Deep Black: Reloaded Review

Deep Black: Reloaded is a new type of game. It’s a hybrid third person shooter which allows for combat both in and out of water which has yet to be seen in the gaming industry on a big scale. Well, at least that’s what I had read before I played the game. But can it live up to expectations or will it be swimming with the fishes? (Do you see what I did there?)

You play as Lt. Syrus Pierce, an ex-military man who was discharged after messing up an attempt on a terrorist organisation. He is then hired by CHARON, a private military company who specialise in underwater missions to break into rival military organisation, IHS, who deal in nuclear weaponry. This is about as much as I picked up from the cut scenes thrown in my face at the start of this game and helped make a little bit of sense of what I was actually doing, although barely. You’re accompanied by a stereotypical Hispanic woman (who, by the way, doesn’t sound Hispanic at all but I’ll get to the voice acting later) who kept telling me how amazing her arse is whilst I’m trying to shoot robots and soldiers. That’s all I’m going to tell you about the story; not because I don’t want to spoil this epic adventure for you but purely because that’s all I could really grasp about what was going on.

Voice acting, if you can call it that, in this game makes those toothpaste adverts where they’ve taken a french advert and just badly dubbed over the top in english look like Steven Spielberg. Okay, maybe not that bad but it’s not good. It’s badly timed with long pauses in between some sentences and poorly hired actors (as I said earlier, your Hispanic contact doesn’t even sound Hispanic). It seems like they forgot to put the voices in until the day before release then panicked, grabbed the nearest seven people and put them into a sound booth.

As you’ve most likely guessed by now, Deep Black: Reloaded’s main selling point is the fact that it’s underwater. Sadly, although I like being able to move around freely in water, switching a lever to open a gate underwater feels exactly the same as when, seconds later, I have to get out of the water, go to the changing rooms, shower, towel off, get changed and go and flick a switch to open another gate (please note: you don’t actually have to go to the changing room, that’s what we in the business like to call comedy). The only difference I noticed whilst in the water is that you now have to worry about enemies creeping up on you from above and below rather than just around you.

I use the term “creeping up” very loosely here though because not one enemy in this game really creeps up on you. It’s more a situation of you appearing in that area and then a barrage of enemies running towards you, all guns blazing. You will then, no doubt, die and have to go back to the previous checkpoint which, by the way, is 10 minutes prior to your location because the developers thought it would be nice to have as little amount of checkpoints as possible like it was costing them their first born son every time they put one down. You then have to try and remember when and where the enemies will appear from so that you can shoot them before they shoot you or, you guessed it, back you go to the checkpoint.

You are blessed with a small arsenal of weapons to try and avoid this whole dying malarkey though, which includes a harpoon gun that you can use to drag enemies underwater and reprogram robots (for some reason in the future, rope and steel can do that). All the other weapons are pretty generic. You get your machine guns, your pistol (with infinite ammo that does next to no damage), your shotguns and so on. Sadly, all of these weapons pretty much feel the same in a firefight and on more than one occasion I was happily shooting with my machine gun only to find that I had actually switched to my shotgun because I had run out of ammo and not realised.

I’m glad to say that graphically, the game is okay. It’s by no means wonderful but it’s easy on the eyes. The underwater parts of missions are nice to look at for the first 10 minutes before you realise that every level basically has the same level design and textures used but hey, at least it looks nice, right?

Overall, Deep Black: Reloaded is an attempt at something brilliant - a hybrid third person shooter with cover mechanics that are on par with the likes of Gears of War and a story that will keep the player wanting more. Sadly, it’s none of this and instead you’re left with a subpar game with little fun to be had and the need to throw things things around after dying half a dozen times.