AQUA Naval Warfare Review (XBLA)

I already wrote a lot of my thoughts in the preview for AQUA Naval Warfare from Slovak studio, Games Distillery. But I have played more of the game now and with its release this week I thought it time to score it.

As I said in the preview you take on the role of Captain Gray who is piloting a Cruiser in the Emperean Navy (Brit/US). With your help, the war with the Gotheans (Russians) is recently ended and you take on a side mission (unapproved of course) to do a little treasure hunting. What you find is that there’s more afoot than simple peace talks.

The voice acting will, at times, make you roll your eyes. It’s by far the most lacking portion of the entire title. But it’s far from the first thing that you’ll notice. What you should notice is a very cool and well-done graphics in the game, especially the water effects. Along with that you should also notice the nicely done environments that go along with them. The ships are most likely highly detailed as well but they’re so far off due to the camera view that you don’t really get to check them out.

The cut scenes are all done in a gritty sort of motion comic fashion which, while different from the in-game graphics, does help push things along.

AQUA takes the shooter genre and puts it in the water, well on the surface of the water anyway. Through the course of the game you’ll have the option to play in one of three types of ships, speedboat, cruiser and the heavier warship. Each can be outfitted with similar weapons including a Gatling gun, flamethrower, nailgun and shotgun as well as cannons, torpedoes, mines and special attacks. Each of the ships offers something different with the speedboat being light and fast and the gunship obviously packing more punch but still maintaining a fair amount of speed like the cruiser.