AquaNox
Encyclopedia
AquaNox is a series of submarine
-based shooter
/simulation
games set in the distant future. The collection includes AquaNox, AquaNox 2: Revelation and AquaNox: The Angel's Tears. The predecessor and the starter of the series is the MS-DOS
title Archimedean Dynasty.
became increasingly scarce and as the end of the resources loomed, people began to prospect for resources on the ocean floor. This resulted in the construction of mining stations beneath the Pacific
, Atlantic
and Indian ocean
s. Many countries set up these deep-sea stations where workers and engineers extracted the oceans' treasures. Nevertheless, the output was far from enough to cover an ever-increasing demand. When the natural resources on Earth's surface were depleted, a time of destruction and wars began. In the fight over the planet's last remaining resources, alliances fell apart, countries became hostile and old conflicts flared up.
With increasing cruelty and senselessness, man destroyed the very basis of life on the surface of the earth. After a series of resource wars, nuclear weapons completed the destruction
that man had not yet finished with his industrial pollution. When the last glimmer of hope for humanity's survival was extinguished, people fled into the depths of the oceans.
The former extraction stations became the last refuge of those fortunate enough to be able to pay the price of entry into the underwater world. The poorest of the poor were left behind, condemned to die in a desolate world polluted by radioactivity. Life outside the oceans became impossible as the continents were flooded by rising sea levels and a harsh nuclear winter
covered most of the oceans and the shrinking surface landmass of the planet with a layer of radioactive dust, snow and ice many meters thick. A 40-meter thick layer of dead organic matter, the so-called POM layer, covered the oceans. Not a single ray of sunlight penetrated the dense particulate layer that plunged the world into a darkness like none other. Nevertheless, mankind rose one last time to a new life, the only life, in a dead new world. This world was humanity's creation, and was now called Aqua. The following events take place in the middle of the 27th century.
Today, in the year 2661, mankind lives in gigantic cities underwater. Aqua is divided into political power blocs, such as the Aquatoria of the capitalistic, democratically governed Atlantic Federation, the oligarchy
of the Arabic Clans Union and the monarchist
Russo-Japanese Shogunate. In the South Pacific lies the Tornado Zone, stirred up by surface storms, where an anarchist pack of mercenaries, pirates, buccaneers and outlaws gathers, ever ready to sell their friends and their souls.
A single company has long ago monopolized many industries necessary for human survival underwater—EnTrOx, which stands for "Energy-Transportation-Oxygen
". New technologies allow extremely fast underwater travel. However, many old technologies are lost or have become useless. For example, due to the high amounts of fallout
in the atmosphere, satellite communication and global positioning are impossible, although some organizations are looking for ways to restore these abilities.
The player's task is to complete a series of story-related combat missions. During the course of the missions additional support and story elements are revealed by the secondary characters. The enemies range from hostile vessels to alien or artificial life-forms such as bionts.
, is stolen on one of the stations. The game begins with one of Flint's dubious acquaintances giving him an old, barely working sub and several missions to get him started.
Throughout the game, Flint earns money by completing missions, allowing him to purchase better subs, weapons and equipment. The new equipment appears throughout the game, available for purchase, as the player progress in the storyline. Generally speaking, the player is allowed to buy a new boat and a new set of weaponry per chapter. While on stations, Flint can speak with various characters in order to get new missions and deepen the atmosphere of the game.
The former system of upgrading the vessel with a variety of defensive turrets has been simplified by fixing the player's view to the cockpit as well as permitting the usage of only two on hull installed cannons. As the result of this change, the controls of the submarine have been adapted to the first-person shooter's mouse-based layout, removing the need for the joystick, thus the game has compromised its tactical depth in order to increase the insensitivity of combat. This change has raised critique among the reviewers, stating that the developers' focus fell inadequately on the visual performance rather than the actual gameplay of its predecessor.
The game was one of the first applications to fully use the T&L effects by supporting the NVIDIA
Geforce 3 Ti graphics accelerator.
The game includes a vast amount of true information on oceans, such as origins of different species, their specifics and man's adaptation to submarine life. The game manual consists of two chapters explaining various terms and facts that have been mentioned throughout the course of the story.
System requirements
The game features a total of four unique, playable and upgradeable gunships. For the completion of the game the player will most likely switch boats depending on the mission's content. While certain missions will require speed and stealth, others will virtually enforce the presence of a heavy arsenal and thick plating. The game features a large variety of projectile armament as well as a set of torpedoes and a collection of energy based weaponry, including lasers and EMP
launchers. While most weapons aren't necessarily at odds with the game's underwater environments, the presence of laser-based arms decreases the plausibility of such fights. The torpedo combat is similar to the missile engagements of most flight simulators and space shooters, where the pilot is expected to release flares and perform classic evasion manoeuvres.
The transportation is generally a simple matter of following the navigation points spread out through the game. The ship's controls can be switched from the FPS mode to Simulation Mode via a predefined shortcut, where the latter steering scheme switches the horizontal scrolling of the mouse from turning the cockpit horizontally to rotating the hull around its axis. Reaching the surface is not possible due to the depth-range limitation, which binds the player to the underwater world yet gives certain disadvantages during the combat.
In response to criticisms of poor interaction with other characters in AquaNox, a new dialogue system was added in the sequel. Between missions the player is able to initiate conversations while on board of the freighter as well as in the oceanic cities. The initiation of the conversations is mandatory; however due to the absence of interaction during the dialogues, the outcome of the game is not open-ended. The actions and replies of the protagonist often appear irrational and unnatural.
Like William, the other characters in the game do not tend to appear natural by neither showing conscious thought, nor having distinct goals and nor developing at all over the period of the adventure. While perhaps being the intention of the playwright, the secondary personages do not show any depth or authenticity, resulting in a group of stereotypic knights, pirates, outcasts and nymphomaniacs.
System Requirements
remake
of Aquanox 2: Revelation. The title did not pass Sony's software quality assurance
test and as Massive Development
had already been closed by JoWood Productions, the release was cancelled.
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
-based shooter
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
/simulation
Vehicle simulation game
Vehicle simulation games are a genre of video games which attempt to provide the player with a realistic interpretation of operating various kinds of vehicles. This includes automobiles, aircraft, watercraft, spacecraft, military vehicles, and a variety of other vehicles...
games set in the distant future. The collection includes AquaNox, AquaNox 2: Revelation and AquaNox: The Angel's Tears. The predecessor and the starter of the series is the MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
title Archimedean Dynasty.
Concept
In the middle of the 22nd century, raw materials on earthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
became increasingly scarce and as the end of the resources loomed, people began to prospect for resources on the ocean floor. This resulted in the construction of mining stations beneath the Pacific
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
, Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
and Indian ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
s. Many countries set up these deep-sea stations where workers and engineers extracted the oceans' treasures. Nevertheless, the output was far from enough to cover an ever-increasing demand. When the natural resources on Earth's surface were depleted, a time of destruction and wars began. In the fight over the planet's last remaining resources, alliances fell apart, countries became hostile and old conflicts flared up.
With increasing cruelty and senselessness, man destroyed the very basis of life on the surface of the earth. After a series of resource wars, nuclear weapons completed the destruction
Nuclear holocaust
Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of the near complete annihilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is made uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
that man had not yet finished with his industrial pollution. When the last glimmer of hope for humanity's survival was extinguished, people fled into the depths of the oceans.
The former extraction stations became the last refuge of those fortunate enough to be able to pay the price of entry into the underwater world. The poorest of the poor were left behind, condemned to die in a desolate world polluted by radioactivity. Life outside the oceans became impossible as the continents were flooded by rising sea levels and a harsh nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
covered most of the oceans and the shrinking surface landmass of the planet with a layer of radioactive dust, snow and ice many meters thick. A 40-meter thick layer of dead organic matter, the so-called POM layer, covered the oceans. Not a single ray of sunlight penetrated the dense particulate layer that plunged the world into a darkness like none other. Nevertheless, mankind rose one last time to a new life, the only life, in a dead new world. This world was humanity's creation, and was now called Aqua. The following events take place in the middle of the 27th century.
Today, in the year 2661, mankind lives in gigantic cities underwater. Aqua is divided into political power blocs, such as the Aquatoria of the capitalistic, democratically governed Atlantic Federation, the oligarchy
Oligarchy
Oligarchy is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy...
of the Arabic Clans Union and the monarchist
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
Russo-Japanese Shogunate. In the South Pacific lies the Tornado Zone, stirred up by surface storms, where an anarchist pack of mercenaries, pirates, buccaneers and outlaws gathers, ever ready to sell their friends and their souls.
A single company has long ago monopolized many industries necessary for human survival underwater—EnTrOx, which stands for "Energy-Transportation-Oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...
". New technologies allow extremely fast underwater travel. However, many old technologies are lost or have become useless. For example, due to the high amounts of fallout
Nuclear fallout
Fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and shock wave have passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes...
in the atmosphere, satellite communication and global positioning are impossible, although some organizations are looking for ways to restore these abilities.
The player's task is to complete a series of story-related combat missions. During the course of the missions additional support and story elements are revealed by the secondary characters. The enemies range from hostile vessels to alien or artificial life-forms such as bionts.
Episodes
The Aquanox series include the following games, listed by the release in a chronological order:Archimedean Dynasty
The player once again jumps into the role of Emerald "Deadeye" Flint. After the Bionts are defeated, Flint goes back to being a mercenary as a leader of a Biont-hunting task-force. Things turn for the worse when his submarine, the SuccubusSuccubus
In folklore traced back to medieval legend, a succubus is a female demon appearing in dreams who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus...
, is stolen on one of the stations. The game begins with one of Flint's dubious acquaintances giving him an old, barely working sub and several missions to get him started.
Throughout the game, Flint earns money by completing missions, allowing him to purchase better subs, weapons and equipment. The new equipment appears throughout the game, available for purchase, as the player progress in the storyline. Generally speaking, the player is allowed to buy a new boat and a new set of weaponry per chapter. While on stations, Flint can speak with various characters in order to get new missions and deepen the atmosphere of the game.
The former system of upgrading the vessel with a variety of defensive turrets has been simplified by fixing the player's view to the cockpit as well as permitting the usage of only two on hull installed cannons. As the result of this change, the controls of the submarine have been adapted to the first-person shooter's mouse-based layout, removing the need for the joystick, thus the game has compromised its tactical depth in order to increase the insensitivity of combat. This change has raised critique among the reviewers, stating that the developers' focus fell inadequately on the visual performance rather than the actual gameplay of its predecessor.
The game was one of the first applications to fully use the T&L effects by supporting the NVIDIA
NVIDIA
Nvidia is an American global technology company based in Santa Clara, California. Nvidia is best known for its graphics processors . Nvidia and chief rival AMD Graphics Techonologies have dominated the high performance GPU market, pushing other manufacturers to smaller, niche roles...
Geforce 3 Ti graphics accelerator.
The game includes a vast amount of true information on oceans, such as origins of different species, their specifics and man's adaptation to submarine life. The game manual consists of two chapters explaining various terms and facts that have been mentioned throughout the course of the story.
System requirements
- Minimum: Pentium IIIPentium IIIThe Pentium III brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile microprocessors based on the sixth-generation P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 26, 1999. The brand's initial processors were very similar to the earlier Pentium II-branded microprocessors...
500 MHz, 128 MBMegabyteThe megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, 500 MB Hard Drive Space, 16 MB Video RAM, 4x CD-ROM drive - Recommended: Pentium IIIPentium IIIThe Pentium III brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile microprocessors based on the sixth-generation P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 26, 1999. The brand's initial processors were very similar to the earlier Pentium II-branded microprocessors...
1000 MHz, 256 MB RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, 64 MB Video RAM, 800 MB Hard Drive Space
AquaNox 2: Revelation
The plot of the game is based around William Drake, the last remnant of the old aristocratic, industrialist family. After the bankrupt of the familial industry and the death of the protagonist's grandmother, young William Drake sets 'sail' for open seas on the last freighter of the Drake Enterprises. The cargo ship soon gets taken over by a group of mercenaries, while Drake rushes out to answer a distress call. While sparing his life, the group of seven invaders seize control of the boat, thus binding Williams' fate to their own. The protagonist sees no other options than to unite himself with his new crew, hoping for the best.The game features a total of four unique, playable and upgradeable gunships. For the completion of the game the player will most likely switch boats depending on the mission's content. While certain missions will require speed and stealth, others will virtually enforce the presence of a heavy arsenal and thick plating. The game features a large variety of projectile armament as well as a set of torpedoes and a collection of energy based weaponry, including lasers and EMP
Electromagnetic pulse
An electromagnetic pulse is a burst of electromagnetic radiation. The abrupt pulse of electromagnetic radiation usually results from certain types of high energy explosions, especially a nuclear explosion, or from a suddenly fluctuating magnetic field...
launchers. While most weapons aren't necessarily at odds with the game's underwater environments, the presence of laser-based arms decreases the plausibility of such fights. The torpedo combat is similar to the missile engagements of most flight simulators and space shooters, where the pilot is expected to release flares and perform classic evasion manoeuvres.
The transportation is generally a simple matter of following the navigation points spread out through the game. The ship's controls can be switched from the FPS mode to Simulation Mode via a predefined shortcut, where the latter steering scheme switches the horizontal scrolling of the mouse from turning the cockpit horizontally to rotating the hull around its axis. Reaching the surface is not possible due to the depth-range limitation, which binds the player to the underwater world yet gives certain disadvantages during the combat.
In response to criticisms of poor interaction with other characters in AquaNox, a new dialogue system was added in the sequel. Between missions the player is able to initiate conversations while on board of the freighter as well as in the oceanic cities. The initiation of the conversations is mandatory; however due to the absence of interaction during the dialogues, the outcome of the game is not open-ended. The actions and replies of the protagonist often appear irrational and unnatural.
Like William, the other characters in the game do not tend to appear natural by neither showing conscious thought, nor having distinct goals and nor developing at all over the period of the adventure. While perhaps being the intention of the playwright, the secondary personages do not show any depth or authenticity, resulting in a group of stereotypic knights, pirates, outcasts and nymphomaniacs.
System Requirements
- Minimum: Pentium IIIPentium IIIThe Pentium III brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile microprocessors based on the sixth-generation P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 26, 1999. The brand's initial processors were very similar to the earlier Pentium II-branded microprocessors...
750 MHz, 256 MB RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, 32 MB Video RAM, 2 GB Hard Drive Space - Recommended: 1 GHz processor, 256 MB RAMRam-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, 64 MB Video RAM
AquaNox: Angel's Tears
AquaNox: Angel's Tears is the PlayStation 2PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of Aquanox 2: Revelation. The title did not pass Sony's software quality assurance
Software quality assurance
Software quality assurance consists of a means of monitoring the software engineering processes and methods used to ensure quality. The methods by which this is accomplished are many and varied, and may include ensuring conformance to one or more standards, such as ISO 9000 or a model such as...
test and as Massive Development
Massive Development
Massive Development was a computer and video game developer based in Mannheim, Germany. The company was active between 1994 and 2005 and is primarily known for their submarine Video games Archimedean Dynasty and AquaNox.- History :...
had already been closed by JoWood Productions, the release was cancelled.
External links
- Official Aquanox Homepage of the publisher Jowood
- Official Aquanox 2 Homepage of the publisher Jowood
- AquaNox-Portal - Official AquaNox Series webpage from Massive Development (archived 2005-02-07)