Hydrophobia: Prophecy

 PC
User Score
5.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 153 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 40 out of 153
  2. Mixed: 66 out of 153
  3. Negative: 47 out of 153

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  1. runner
    Feb 27, 2016
    4
    I was expecting for quite some time to get around this one. I feel sorry to give this a low score because it seems there was really an effort put into making this a good product. At the very beginning of the game, it reminded me of Dreamfall, which is one of my favorite games of all times. The two games are very much different, BUT, both have adventure elements in them, but are NOTI was expecting for quite some time to get around this one. I feel sorry to give this a low score because it seems there was really an effort put into making this a good product. At the very beginning of the game, it reminded me of Dreamfall, which is one of my favorite games of all times. The two games are very much different, BUT, both have adventure elements in them, but are NOT controlled with the classic point n' click interface, and both are, well, rather weak in terms of gameplay. How come I've played and enjoyed every one of my playthroughs with DF, and on this one I just waited eagerly to finish and uninstall it already?

    I'll start with the good, though: Hydrophobia does it nicely in the terms of setting and atmosphere. The graphics are interesting enough and the water mechanics and original engine were justly praised, and I honestly wish someone would make some more use of the HydroEngine. The soundtrack is also nice, even though it feels a little 'off' at times, it's perfectly fine, dramatic and intense and fits the game and environment. Unfortunately, I'm finding myself proceeding so fast to...

    The Bad: Unfortunately, not much else is done well here. I've mentioned before a weak gameplay, and it indeed felt weak for me. The game has SOME slight puzzleadventure elements, which I think the devs should have used some more because it could potentially save the game. Instead it relies on action, which is mostly consisted of awkward platforming, clunky combat, and mundane obstacles shooting. And no matter how much medals or collectibles I've earned (which are much appreciated, but still) I just felt I keep doing the same thing over and over again. And it wasn't a fun thing I was doing back there.
    I've also mentioned the faint resemblance I felt to DF, and that both games had weak gameplay in my opinion. Yet Dreamfall relies heavily on a STORY which saves its ass and making it easily a favorite of mine. Does a game have to rely on storytelling to be a worth title? No. But it should at least tell a good one, to pull us from the, at times, horrendous gameplay. You'd cover most of Hydrophobia's story on its first act (the game has 3), the rest just felt like poor excuses to run from point A to point B and do X. I really thought they were going somewhere deeper with all the mess they've created, but no. When I realized that I was going to complete the game despite not having so much fun with it, I prayed it'd at least have a good ending. It didn't. I did get to create water-pillars, which was cool. And then there was a random boss battle, which made it not cool at all.
    So, yeah, I got the impression this title is story-driven and found out that it wasn't really so true. There aren't many characters and the existing once don't seem to have much depth. And. They. Are. Dubbed. Irritatingly. I'm so sorry. I really tried to get used to it, but at some point I just stopped noticing what our hydrophobic hero and her useless sidekick were saying.

    The Ugly: As I said, this is all kinda sad. Even tragic in a way. The 'Prophecy' version is an improved one over the original Hydrophobia title, which got many complaints and bad reviews. I never tried it, only read about the process, and it seems the developers really tried and wanted to listen to the customers and give them what they want. They really tried to make massive improvements according to the feedback they received. There's even a "dev feedback" option where you could send them your opinion through the game! Where else have you seen such things?
    Still, if this is the 'revamped' version, then, and I feel to terrible saying this, it's no wonder that Dark Energy is now defunct. I actually wish they had another chance at making some other stuff and possibly get better and make good products. But Hydrophobia Prophecy simply turned from a title which grabbed my attention and anticipation, and seemed to cool and unique, to a very big 'meeeh', and later into a big annoyance which I'm glad is over.
    I might try and play this game again in a few years for old times' sake, but... I doubt that.    … Expand
  2. Mako
    Jul 6, 2011
    4
    Hydrophobia is a strange case. I would want to like this game, but all the technical problems in the game just make me not to. This game is more like a short tech demo about the cool water effects the developers has been able to create. Only problem is that the game engine is half-done and broken. There are also lots of nice ideas that could have made this game really good if someone wouldHydrophobia is a strange case. I would want to like this game, but all the technical problems in the game just make me not to. This game is more like a short tech demo about the cool water effects the developers has been able to create. Only problem is that the game engine is half-done and broken. There are also lots of nice ideas that could have made this game really good if someone would have placed more effort into the game itself.

    The story is from a cheap B class movie, nothing complex or genius. Also the voice acting is from the same movie category. The game is also very short, which in this particular game was not a problem thoughâ    … Expand
  3. Sexbad
    Aug 13, 2011
    0
    Nope. This game has myriad premise and fails to deliver in every single field. Water physics do nothing but get in the way. Objectives are simple find-the-button busywork. Platforming is shallow. Protagonist controls poorly. Combat is awful cover shooting against pathetic AI. Weapons feel like **** Narrative and characters are handled with a Call of Duty level of absurdity.
  4. Necrotaur
    Aug 24, 2012
    4
    Long story short, the only thing Hydrophobia really has going for it are its water physics. In ever other aspect, it is mediocre to poor. Platforming and combat are artificially difficult due to poor controls and camera angles, and there are a host of bugs, such as enemies spawning right on you when you load a checkpoint. The game is extremely repetitive, shooting the same enemies andLong story short, the only thing Hydrophobia really has going for it are its water physics. In ever other aspect, it is mediocre to poor. Platforming and combat are artificially difficult due to poor controls and camera angles, and there are a host of bugs, such as enemies spawning right on you when you load a checkpoint. The game is extremely repetitive, shooting the same enemies and collecting the same keys ad nauseum. You also don't "control water", one of the game's selling points, until the last half of the final act, which is about 20 minutes from the end. Oh, that reminds me.. Hydrophobia is only 2 hours long. I can overlook a lot considering the price is currently only $5, but if I had paid the original price, I would be pretty angry.… Expand
  5. Blenderhead
    May 7, 2012
    2
    Hydrophobia Prophecy serves as a stunning example of how *not* to make a game. The controls are unresponsive and cumbersome; at one point, I solved a puzzle on accident because the action bindings are so ambiguous that my attempt to do something completely different caused me to perform the correct action. The camera control is equally cumbersome; an early jump puzzle forced me to reloadHydrophobia Prophecy serves as a stunning example of how *not* to make a game. The controls are unresponsive and cumbersome; at one point, I solved a puzzle on accident because the action bindings are so ambiguous that my attempt to do something completely different caused me to perform the correct action. The camera control is equally cumbersome; an early jump puzzle forced me to reload because the camera swung 180 degrees without warning, causing me to leap to my death instead of to safety. The voice acting is awful; the main character can't seem to decide what sort of accent she has, being vaguely Irish most of the time but dancing through Scottist and various flavors of American and Australian, and sounding like a shrieking harpy the whole time to boot. Scoot is a bland stock character, no more and no less. The setting is actually pretty neat, and most of the time I spent playing was to dig up more details on the Queen of the World and the Population Flood. The villains detract from this severely, as they are too cartoonishly evil to be taken seriously;. To whit, the game's setting is struggling with feeding a severely overpopulated earth. The game takes place on the eve of the unveiling a new technology that could feed the masses, ending the crisis. The villains of the story want to use that technology to kill off the masses, as an extreme way to end the crisis--that just letting the technology work properly would also accomplish, minus about six billions deaths. In summation, I bought this game on sale for about two dollars, and feel that I didn't get my money's worth.… Expand
  6. Lonitx
    Dec 4, 2019
    0
    I feel like the trailers and screenshots are decieving, it looked good at first but the game is just so bad
  7. Shadow_Death
    May 22, 2011
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. So far all the reviews I have read have been falsified it seems. I paid $12 for this game on steam last night. I played it for roughly 2.5 hours and beat it. It has 3 acts, and your help gets wrote out in the 2nd suddenly with no word from him again other than "they're here" or something to that effect. The camera controls are a pain, the swimming controls are horrible. The water effects are awesome but that's just it, it feels like 75% of the production budget went into the water engine and 25% went into everything else. Save yourself the headache and problems and just pass this one up. Oh, for those of you who have already bought the game... the final boss uses wall hacks. I think a 3 out of 10 is generous.… Expand
  8. tronchaviones
    Jun 7, 2011
    0
    Some good ideas gone wrong. Instead of using social engineering to build hype and attack the critics, Dark Energy must concentrate on engineering and developing to get a finished product. Less fake reviews and more real work is the way to go.

    We paid to get just a beta, and its development has been abandoned in less than one month. The support failed from day 1, with no response about    Some good ideas gone wrong. Instead of using social engineering to build hype and attack the critics, Dark Energy must concentrate on engineering and developing to get a finished product. Less fake reviews and more real work is the way to go.

    We paid to get just a beta, and its development has been abandoned in less than one month. The support failed from day 1, with no response about the pathetic automatic machine translation used for Spanish, Italian and some another languages.

    They did the same with their previous game , WSC REAL 11 for the XBOX 360    … Expand
  9. bigsilverhotdog
    May 1, 2016
    4
    Story is reasonable but bland, graphics are decent, and the gameplay isn't all bad, but the maddening controls combined with lack of save anywhere make for an unplayable mess. I deleted.
  10. JimCorbett
    May 2, 2012
    4
    Extremely short game. Only 3 levels. You get to kill your first bad guy in level 2 and you get to manipulate water for the first time at the end of level 3. The camera is terrible, i'd constantly find myself struggling to keep the camer above or below water. The controls for climbing are a bit awkward. The story started out decent and was being told well but then it ends all of a suddenExtremely short game. Only 3 levels. You get to kill your first bad guy in level 2 and you get to manipulate water for the first time at the end of level 3. The camera is terrible, i'd constantly find myself struggling to keep the camer above or below water. The controls for climbing are a bit awkward. The story started out decent and was being told well but then it ends all of a sudden with no real conclusion to what happens on the ship or to the people you met along the way. Sometimes you'll jump.move in a direction you didn't want to because the game just decided that was a better idea for you. Swimming is very very annoying; if you're in shallow water the game may let you dive or may not. Some of the collectible are glitched which will make you have to restart your game if you want to collect them all. Overall the game started off well, the graphics and water physics are awesome but once you start playing you come across the many glitches and it just becomes very frustrating at times.… Expand
  11. Arkan01d
    Nov 4, 2013
    3
    Why do you game? That is the issue that Hydrophobia brings to the table. Do you love to develop a character, or be able to explore everything, to feel challenged, or do you love a good story? Or do you play a game based solely off the graphics? If you love graphics then I think you will find this game very engaging. Don't be fooled by the users who have only reviewed this one game. ThisWhy do you game? That is the issue that Hydrophobia brings to the table. Do you love to develop a character, or be able to explore everything, to feel challenged, or do you love a good story? Or do you play a game based solely off the graphics? If you love graphics then I think you will find this game very engaging. Don't be fooled by the users who have only reviewed this one game. This game is a sad excuse for gameplay.

    Hydrophobia reminds me of crappy games from 1994. You see, CD-ROMS were just getting traction and finding their way into everyone's home PC's. CD's gave a lot more space than most games could have filled just a year or two before. So developers began producing games that were movies. You would do a few interactive things, but for the most part you watched a movie on your awesome new CD-ROM device. This is the route Dark Energy Digital took when making this game a mere 17 years after the wave of interactive CD's flooded game stores.

    Was it that they didn't really have a game or that they had a great cinematics department and no level designers? We'll never know. The game plays out like this: A strange cut-scene that doesn't explain anything. Then you find your character in her room, you walk 2 steps to a table, then another cut-scene. You walk two steps to the door, then another cut-scene. You walk 2 steps to the elevator, then another cut-scene. You take a few steps to get out the elevator, then another cut-scene. Does that sound like fun to you?

    Steam has me clocked in at 1 hour of play time. The only reason I endured that long was a friend was with me and we were laughing at just how bad this game really was. I think if there was a bit more game to play and less movie I could have given it a 6 or 7.

    To put it another way: If your in 1st grade and draw a picture of stick figures with crayons; you're teacher would give you an A+ and tell you to take it home to mom to hang on the fridge. If, however, 17 years later you passed a similar picture to your college art teacher; you would get an F and no amount of fake reviews from your friends could hide the dismal work you tried to pawn off as legitimate effort.    … Expand
  12. LeonidasRex
    Dec 19, 2012
    4
    An attractive athletic girl must work her way through improbable dangerous puzzle rooms, occasionally shooting enemies. It's Tomb Raider in a ship. Except that the girl isn't nearly as interesting as Lara Croft, and the inside of a ship isn't nearly as interesting as ancient ruins. We see glimpses of a dark futuristic world amok with terrorists, but none of it seems related to theAn attractive athletic girl must work her way through improbable dangerous puzzle rooms, occasionally shooting enemies. It's Tomb Raider in a ship. Except that the girl isn't nearly as interesting as Lara Croft, and the inside of a ship isn't nearly as interesting as ancient ruins. We see glimpses of a dark futuristic world amok with terrorists, but none of it seems related to the immediate tasks of jump, climb, shoot. On the plus side, the water and other visuals are very pretty. The artists did their jobs well. But it feels less like playing a video game, and more like watching a futuristic remake of the Poseidon Adventure.… Expand
  13. Budget_Security
    Jan 16, 2013
    3
    Almost worth the £1 I payed for it. It is a pity water physics are not implemented in better games, which is an example of the lack of innovation in the video game industry.
  14. Mirrosgamer
    Jun 21, 2013
    2
    This game was boring for me after playing a hour.
    And the Dub, this dub was very bad.
    But he only good thing are the water physics and graphics.
    I am fortunately, because this Game, was in a Steam-Offer.
  15. PC-Gamer-Fan
    May 10, 2011
    3
    Horrible game. Avoid & do not fall for the hype! ALL it has going for it is the water FX (which is very shiny & not as good as the water in Just Cause2 using CUDA. Its not even as good as the water in Bioshock1). Camera is awkward & poor it gets in the way a LOT. The developer is basically getting the public to pay to be beta testers which is why this is the 3rd release of this game inHorrible game. Avoid & do not fall for the hype! ALL it has going for it is the water FX (which is very shiny & not as good as the water in Just Cause2 using CUDA. Its not even as good as the water in Bioshock1). Camera is awkward & poor it gets in the way a LOT. The developer is basically getting the public to pay to be beta testers which is why this is the 3rd release of this game in just over 6 months! Look at the poor 360 reviews as they are pretty fair & accurate. 3-4/10 is generous I would say this is a tech demo for water FX which 10 years ago would have been given away free with 3DFX gfx cards!… Expand
  16. dandalis
    Jan 27, 2017
    3
    On the paper the game has a few cool ideas like the floating city/ship futuristic premise, the pretty decent visuals for its scale and cool water physics, but mostly the game is an absolute tore to play and borefest. Theres annoying performance issues and it crashed a few times.

    The story is awful, the characters extremely one dimensional and voice acting is so bad that it makes me    On the paper the game has a few cool ideas like the floating city/ship futuristic premise, the pretty decent visuals for its scale and cool water physics, but mostly the game is an absolute tore to play and borefest. Theres annoying performance issues and it crashed a few times.

    The story is awful, the characters extremely one dimensional and voice acting is so bad that it makes me wanna stab my ear canals with a knife. The fact that main protagonist Kate is so god damn irritating doesnt help anything either. End boss fight and ending itself is quite pathetic too. And the pacing in the game is horrible aswell.

    Camera on mouse and keyboard is very unrefined and buggy, shooting mechanics cover just the basics, lots of deaths from game's poor controls.

    Only redeeming factor i can see is that Hydrophobia isnt the worst thing out there, but even then theres no way i reccomend this anyone, unless youre really into bad game for some reason.    … Expand
  17. Laer
    Mar 14, 2017
    2
    Sin duda, se nota que tenían algunas ideas buenas y otras bastantes malas y, lamentablemente, ni las buenas están bien llevadas a cabo.

    Podrían haber aprovechado de un montón de maneras el agua, pero en ningún momento te sientes impotente frente a ella, lo único que sientes es que es muy chula, y que probablemente sea el agua que mejor fluya en ningún videojuego, pero quitando eso...    Sin duda, se nota que tenían algunas ideas buenas y otras bastantes malas y, lamentablemente, ni las buenas están bien llevadas a cabo.

    Podrían haber aprovechado de un montón de maneras el agua, pero en ningún momento te sientes impotente frente a ella, lo único que sientes es que es muy chula, y que probablemente sea el agua que mejor fluya en ningún videojuego, pero quitando eso...

    La historia es interesante, pero está contada de la peor manera posible, quitando todo interés en saber sobre ella.

    La mezcla de plataformas y shooter está muy mal hecha, parecen dos juegos distintos, por no decir que ambos son bastante repetitivos y no aprovechan para nada sus posibilidades.

    Un juego que sin duda podría haber sido mucho mas de lo que es, y que por el final tan brusco que tiene, deduzco que tuvieron problemas con el desarrollo del juego. Aun así, considero que es un juego bastante malo, y no puedo recomendar su compra para nada.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

80
#80 Most Discussed PC Game of 2011

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
63

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 18
  3. Negative: 2 out of 18
  1. 3DJuegos
    Oct 27, 2011
    78
    Quotation forthcoming.
    Read full review
  2. SpazioGames
    Oct 27, 2011
    70
    Quotation forthcoming.
    Read full review
  3. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jul 30, 2011
    60
    Third time's the Charm – first time it was XBLA Hydrophobia, then the game was released again as Pure and now we've got Prophecy. Enough tries we say. [July 2011]
See all critic reviews »