Fatal Abyss sinks faster than the Titanic! Review

Fatal Abyss sinks faster than the Titanic!

In the near future, there is a war being fought over Bacteria 241, a strange new

energy source found in its raw form at the bottom of the ocean. The scientists

of Eco Systems Organization have developed a way to extract the bacteria and are

attempting to corner the world market in its trade. Unfortunately, their plans

to be the sole providers of this energy have been crushed by the invading and

combative Proteus Tech. It’s up to you to lead one faction into battle: either

save the world for the Eco Systems, or destroy and dominate for Proteus Tech.

Such is life in the game Fatal

Abyss, a new underwater action game from Segasoft. With unexciting graphics

and bland gameplay, this game is all wet.

The graphics are pretty dated. Segasoft promises spectacular 3D, with beautifully

rendered battlefields that use real-time light sourcing and high color graphics.

Instead, what you get are graphics that are bland and abysmal. It looks the

same just about everywhere you go. On some levels there are breakaway rocks

and exposed magma, but no unique eye candy. Sure, the explosions are cool to

look at, but in comparison to other multiplayer shooters out there, the graphics

just don’t stack up. I ran Fatal Abyss on a 233MMX with two Voodoo2’s,

and it still looked like a cheap rip-off of that other submarine combat game

Subculture.

Perhaps two years ago this game would’ve been more appreciated for its contribution

to the evolution of computer gaming graphics, but not this close to the new

millenium.

The controls are okay, and simple to use. There really aren’t a whole lot of intricate things to know. If you’ve played Mechwarrior or Subculture, then the controls will be very intuitive. Simple, easy to use controls: the best part of the game.

The enemy AI in Fatal Abyss is decent. There are enough enemy attack pattern variations to keep you awake and interested for awhile. Keep in mind, this is a submarine combat game, and it’s not like the enemy is going to do anything you’ve never experienced before. Plus, the number of enemy types you can fight are very limited as well. Therefore, you won’t find a whole lot of depth (pardon the pun) to Fatal Abyss. This is one of the Fatal mistakes that send this game into the Abyss. (Ugh, please stop. – ed.)

In your arsenal of submarines, you

can choose to pilot one of three vehicles. You can drive the Scout RV, the Fast

AV, or the Heavy AV. The Scout Reconnaissance is the fastest and most maneuverable,

the Fast Attack Vehicle is the best overall combat sub, and the Heavy Attack

Vehicle of course is slow and can carry the most weaponry. Of course each ‘particular’

mission has a ‘particular’ sub that is best for it . . . what else is new? Each

ship has a slight handling variation as well, but this is nothing that we haven’t

seen before.

Each ship can be armed with over 10 different weapons including rapid-fire torpedo, blast torpedo with multiple explosions, and Electro-Magnetic Pulse Pods.

The multiplayer capabilities may be the only saving grace to Fatal Abyss. If you like multiplayer Internet play, it is free on Heat.net. Multiplayer only consists of deathmatch mode. When you get tired of playing by yourself, and trust me you will, then you can play online with opponents just like you, who are tired of playing with themselves. Up to 16 players can join in dogfight style combat, over 7 different levels. Again, as with anything Internet related, your experience and fluidity of combat will be very dependent on the speed of your modem or connection.

Fatal Abyss lacked any creativity or innovation what so ever. It is one of those proverbial cookie-cutter games that unsuccessfully cannibalize the past successes of other games. It’s as though a cold and lifeless corporation, seeking to capitalize on the genre, simply turned out another widget without a soul to call its own.