The Digest: Take a “Twin Stick Shooter” but beef it up with story, great graphics, and naval ships. Aqua is a great departure from the usual arcade games and will keep you entertained for a while, but still wanting more in the end.

THE FACT SHEET

RELEASE DATE: May 19th, 2010
DEVELOPER: Games Distillery
Publisher: Xbox Live Arcade
Price: 800 Points
GENRE: Action & Adventure, Strategy & Simulation

PRODUCT OVERVIEW:

Follow the story of captain Benjamin Grey and his trusted fellow engineer Polly Edison in their struggle to save the Aqua world from a treacherous conspiracy, pulling the strings behind a massive conflict of two rivaling naval empires….

PRODUCT FEATURES:

• Multiplayer
• Squad Controls
• Great Graphics

If you were to count how many “twin stick shooters” were on Xbox Live Arcade, you’d easily pass 50 games. They’re all functioning off the same formula; last as long as you can, shoot at hundreds of zombies or shapes, earn lives and bombs, and that’s about it. What Distiller Games did was something very simple, but reaped huge benefits.

They added a story to the new twin stick shooter genre and it makes this game stand out above most of its kind. Aqua has you controlling Captain Grey, a well known war hero in the game. He and his trusted colleague, Edison, set off from their fleet in hopes to find some treasure. Naturally, during this little adventure they encounter the Gothean Empire. They’re caught off guard when the Gothean’s begin to attack Grey and his crew because they had a peace treaty. This is where the enjoyable story begins.

As you go through the games campaign, it feels more and more like pirates in the future. The locations that you’re fighting in, though mostly populated with water, don’t seem too plain and are very nice to look at. Graphically, this game is easy on the eyes. The game’s water effects are surprisingly good for an arcade game and just makes the game that much more enjoyable.

Gameplay wise, it’s still a twin stick shooter at it’s core. One stick moves, the other shoots. Rather then shoot at a bunch of random shapes though, you’re navigating the ocean and fending off attackers as you attempt to complete objectives. It’s more an Action Adventure game, then a mindless shooter.

The objectives that they have you achieve consist of a lot of one thing; Escort missions. Several times you will have to protect a cargo ship or a large battleship. These missions aren’t hard at all and you find that the things you’re protecting are not as fragile as you’d think. There’s just a lot of them and you get tired of doing that. The first mission, has you escort a large ship. Not the greatest way to start off a campaign.

Since it does have a story, you’ll meet several characters that Captain Grey knows, but you don’t feel anything for them. They just sort of pop up. No background is really given on them or any sort of character development. They’re just there to help move the story along. Voice acting is also not the greatest. It doesn’t ruin the game, but is a bit over the top.

Like most games of this type, there are a variety of weapons at your disposal. As you play the game, you’ll have the option of choosing 3 ships: Speedboat, Cruiser, and Gunships; each having their own advantages and disadvantages. You have 7 different weapon classes to choose from for each ship, with everything from flamethrowers to gatling guns to large cannons to dispatch enemy ships with. All are interchangeable at the ship ports that are found usually between levels or at the beginning of one. Along with these offensive upgrades, you have defensive ones as well. Things from upgrading your bullet damage, increasing armor, or increasing the strength of your squad are possible as well.

Squads do play a useful role in the game as well. When you come up to the ship ports, you have the option of choosing between four different squads. There’s a squad that heals, one that detects submarines, ones with large cannons, and the basic gunship. All of these are useful and definitely get the job done. The AI for these ships is solid and they do exactly as you command them to. Squad controls consist of simple options such as protect you, protect the objective, attack ships, etc… Just one click of a button and they’ll do their job quick and effective.

The only thing better then your guns and squad is the super attack that you get after a few levels. This could be considered the “screen clearing bomb attack” seen in other twin stick shooters. Destroying enough ships will fill up a meter for you super attack. Early on, the attack send out a bunch of small rockets from the sky and destroys everything  that isn’t you. Later on in the game, you come across a prototype aircraft that takes place of your rockets. This aircraft flies around and zaps everything in sight with an extremely powerful lightning attack  that kills everything even faster. When it comes to bosses however, these aren’t as effective.

The bosses in the game don’t really go past larger, stronger, more powerful ships. The final boss being the only exception really. The bosses are generally slower, but if you get in their path, you will take some serious damage. There are some bosses that are easily defeated and you find that the build up for that general or sergeant was greater then the battle. There’s one instance that has you attacking a large battalion of ships. What could’ve been a fun challenge, was ended quickly by simply attacking them from behind and using your super attack to get rid of any protecting enemy ships.

The final boss is easily the hardest. You fight her, Cerbera, in three different stages, each one getting more difficult then the next. The reason she is so difficult is that you have to do one step before inflicting damage on her. For example, the first time you encounter her, you can only shoot at areas that don’t have a shield in front of them. Her ship is rotating,  so the area that doesn’t have a shield is always changing as well, and when you drive your boat towards the area, the ship rotates in the opposite direction. It’ s a tad annoying having to do all that along with enemies attacking you as well.

Aside from the campaign, there is local multiplayer available. It is a bit sparse, but it’s still nice to have. The multiplayer has 2 modes: Checkpoint which has the two players race to certain locations first and Arena Battle which will have you fend off waves of enemies. There is no online multiplayer which would have gave this game a bit boost. You may play multiplayer once or twice, but there’s not enough there to keep you coming back.

Conclusion: Aqua is a fun game that adds a nice change to the twin stick shooter genre. A pretty decent story, fun gameplay, great graphics, and a variety of weapons do make this game enjoyable , but only for a short period of time. The constant escort missions and simple bosses will have you blast through this game in no time at all.

Single Player: 3/5 | Multi-Player: N/A

Special thanks to Games Distillery for providing us with a copy of the game for review.