For free not bad, for $10 a travesty
Undertow is made by Chair, who made the decent enough Xbox title Advent Rising. This game is at the very least a departure from that and most games out there today. In undertow you'll play as a human diver, a nemo (A what?!), and a female atlantian general. This is done through "Episodes", which is broken up into the games 15 levels, 5 for each character. I expected each character would get there own campaign and really the game would have worked a lot better this way.
The way the story mode unfolds you have no idea whats going on and really no backstory to figure out whats going on. Its comparable to jumping into a movie in the middle and never figuring out what its about, actually I guess its very comparable to a Tarantino flick. Undertow seems to make no effort to make friends with the player and although the games short cutscenes are easy on the eyes and the voice acting isn't half bad it still doesn't work. Listening to the convoluted and confusing story is painful and the out of places and terrible quotes and the beginning of each episode make the game seem to be some epic journey to new lands and worlds. Maybe that is the point actually to bring us to the world below with Humans with infinite oxygen tank codes, out of place Aliens, and guys in clunky metal suits calling themselves...Nemos.
Completing the game is pretty much not satisfying as after the confusing hour of gaming is over you are left with bad jokes between the 3 races of people, and a lead in for an Undertow 2 game. I'm sure thats up there on my want list, right up there with Yaris 2!
Gameplay is like watching ants swimming through the wrong side of binoculars. Its really hard to tell at times who is on what team (blue or orange) and what class they are. Its also really hard to play this nonsense in multiplayer. Some players spawn as powerful forms, while most spawn as the weakest 'pea shooter' equivalent. Then the AI robots tend to spawn as maxed out forms that could kill you in a single hit if not on casual (See:Barney's Hide and Seek easy).
The game in single player and multiplayer can be won in two ways:Capture all Control points, Defeat the enemy till they have no reserves. The latter is usually the outcome of things as capturing control points is comparable to rolling the dice on how fast you'll capture a point. Using the same exact character and form, I've captured a point in two drastically different speeds. Sometimes points are captured in blinks of an eye and other times its grueling and strangely enough it doesn't seem to depend on if the points being defended.
The realization is if you got this free you'll play it for 5 minutes, or play till you get all the achievements. Undertow certainly looks gorgeous at times when its not being zoomed out to half a world away, but it isn't what it wants to be. The game wants to be Gears of War for 800 microsoft points and it isn't. Its not even a poor mans substitute.
Verdict: Avoid
