AquaNox

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AquaNox (from latin: aqua - "water" and nox - "night") is a trademark for a series of submarine-based shooter/simulation games set in distant future. The collection includes AquaNox, AquaNox 2: Revelation and the yet unrealeased AquaNox: The Angels Tears. The predecessor and the starter of the series is the on MS-DOS released title Archimedean Dynasty. The series is known for high quality graphic and audio performances and, except for Archimedean Dynasty, for poor scores in reviews due to a shallow character development.

Contents

[edit] Concept

In the middle of the 21st century, raw materials on earth became increasingly scarce and as the end of the resources loomed, people began to prospect for resources on the ocean floor. This resulted in the construction of mining stations beneath the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. Many countries set up these deep-sea stations where workers and engineers extracted the oceans' treasures. Nevertheless, the output was far from enough to cover an ever-increasing demand. When the natural resources on Earth's surface were depleted, a time of destruction and wars began. In the fight over the planet's last remaining resources, alliances fell apart, countries became hostile and old conflicts flared up.

With increasing cruelty and senselessness, man destroyed the very basis of life on the surface of the earth. After a series of resource wars, nuclear weapons completed the destruction that man had not yet finished with his industrial pollution. When the last glimmer of hope for humanity's survival was extinguished, people fled into the depths of the oceans.

The former extraction stations became the last refuge of those fortunate enough to be able to pay the price of entry into the underwater world. The poorest of the poor were left behind, condemned to die in a desolate world polluted by radioactivity. Life outside the oceans became impossible as the continents were flooded by rising sea levels and a harsh nuclear winter covered most of the oceans and the shrinking surface landmass of the planet with a layer of radioactive dust, snow and ice many meters thick. A 40-meter thick layer of dead organic matter, the so-called POM layer, covered the oceans. Not a single ray of sunlight penetrated the dense particulate layer that plunged the world into a darkness like none other. Nevertheless, mankind rose one last time to a new life, the only life, in a dead new world. This world was humanity's creation, and was now called Aqua. The following events take place in the middle of the 27th century.

Today, in the year 2661, mankind lives in gigantic cities underwater. Through the course of the centuries, the old power blocs have again stabilized, more or less unchanged. Aqua is divided into political power blocs, such as the Aquatoria of the capitalistic, democratically governed Altantic Federation, the oligarchy of the Arabic Clans Union and the monarchist Russo-Japanese Shogunate. In the South Pacific lies the Tornado Zone, stirred up by surface storms, where an anarchist pack of mercenaries, pirates, buccaneers and outlaws gathers, ever ready to sell their friends and their souls.

A single company has long ago monopolized many industries necessary for human survival underwater - EnTrOx, which stands for "Energy-Transportation-Oxygen". New technologies allow extremely fast underwater travel. However, many old technologies are lost or have become useless. For example, due to the high amounts of fallout in the atmosphere, satellite communication and global positioning are impossible, although some organizations are looking for ways to restore these abilities.

The player's task is to complete a series of story-related combat missions. During the course of the missions additional support and story elements are revealed by the secondary characters. The enemies range from hostile vessels to alien, or artificial lifeforms such as bionts.

[edit] Society

There are different society formed during the time that human abandon the land and live in the undersea world.

The Shogunate Japanese, Chinese and Russian independent deep-sea experimental stations in the North Pacific formed together.

The Atlantic Federation Research stations of the Americans and Europeans united in the Northern Atlantic.

The Clans Union The Arabian Peninsula and India formed together in the Indian Ocean

The Tornado Zone Outlaws from other societies banded together in the Tornado Zone.

[edit] Episodes

The Aquanox series include the following games, listed by the release in a chronological order:

[edit] Archimedean Dynasty

Archimedean Dynasty

Developer(s) Massive Development
Publisher(s) Blue Byte Software
Version 1.120
Platform(s) MS-DOS
Release date Flag of Europe November 1996
Flag of the United States April 4, 1997
Genre(s) Submarine Flight simulator
Mode(s) Single Player
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (13+)
USK: 16+
System requirements See below
Input methods Joystick, mouse, keyboard

Archimedean Dynasty (German: Schleichfahrt, meaning silent running) was the first of the "Aqua series", developed by Massive Development and published by Blue Byte Software in 1996.

[edit] Plot

The plot develops around a mercenary named Emerald "Deadeye" Flint, who takes up a seemingly simple task to escort a cargo ship, transporting the nearly worthless delivery of sulfur, through quiet waters. Shortly after the beginning of the voyage, the protagonist becomes the sole hostage after an anarchistic group of Shogunate mercenaries raid the convoy. However he was released by the leader, Hong Long who is a well-known famous archenemy has a formed love-hate relationship with helping the protagonist escaping the prison.

Emerald "Deadeye" Flint is soon picked up by a freighter and dropped off in Magellan where his first mission is to bring himself and an attache to El Topo, Emerald's boss, to El Topo's base in a rusty old ship named 'Hiob'. After the player does several mission as repayment to El Topo for the failure of the escorting a cargo ship mission, the player is ordered to move into another location to look for a mercenary to assist him in obtaining black box in the submarine, Big Fat Mama, for El Topo.

Eventually the player's ship is replaced by a faster scout called the 'Gator'. And as the player continues to progress through the main story line his ship is replaced two more times, first to the not to fast and also bit sluggish Atlantic Federation bomber 'Zorn', which introduces the player to a ship with significantly greater fire power. Finally the player ends up in a prototype EnTrOx bomber called 'Succubus', which is the fastes and most advanced submarine in Aqua. The Succubus get confiscated from EnTrOx after their CEO is impeached and the company dissolved into several to end their monopoly and control over Aqua's energy, transport, and oxygen resources.

After many, many more missions, the player encounters a mysterious mothership during a simple recon mission, that is traveling at higher speeds than any other submarine in Aqua. As the game progresses, they encounter more and more scouts of similar make, dubbed Bionts, due to the ships being of a bionic build where pilot and machine are fused together. In one mission, the player is required to paralyse a Biont scout (using EMP weapons) and allow the group to analyse the ship. Near the end of the game a great war breaks out between the Bionts and humans. During the war, the player's last mission is to escort Hong Long who sacrifices herself in order to destroy the main control entity of the Bionts called Surveyon.

[edit] Gameplay

The game splits up into a series of primary and secondary missions, which allow the player to proceed in the storyline as well as earn additional funds. Those 'credits' can then be used to upgrade the various vessels owned by Emerald 'Dead Eye' Flint with a huge array of offensive and defensive upgrades, such as additional, and/or more powerful primary weapons, torpedoes and torpedo storage and turret command software, generators, hull plating, Buzzers (technically underwater flares to break a torpedo's lock on your ship), noise reduction technology, a booster, and a fixer. Certain missions have been reported as unclear and blurry, however being accepted by most reviewers due to the general output of the game for its genre.

Hudak, Chris. "In all honesty, the mind-boggling array of tactical options and general open-endedness of the game's objectives will be very confusing to some players - not to mention the fact that the people who were responsible for outlining the player's objectives should be lined up against a wall and cream-pied - but it's this very open-endedness which makes Archimedean Dynasty so absorbing.", gamespot.com, 1997-01-14. 

The control of the game is designed for the use of a joystick. The player is confronted with maneuvering through narrow canyons, deep sea currents and enemy fire.

[edit] Incompatibility with XP

There is an issue with running Archimedean Dynasty running on Windows XP computers as the game originally runs on MSDOS, however, the windows XP DOS does not have VESA support which makes the game unable to run or causes it to crash when started. There has been no patch to resolve the problem, but running NOLFB.COM, developed by Ken Silverman, "Fools the DOS into thinking the VESA 2.0 linear framebuffer modes aren't supported." [1].

[edit] Submarines

The following submarines are useable during the game, as you advance through the main story line:

  • Hiob - an old, rusty, slow, and sluggish scout submarine used at the beginning of game given by El Topo.
  • Gator - a fast scout submarine used during the early midpoint of the game which has one slot for a weapon's turret. The 'Gator' is of a current Atlantic Federation scout design.
  • Zorn - a slow and somewhat sluggish bomber submarine bigger and more powerful than the Gator and has two slots for weapon's turrets. It can also accommodate more torpedoes as well as a bigger generator and strong hull platings.
  • Succubus - a fast and powerful bomber submarine with two slots for weapon's turrets that was developed by using EnTrOx blueprints of jumpship technology (technology that uses powerful magnets creating positive/negative magnetic fields to propel the submarine forward). This submarine is used at the end of the game.

[edit] System Requirements:

[edit] AquaNox

AquaNox

Developer(s) Massive Development
Publisher(s) Fishtank Interactive
Engine KRASS© engine
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release date 30 November 2001
Genre(s) Futuristic Sub Sim
Mode(s) Single-player, Multi-player
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (13+)
USK: 12+
System requirements See below
Input methods Mouse, keyboard, Joystick, Gamepad

The player once again jumps into the role of Emerald "Deadeye" Flint. After the Bionts are defeated, Flint goes back to being a mercenary as a leader of a Biont-hunting task-force. Things turn for the worse when his submarine, the Succubus, is stolen on one of the stations. The game begins with one of Flint's dubious acquaintances giving him an old, barely-working sub and several missions to get him started.

Throughout the game, Flint earns money by completing missions, allowing him to purchase better subs, weapons and equipment. The new equipment appears through out the game, available for purchase, as the player progress in the storyline. Generally speaking, the player is allowed to buy a new boat and a new set of weaponry per chapter. While on stations, Flint can speak with various characters in order to get new missions and deepen the atmosphere of the game.

The former system of upgrading the vessel with a variety of defensive turrets has been simplified by fixing the player's view to the cockpit as well as permitting the usage of only two on hull installed cannons. As the result of this change, the controls of the submarine have been adapted to the first-person shooter's mouse-based layout, removing the need for the joystick, thus the game has compromised its tactical depth in order to increase the insensitivity of combat. This change has raised critique among the reviewers, stating that the developer's focus fell inadequately on the visual performance rather than the actual game play of its predecessor. Desslock. "...But while Archimedean Dynasty was a complex, mission-based simulation with trading and privateering, AquaNox is an arcade-style action game that abandons or greatly simplifies those elements. Combat is fast paced and more similar in style to Quake's, or even a rail shooter's, than it is to the more tactical battles in other underwater sims.", Gamespot.com, 2001-11-30. 

The game was one of the first applications to fully use the T&L effects by supporting the NVIDIA Geforce 3 Ti graphics accelerator. Desslock. "Considering the game engine has been used for months to market Nvidia's flagship GeForce 3 video card, it's no surprise that the graphics are outstanding. The game has been designed to take advantage of all the high-end capabilities of the GeForce and its latest generation of cards, and the environments look amazing as a result. Textures are colourful and extremely detailed, and there are numerous little graphical touches, such as chips that flake off underwater hills hit by your projectile weapons.", Gamespot.com, 2001-11-30. 

Aquanox's difficulty level is clearly above those of other games released in that year. The prime challenge is built by the inability to save in any way during missions, meaning that being destroyed or aborting an objective will result in the restart of the operation. The success of the player during each mission depends strongly on his submarine configuration and weapons aboard.

As the sole member of the series, the game includes a vast amount of true information on oceans, such as origins of different species, their specifics and man's adaptation to submarine life. The games manual consist of two chapters explaining various terms and facts that have been mentioned through out the course of the story.

[edit] System Requirements:

[edit] AquaNox 2: Revelation

AquaNox 2: Revelation

Developer(s) Massive Development
Publisher(s) Encore Software, Inc., JoWooD Productions
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release date 22 August 2003
Genre(s) Futuristic Sub Sim
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: Mature (17+)
USK: 12+
System requirements See below
Input methods keyboard, Mouse, Joystick

The plot of the game is based around William Drake, the last remnant of the old aristocrat, industrialist family. After the bankrupt of the familial industry and the death of protagonist's grandmother, young William Drake sets sail for open seas on the last freighter of the Drake Enterprises. The cargo ship soon gets taken over by a group of mercenaries, while Drake rushes out to answer a distress call. While sparing his life, the group of seven invaders over the control of the boat, thus binding Williams' fate to their own. The protagonist sees no other options than to unite himself with his new crew, hoping for the best.

The game features a total of four unique, playable and upgradeable gunships. For the completion of the game the player will most likely switch boats depending on the mission's content. While certain missions will require speed and stealth, the others will virtually enforce the presence of heavy arsenal and thick plating.The game features a large variety of projectile armament as well as a set of torpedoes and a collection of energy based weaponry, including lasers and EMP launchers. While most weapons aren't necessarily at odds with the game’s underwater environments, the presence of laser-based arms decreases the plausibility of such fights. The torpedo combat is similar to the missile engagements of most flight simulators and space shooters, where the pilot is expected to release flares and perform a classic evasion manoeuvres.

The transportation is generally a simple matter of following the navigation points spread out through the game. The ship’s controls can be switched from the FPS mode to Simulation Mode via a predefined shortcut, where the later steering scheme switches the horizontal scrolling of the mouse from turning the cockpit horizontally to rotating the hull around its axis. Reaching the surface is not possible due to the depth-range limitation, which binds the player to the closer to the underwater world yet gives certain disadvantages during the combat.

In response to the poor interaction with other characters claim in AquaNox, a new dialogue system has been added to the sequel. Between the missions the player is able to enter a desired area and initiate conversations. This option is available on board of the freighter as well as in the oceanic cities. The initiation of the conversations is mandatory; however due the absence of interaction during the dialogues, the outcome of the game is not open-ended. The actions and replies of the protagonist often appear irrational and unnatural. Gerstmann, Jeff. "Clicking on the person opens up another window that shows the conversation between your character, the absurdly naive William Drake, and the person you've clicked on. These conversations are designed to give the game a plot, but more often than not, the sequences are filled with near-meaningless babble.", Gamespot.com, 2003-09-29. 

Like William, the other characters in the game do not tend to come over as natural by neither showing conscious thought, nor having distinct goals and nor developing at all over the period of the adventure. While perhaps being the intention of the playwright, the secondary personages do not show any depth or authenticity, resulting in a group of stereotypic knights, pirates, outcasts and nymphomaniacs. Deim, I.. "As in Aquanox the story is once more handled via boring, unsubstantial and sometimes even featherbrained dialogues, which fortunately can be stopped by using the Escape-button. This one flaw renders the story of the game completely useless, as only few fragments of it actually find their way to the player.", Gamershell.com. 

According to various reviewers, the main drawback of AquaNox 2: Revelation’s characters is the lack of appeal towards the player caused by the poor voice acting. These claims however come to the greater part from the English speaking reviewers, while the continental releases, especially the French and the German versions, have been given the credit for the professionalism of the actors.

AquaNox 2: Revelation's difficulty level lies significantly above the average of the release year. The missions are challenging as the player is often confronted with the situation where he has to decide between saving his own ship or that of an ally, where the destruction of either leads to mission over. As in its predecessor, saving is only available between the missions and no checkpoints are present.

The ending creates more questions than answers and hints on the coming of a sequel, AquaNox: The Angels Tears. A hint is given that the protagonists of Aquanox and Aquanox 2: Revelation will be enemies.

[edit] System Requirements:

[edit] AquaNox: Angel's Tears

AquaNox: Angel's Tears is the announced sequel to the series being developed by JoWood, as the Massive Development no longer exists, and distributed for PS2 console in the UK around 2007 by Pinnacle. [1]

[edit] Cross-reference

  • One of the early weapons in AquaNox allows sniping enemies. A hit on the cockpit glass will result in the implosion of most small vessels. This is, however, extremely difficult to achieve due to the small size of the target, building a direct parallel to the headshots from other First-person shooter games. In Aquanox 2: Revelation sniping is a more active part of gameplay, and the player is warned regularly of enemy snipers.
  • A popular greeting in the world of Aqua is "Light", probably due to the fact that very little sunlight reaches the underwater depths at which the humans live.
  • AquaNox's and Aquanox 2: Revelation's stories take place during the same time, thus creating two simultaneous independent scenarios, which cross once during the course of the second game.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ken Silverman's Build Engine Page. ADVSys.

[edit] External links

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