The Facts
- Play as the underwater outcast Aquaman
- 21 levels including four submarine attack areas
- Fight more than 11 different enemy types
- Control Aquaman's cybernetic morphing hook-hand and telepathic powers
- Unlock and play as Classic Aquaman, Tempest or the arch-villain Black Manta
- Features patented sucking technology
- Single-player
- No progressive scan or Dolby Pro Logic II support
Gameplay
Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis follows DC Comics' underwater superhero as he embarks on a quest to save his kingdom -- that of Atlantis -- from impending doom. We learn this through poorly executed, static storyboard cinemas which -- we think -- are intended to look like the box-outs in real comics, but don't. This because developer Lucky Chicken Games calls upon blurred in-game models and backdrops to fill the sequences. Void of animation or speech, the story unfolds in boring streams of text -- a setup for the mechanical, uninspired adventure to come.
What follows is a repetitious series of levels that represents a positive step backward in game design. You simply swim Aquaman around fog-filled underwater locales, many of them completely blank except for naked, submerged buildings, and engage in beat-em'-up style brawls with groups of similar looking enemies. This is aged stuff by PlayStation 1 standards. To its credit, the game does succeed in delivering a clear sense of control. Swimming about the environments, going between structures, soaring up or plunging down -- it all feels good. But the worlds themselves are very limited. There are invisible walls. There are barriers on how high you can swim. There are perimeter shields. And everywhere you can swim seems static -- dead.
The fights are a snore. When Aquaman approaches an enemy or a group of them, the camera zooms in and you can punch, and kick at the opposition. You can likewise engage them in minor grapples. And that's about it. Aquaman really has no place to use his cybernetic morphing hook-arm here, either. The fight system is so repetitive and mechanical -- so utterly lacking in depth or variety -- that you're likely to grow tired by the mere thought of it. We certainly do.
There are several levels in which you can "pilot" a craft through the underwater environments and shoot down enemy subs, but the technical limits are once more too many to make this alternate mode any more enjoyable than the other levels.
Aquaman has all the makings of a budget title. It's shallow. It's repetitive. It's unoriginal. It's clumsy. And in our opinion the license sucks anyway. The good news is that publisher TDK has at least realized that it doesn't have the Game of the Year here: it sells for only $19.99, less than half what some high-quality offerings cost. Even at that low price, though, it's a waste of money.
Somewhere, Aquaman sits on his underwater thrown, an outcast to the civilized world -- and a tear rolls down his stupid face.
Graphics
Unimpressive. Aquaman looks like one-time-rock star Ted Nugent on a bad hair day and animates through fights like a robot having a seizure. While worlds are large looking, they are also filled with some kind of fogging and also completely void of life; no ground objects or animated backgrounds; no civilians; no craft. Just a waiting group of enemies. On the upside, the framerate is maintained. The developer has also at least tried for some kind of effects -- a truth demonstrated by the way in which the main character's hair shimmies and sways with the water. No amount of hair works, however, can deter us from the fact that this is overall a very premature, ugly title.
Sound
Music is bland and the voice work is nonexistent. Sound effects are subdued. Not a lot of work went into the listening experience. Frankly, there isn't much to critique.