Related content
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Hydrophobia - Trailer
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Latest Hydrophobia screenshots
- News Hydrophobia is now episodic XBLA game [28]
PreviousHydrophobia First Impressions
Xbox 360 PC PlayStation 3 First Impressions by Matt Martin
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The real star of Hydrophobia isn't female lead Kate, but the water that rapidly floods the environments and influences almost every aspect of gameplay. This isn't about pretty water reflections that merely slow a characters' movement, nor is it about taking games back to that period where every adventure game had to have an underwater level, just because it could. The water in Hydrophobia is more than that - it acts as a weapon, a key, transportation and an entire control system that the player uses to influence, change and conquer the environment.
The environment itself is a massive floating city named the Queen of the World, something that developer Blade Interactive has based on real-world designs such as The Freedom Ship. It's not just the environment that Blade wants to be fantastic yet plausible - elements of the storyline and the science behind it are intended to contain real-world elements that blur the line between science and science fiction. The Queen of the World is a haven for the world's super-rich elite, containing everything you'd expect to find in wealthy cultures - from apartments and casinos to retail outlets and corporate businesses. And as well as the socialites occupying the upper decks and towers, there are also the lowly workers confined to the bowels of the ship, serving the parasitic occupants and pandering to their spoilt needs.
Sea Change
The beautiful people have been attracted to the Queen of the World because it's a private society with no prying eyes. But this makes it the perfect target for terrorism, with a group named the Malthusian's infiltrating the Queen before it's even begun its maiden voyage. Again using real-world elements, the insurgents ideals are based on Thomas Malthus - a political economist whose work influenced Charles Darwin and Karl Marx - and centre around issues of climate change and population growth. It's certainly a refreshing change from the usual ethnic stereotypes that run around game worlds. At the beginning of the game The Malthusian's take over the Queen of the World leaving the player to adopt the role of Kate, a reluctant engineer charged with foiling the terrorist's schemes.
Story is one of the key elements to Hydrophobia, with Blade taking it just as seriously as the water physics, gameplay and graphics. The intention is to reveal story though interaction rather than stopping the drama to play a five minute cutscene, and there are also playable flashbacks that reveal just why a hydrophobic lead character is working on a floating city.
Kate's phobia is an element of gameplay that influences character control. When water begins to overpower Kate, the screen blurs and turns monochrome, audio becomes muffled and the players' field of vision warps. It's not as overwhelming as the effect used in Headfirst's Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, but it's similar. Over time and through gameplay, Kate begins to master her fear, with the game changing and replacing the mechanic with something completely different, to be revealed at a later date.
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Hydrophobia
Latest News
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Hydrophobia is now episodic XBLA game [28]
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Hydrophobia gushes to March 2009 [13]
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Hydrophobia already set for a sequel [14]
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Hydrophobia revealed [37]
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Next-gen must deliver "qualitative difference" - Blade [25]
Latest Screenshots
19 December, 2008 [25]
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Comments: 1-42 of 42 in total
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3william56
01/08/07 @ 06:17
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"Kate begins to master her fear, with the game changing and replacing the mechanic with something completely different"
/Interest level suddenly increases. When this game was first talked about, the phobia thing sounded like a really frustrating difficulty increaser - b*gger up the screen and controls just when things are getting hectic = increase in sales of replacement controllers. If it's just at the start, not overplayed, and changes after a few hours, it reduces the lame factor enormously. The description is starting to sound more and more like a take on the Beyond Good and Evil mechanic of a weak character outwitting strong enemies. Could be something special... if it's not Dead Rising: the Game... |
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NegativeZero
01/08/07 @ 06:23
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This really sounds intriguing. One to keep an eye on. It does sound a little bit like Beyond Good and Evil in some ways, but hopefully if it's as good it'll sell better.
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deepmenace
01/08/07 @ 07:43
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i'll be suitably impressed if they can pull this off.
propelling thousands of shards of wood, glass and metal around in a physics-correct way is one thing but dealing with billions of water molecules lapping, eddying and splashing around (in a way that looks holey realistic) is an huge task surely? my mind certainly boggles at the complexity. has it been done done before in any game? |
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You can still make a woman look attractive in overalls if you put your mind to it.
Exhibit A Anyway, the premise sounds very interesting. I'm not sure about the whole 'fight terrorists/unrevealed creatures' bit though. I think SOS: The Final Escape (and possibly Raw Danger, if I ever get to play it) had the right idea. I'd love to see a next-gen upgrade of that sort of gameplay. |
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Thamuhacha
01/08/07 @ 08:26
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"As well as terrorists, a entirely different enemy enters the game later on, with an agenda far from political. Not a lot can be revealed just yet, but we do know they leave corpses suffering a more grisly fate than a few gunshot wounds."
And it was going so well. Why do Developers always have to put some bloody Zombie/Alien thing in these games? Please prove me wrong because the rest sounds cool. |
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you don't need to do physics on billions of particles surely?
could ignore like 75% of submerged water, and as for surface effects treating it as spaced keypoints to perform a grid. then doing calculations when an object enters/leaves the surface. obviously i'm not a programmer but i'm sure its not as complex as doing physics on billions of particles. |
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""As well as terrorists, a entirely different enemy enters the game later on, with an agenda far from political. Not a lot can be revealed just yet, but we do know they leave corpses suffering a more grisly fate than a few gunshot wounds."
And it was going so well. Why do Developers always have to put some bloody Zombie/Alien thing in these games? Please prove me wrong because the rest sounds cool." Agreed, at best you're looking at some sort of Abyss type creatures made out of water. |
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groovychainsaw
01/08/07 @ 09:13
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Sharks? That was my first thought - that could be terrifying, in a game focussed on water...
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NeedMoreSocks81
01/08/07 @ 09:37
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Finally something original to look forward to! My imagination gets carried away with the possibilities of true flowing water - this sounds awesome!
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Beware people. Blade Interactive = masters of the hype machine. Remember Rise of the Robots?
Not only did they buy this water engine in rather than create it themselves, there isn't any kind of game there at all at the moment. It's only coming out late next year because nothing in the way of a game exists currently. It's just a water simulator. Boring. |
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SomaticSense
01/08/07 @ 11:18
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I can't believe this article has reached 20 odd comments, and not one person has mentioned how it looks like they have just pulled the 360's Lara Croft model, given it new hair and clothes, and just placed it in another game.
They couldn't design their own female character? |
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TonyCocaCola
01/08/07 @ 12:07
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Ok then- Looks: I like the lighting, the pipes look a bit 2004 ish, i dont think they join the wall in a realistic way, and the textures on the wall look a bit crap.
I dont think the screenshots are in game, im basing this on the camera angles. I also dont think she looks like Lara croft. |
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SomaticSense
01/08/07 @ 12:29
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Look at the face, and the graphical effect's used on it. It like the exact same model, and the exact same graphics engine from the 360 version of Legend. Looking at the first pic in the above article, it's blatantly obvious.
Does anyone know if they are indeed using the same graphics engine from Legend?
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 01/08/07 @ 13:30
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StarchildHypocrethes
01/08/07 @ 12:40
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This sounds right up my street.
End of 2008? Bugger. /drums fingers |
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TonyCocaCola
01/08/07 @ 14:03
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shes got similar legs, face looks a bit different though. And her fingers are slimer
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TessaTickle
01/08/07 @ 19:05
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If they're gonna make a huge hoo-ha about the water then they'd better do something about its transparency and how it defracts light.
If that sounds a little pedantic, well they should at least allow for the fact that water absorbs light and deep parts should be darker than parts closer to the surface. We shouldn't be able to see the bottom of that room where it's 3/4 full. Even with crystal clear water, with the lighting in those environments, you shouldn't be able to see the woman's feet. I'm usually an easy sell but this is very little substance wrapped up in lots of blah. |
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NeedMoreSocks81
01/08/07 @ 20:09
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It looks like there are newer screenshots on their website http://www.bladeinteractive.com/hydro.html
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TessaTickle
01/08/07 @ 21:20
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OK, checked the screenies. I rest my case : http://www.bladeinteractive.com/images/h...
Sure, the surface is fluctuating in a relatively realistic way and it plays more or less OK with the light but there is close to *zero* alteration to the light relative to the depth of the water. The only way you could get that would be with crystal clear water with extremely bright lighting conditions, the former (crystal clear water) being unlikely in an industrial setting and the latter (very bright light) just not being the case in that environment. It just looks wrong. Think of it as "uncanny valley" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_val... but applied to gfx. |
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TonyCocaCola
02/08/07 @ 08:59
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Thats a cool point. Its still like a year before it comes out right? Maybe it will look a bit different then.
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"And it was going so well.
Why do Developers always have to put some bloody Zombie/Alien thing in these games? Please prove me wrong because the rest sounds cool." My sentiments exactly. "Sure, the surface is fluctuating in a relatively realistic way and it plays more or less OK with the light but there is close to *zero* alteration to the light relative to the depth of the water." Relax, fogging is easy. |
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TessaTickle
03/08/07 @ 08:45
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Relax, fogging is easy.
then it begs the question why it's not in the tech demo. If it's all about how cool their water tech looks then they've not exactly made their point very well. Having said that, the overall quality of the gfx on the rest of the screenies looks fine. |
Comments: 1-42 of 42 in total
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