RF Generation Message Board

3 examples:

Sonic. The game is all about speed, but in the levels which are underwater there's none of this. It's like playing the game in slow motion. And you have to watch your air supply. It's very un-sonic.

Tomb Raider. I like the way the underwater levels look sometimes, but it does make it a lot harder to see what's going on. Controlling the shrew is a lot more difficult too (especially in combat) and there's the dreaded air supply again.

Morrowind. There's lots of water in Morrowind, which is good, because it makes it look like a real world, but it's mostly fun to look at, not to be in. Of course it looks and controls better than tomb raider, but it suffers from the same problems, lack of air supply, harder combat, less visibility.

Now I'm not saying there shouldn't be any underwater scenes in games, but only when it's absolutely necessary, not as a gameplay element on itself. I don't think any game actually got better by implementing underwater scenes in it.

I haven't played the underwater snenes in the games you mentioned but have played some in a few others.

Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex for PS2 and Crash Warped for PS1 both had several underwater scenes that were pretty good. these however did not have an air supply issue.

Nightmare Creatures has some underwater scenes and those are a pain as it's dark and difficult to tell which direction you've been.

I don't think all underwater scenes suck, but I do think that they are sometimes extremely frustrating. Playing Mario 64 for the first few times I found enticing the eel out of the ship in Jolly Roger Bay was fairly annoying. Rusty Bucket Bay in Banjo Kazooie also had the notes and jiggy behind the propeller blades that were extremely hard to get. I would have had 900 notes if it wasn't for that. Instead, I had 896.

As far as i remember all of the Crash games have underwatder scenes.
Those arn't too bad.

I agree the Sonic/Tomb Raider/Morrowind underwater moments blow though.

Yes, yes they do.

I thought that the underwater scenes in Morrowind weren't that bad after you got your character to a decent level, but up until then they sucked.

Yeah, they weren't always that bad, but worse than the land missions. And they don't really add anything to the game, they're never really fun. 'not sucking' isn't the kind of entertainment I want. It has to be better than that.

I think that the underwater scenes in 688 Attack Sub are uneccesary. :p