seaQuest DSV

"Another case of the could-have-beens"

While it seems promising at first glance, this deep-sea exploration title fails to make ripples in the the ocean of SNES vehicle simulations. There are certainly many flaws in SeaQuest:DSV, but perhaps the greatest of them is the pervading feeling that this game could have been a real contender with only a few added features.

Many gamers will have doubts about this cart before they even get into the game. Those of us who remember the television series from which SQ:DSV is derived will recall that it was hardly spectacular; as a general rule, bad television shows make for even worse games. Upon inserting SQ:DSV into your SNES and flipping the power on, you'll be forced to sit through almost half a minute of licensee and developer logo screens; I tend to harbor a great deal of suspicion for any game that had this many entities dabbling in its production.

Another instant strike is the fact that there is no title screen for the game itself; you are always dumped straight into the first mission, even if you are only going to bring up the main menu to enter a password from a previous session. After enduring seven or eight splash screens, I would like to at least be given a cohesive entry screen.

After getting past the rocky introduction sequence, you might feel your spirits begin to rise: the Seaquest submarine and its surroundings exhibit a great deal of detail and color, and the music is appropriate to the aquatic espionage setting. This illusory sense of satisfaction will be shattered the second you try and move somewhere, only to discover that the DSV handles like a large, nuclear-powered dildo. You'll likely spend your first ten or twenty minutes smashing the DSV against various rock formations and underwater colonies in an attempt to gain an iota of control over it.

Provided that you overcome your initial disgust with the movement heuristics, you will likely be granted a few random missions as you traverse the map. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the sequence in which you are given these tasks, other than uncovering a new part of the map that is completely unrelated to the assigned mission.

The mission-based gameplay really starts to show its weaknesses after you try and complete a couple of them, when it becomes blatantly obvious that fulfilling your objectives always requires the same three step process.

Firstly, you must find your objective, be it a sunken military jet or an enemy base. This is done by looking around for a high concentration of enemy subs, or by constantly switching to the Bridge screen to check if you're in the right place. Forget about using the map to navigate: for some stupid reason, the locations of your mission objectives are _not_ labelled there.

Once you get to where you're going, you must clear out all of the generic enemy subs that have congregated in the area, which is easily accomplished by alternately gaining and losing elevation and firing any of your many generic weapons in the general vicinity of the enemy. Most of the opposing subs will simply float with obliging motionlessness in the water while you dismantle them; others will adapt the cunning strategy of sitting in one position and firing repeatedly in your direction. Your standard arsenal is usually more than enough to sweep away these 'threats', and it's a good thing, too: the more 'advanced' weaponry is so poorly implemented that it is practically useless. Homing missiles, contrary to what their name implies, actually spin aimlessly about around the battlefield, relying on sheer probability to strike your opponents. Caltrops and depth charges take a ridiculously long time to detonate; when you couple this with your horrendously slow turning speed, you've got yourself one useless set of explosives. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Finally, you must bring your mission to a close by deploying one of six mini-vehicles in a side-view action sequence. Each of these six vehicles has its specialties, and you often have to use one of them to partially complete a stage, return it to the SeaQuest, and then use another to complete the sequence. Some of the vehicles specialize in combat, while others are utility or retrieval machines. They all share one common property, however: they suck brutally when it comes to maneuverability. Given the fact that most of the enemies in these stages can fire and move in any direction at very high speeds and that your vehicles do neither of these things, you would probably conclude, correctly, that these little seek-and-destroy jaunts aren't very much fun. You'll be going through a whole lot of minisubs to complete these stages: fortunately, replacements can be purchased pretty cheaply.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for rare, old SNES cartridges: SeaQuest:DSV is not a good target for your next paycheck. As mentioned earlier, however, this game could have been worth playing with the right improvements. The poor control would have to be tweaked, of course; centralizing the plot by providing an actual opponent instead of pitting you against waves of nameless ''drug lords'' would have given the player an incentive to progress through the repetitive missions; giving the game an ''economy'' of sorts by allowing you to dock at underwater cities and purchase equipment there instead of buying parts autonomously from the bridge would having provided an addictive Trade Wars-esque style of gameplay; appearances from the television crew would have added more realism to the operation of the DSV; and adding automated mission-objective mapping and better alerts would have made the missions less tedious to complete. The game in its current state is sure to disappoint: stay away from this one, unless you enjoy contemplating the greatness of things that might have been.

3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/21/03, Updated 01/21/03