Naval Assault: The Killing Tide
Score: 40% ESRB: Teen Publisher: 505 Games Developer: Artech Media: DVD/1 Players: 1; 2 - 4 (Online) Genre: Action/ Strategy/ Stealth
Graphics & Sound: Before I rip Naval Assault: The Killing Tide to shreds, please believe me when I say that I don't take any pleasure from panning games that deserve it. As I play each game I review for this website, I'm consistently aware of the fact that they are the end product of months (and in some cases, years) of hard work. More often than not, it pains me to break the honest truth to you, the reader. Still, I cannot in good faith recommend games like Naval Assault. My conscience simply does not allow me to. This is a flat-out lousy game; even its best parts are sub-par. Naval Assault features some of the worst production values I've seen on a next-gen console. The environments are about as boring as the gameplay; since Naval Assault is one of the most boring games I've played in recent memory, that's no small feat. There's a near complete lack of attention to detail; I would actually argue that this game could have appeared on the original PlayStation, and it would have been none the worse for wear. Explosions look canned and lame, the water apparently isn't disturbed by wake turbulence, and the smothering darkness that awaits you in the deep is almost oppressive. The sound is no better; actually, it's worse. The music is mostly harmless, but it hardly serves its subject matter well. Voicework is universally awful; the lines are poorly-delivered and often completely redundant. Worse yet, it almost always repeats itself. I don't need to be told that enemy E-boats are dropping depth charges while they're exploding all around my boat. When each mission starts, all of the expository text is read aloud. I'm pretty sure Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time was the last game to do that; if it wasn't, it was the last game to successfully pull that off.
Gameplay: Naval Assault: The Killing Tide fancies itself an authentic World War II naval experience. Perhaps it is, but this is a game, and the primary function of a game is to be entertaining. Someone clearly missed the memo. Naval Assault features different kinds of submarine warfare, from stealth to action. Usually, the missions blend the two, and that's unfortunate. The action sequences are usually uninteresting and sterile; you'll be forced to shoot planes out of the sky with your deck guns, or you'll have to torpedo enemy boats. The torpedo action is the best part of this game, and it's not all that great to begin with. It's not broken; it can be somewhat satisfying, and the mechanics work well enough. Stealth is a thing to be dreaded in Naval Assault. When you're forced to sneak past E-boat patrols without being detected, your only option involves slowing your craft to a crawl and idling by as deep as you can go. The stealth segments are protracted to the point where it may actually cause you physical anguish. If you bump your craft up past the minimum speed, the enemy will detect you and start dropping depth charges. Each time I was forced to navigate a minefield, I would find the right angle, put my controller down, and do something more productive while the sub inched along. I'd have the time to mess around with my phone, grab a drink, or perform some random menial task. I could have even written some of this review while waiting. I'm not exaggerating; that's how slow this game can get. You can play online with up to three other people, but good luck finding players. Unfortunately, I can't judge the quality of this game's online multiplayer component. In all the time I've spent with this game, I have not yet been able to get into a single match.
Difficulty: Naval Assault: The Killing Tide doesn't test your skills as much as it tests your patience, but it's still a brutal experience. The emphasis on stealth is overplayed; this gives the game a whopper of a pacing issue. The enemy A.I. may be dumb enough to cut circles in the water until it detects you, but it's far too capable of sensing your almost ninja-like presence. Crawling along the lowest-allowed depth setting at three nautical miles per hour is the antithesis of fun. When you get to the actual action, you're constantly overwhelmed by enemy fire, and you won't survive long unless you move fast and fire accurately. And you'll almost never be moving fast enough to survive each encounter with ease. The lack of mid-mission checkpoints only cements Naval Assault: The Killing Tide as a thoroughly punishing experience. The beyond-agonizing grind of the stealth is exacerbated when you fail an action sequence later in the mission, forcing a complete restart. Who in the world thought that this would be a good idea? Naval Assault is difficult to get through, but I'm not necessarily talking about the difficulty of the gameplay. This game wears out its welcome less than five minutes in. I'm having a hard time picturing anyone (outside of press and Achievement seekers) getting through the prologue, much less the entire game.
Game Mechanics: While gunning controls are simple enough, the submarines in Naval Assault: The Killing Tide control stiffly. I'm confident that's by design. Subs don't exactly turn on dimes or go from zero to sixty in three. Getting these underwater killing machines to move takes a concerted effort, and the game makes that painfully clear. It's easy to forgive when you consider that the developers are going for a realistic experience, but it's not as easy to forgive when you consider the shoddy depth perception offered by the almost static underwater vertical camera angles. You can only make use of three depth settings; you can move on the surface; you can also submerge to periscope depth or some nondescript height above the floor. It doesn't make much sense from any perspective; navigating crowded minefields is hard enough as it is. Each level is blown up way out of proportion, making you feel like the end is nowhere in sight. Between each slow crawl through a minefield and each potentially fatal encounter with a warship, you'll constantly be on edge. Sinking a large target with torpedoes is satisfying, but usually, that means your job is done and you must extract... meaning you must go all the way back through each minefield and each cluster of E-boats. From the start, you only have access to one submarine. You must earn stars in each mission in order to unlock the other three. Stars are earned by the collective amount of Tonnage you scuttle. Weak. Naval Assault: The Killing Tide is a painful experience. On top of the sloppy audio/visual presentation, the myriad poor design decisions manifest themselves in horrific ways. I can't really recommend this title to anyone.
-FenixDown, GameVortex Communications AKA Jon Carlos
Related Links: Official Website of Naval Assault: The Killing Tide
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