Undertow - Review

Added December 14th, 2007 by Justin McBride

Have you ever wondered what a full-scale war would be like…underwater? This scenario, in which people from various civilizations wage war in the depths of the ocean for control over its vast waters, has been realized in Undertow. This is the first game from Chair Entertainment, an independent developer and publisher. It comes as no surprise that this is one of the most original games on the Xbox Live Arcade, but it did surprise me that this title is so much fun to play.

Undertow is played on a 2D plane against beautiful 3D rendered backgrounds. If you’ve played Geometry Wars then Undertow’s control scheme should feel incredibly familiar. As always, the simplistic analog stick based controls make this easy for new players to get into. In addition to the analog controls, the right trigger gives you a quick burst of speed and the ‘X’ button gives you a constant turbo, useful for navigating the gargantuan maps. Finally, the left trigger drops the devastatingly powerful depth charges.

Undertow’s 2D perspective and controls aren’t exactly new, but what the game does with these things is quite innovative. Like many 2D action shooters, it’s easy to pick up and play, but deep and rewarding enough for those wishing to delve further into it. There are four unit types (Marine, Corsair, Destroyer and Dragoon) with varying strengths and weaknesses. As you blast folks, you gain points, which you’ll use to upgrade your units, making them a more formidable underwater fighting force.

The Conquest mode, which stands prominently as the game’s primary mode, draws numerous comparisons to the Battlefield franchise. The goal is to reduce your opponent’s points to zero by capturing conquest points and killing the enemy resistance. The conquest points also serve as your team’s spawn points so in the event that one team controls all of the conquest points the match will end instantly in a shutout victory.

On each map, there are five conquest points that both teams continuously vie for control over. This tug of war as conquest points shift back and forth between teams is what makes the game so exciting and encourages strategic play. Proper balancing of the four unit types and coordinated attacks and defenses of the conquest points, are more important than killing.

Both modes are playable over Xbox Live and system link by up to 16 players. In case you don’t have enough human bodies, bots can be used to fill as many of the remaining slots as you like. No matter how many folks you play alongside, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a good time.

The single player mode is surprisingly robust, spanning 15 missions split evenly between three campaigns. A singular storyline ties each of the campaigns together in which the first and second campaign bleeds into the next up until the final campaign’s rather climactic ending. The storyline is standard Sci-Fi fare but it plays out well in the nicely acted cutscenes. Of course, the campaign is fun to play through and while your AI partners don’t do what you really need them to do most of the time, they can pull their weight to a decent degree. Best of all, the entirety of the campaign is playable co-operatively with a friend.

Powered by the Unreal Engine 3, Undertow is one of the best-looking games you’ll find on the Xbox Live Arcade. The fully 3D rendered levels are flat out gorgeous in motion. It’s quite impressive that something with such a simplistic design could turn out to look so great. Atmospheric effects such as the concussive explosions from depth charges and the resulting sound waves and bubbles rippling through the water go a long way to convey the sense of a raging war in the depths of the ocean.

Undertow stands tall above all other Xbox Live Arcade games as the best of the bunch and accomplishes this by being pure fun in a ten-dollar package. It goes without saying there’s a tremendous amount of value here with its robust single player campaign and two multiplayer modes. Whether you’re a hardcore gamer or someone who enjoys a good game from time to time, its “pick up and play” simplicity will likely win you over the first time you play it. Undertow is a fantastic example of the creativity of independent developers and a hell of a fun game.