XBLA Review: Undertow

The objective of the game is to eliminate your enemies, pure and simple. In campaign and versus the way you do this is by blowing the other guys up and racing over to their bases. This ends up feeling like a massive game of explosive ping-pong. If you manage to close all of their bases it is an automatic win because there is nowhere else for your opponent to spawn. The actual gameplay is a simple center focused shooter that takes a little while to get the hang of. Moving is done with the left control stick and shooting by pushing the right one in the direction you want your unlimited ammo to go.

In campaign mode you are introduced to the underwater worlds after civilization has collapsed, or something along those lines. It’s never very clear why there’s a huge war going on underwater, but the story spreads along three different races that you really just don’t care about. Except for the fact that playing as them varies slightly, giving you an option of playing as the well rounded humans, the extremely powerful Nemo gang and the crazy fast navy of Atlantis.

Like most XBLA games the whole story in campaign mode is completely superfluous. The important thing I learned was that you can only bring each of the four types of characters up to level three and it all resets when you go to another map that is ushered in by a cut-scene that you’ll probably just skip anyway. I was about to write the entire game off as boring, then I jumped online and played a few social matches expecting to make it an early night.

When the game loads, you get the usual warning that experiences may change when playing online. They aren’t lying. The multiplayer part of the game uses extra maps that play host to the mayhem that is inherent to the shooter. The simplicity of gameplay makes this great to play with other people as a casual game. The strategic uses of leveling with styles of play make it interesting for serious gamers too. I ended up getting to bed a lot later than I thought I would the other night, and by “getting to bed” I mean passing out with the controller in my hand.

The multiplayer option really is the saving grace of this title. After playing alone for a couple hours I was ready to stick a tuning fork in my eye and strike it. When I logged onto XBox LIVE and saw how well organized the multiplayer is, and finding the insanely fun and co-operative nature this game is capable of, I had a change of heart. ChAIR should have just made the online portion of the game and replaced the campaign with a tutorial mode.