AQUA: Naval Warfare (XBLA) Review

While the style of gameplay has been used many times over, AQUA: Naval Warefare focuses more on it's story and presentation, which ultimately results in something interesting and fun.

The Dual-stick shooter is a genre that's reached it's peak in innovation, but is still able to deliver some fun, albeit overused gameplay. Game Distillery's debut title, AQUA: Naval Warfare is one of those games. But fortunately, the presentation more than makes up for the gameplay with an interesting storyline and fantastic visuals.

EPIC SEA BATTLE!

AQUA throws the players in the middle of a conflict between the Emperean and Gothean Navies. Throw in a batch of interesting characters and lots of Steampunk inspiration and you got something that hasn't been done before. You play as Captain Grey and his navigator, Polly Edison, who fight on the open seas in their own vessel against the Gothean army, who has broken a truce between the two nations.

At it's core, the gameplay is a Dual-stick shooter, but it's good shooting. Your ship has room for 3 upgrades and 3 different weapons, which you can seamlessly switch between using the A button. The gameplay is smooth and responsive and made better by story-driven missions. The game suffers from a large number of "Escort" missions. Something that the entire gaming world, myself included, seems to hate. But the escorting itself isn't so difficult compared to many other games and there is enough variety in the missions to keep things interesting.

The presentation is one of the strongest points in AQUA. The graphics are pretty and the designs, especially the designs of the boats, are fantastic. The gameplay is broken up by comic book-inspired cutscenes which are also well-drawn and pretty. The audio on the other hand, isn't quite as notable, but the soundtrack fits the situations well. The cutscenes also contain some rather enthusiastic voice acting, which is chuckle-worthy at times, but overall it's pretty awesome.

The flamethrower is one of the many weapons you can use.

On the whole, AQUA doesn't revolutionize anything, but it delivers a fun, lasting, single-player experience. If a sequel is produced, hopefully the folks at Games Distillery improve on the variation of missions and add the option for Co-operative multiplayer. But for a debut title, AQUA: Naval Warfare is a great game. It's available exclusive on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft Points ($10) So check it out!

- Kyle K.