Update Eleven: 20 June 2017

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Submerged is, for lack of a better term, a boating/climbing simulator. There’s no combat, no puzzles, just you as a young girl in a little motorboat trying to keep your injured younger brother from dying.

The setting, an unnamed drowned metropolis that seems to exist in a reality a little to the left of ours, is stunning. I’ve seen wonderful videos of how the game should look, but on my 5 year old hp probook 4540 it lost all of the lighting and shadowing effects and all the textures were low-quality. I first thought to wait to play it on a nicer computer, but I went ahead anyway. Still looked good. The setting is the real main draw in this game, exploring this drowned city, and while it was fun to scamper over decaying buildings, I wish there were interiors to explore as well. The controls handling the motorboat felt incredible and the girl’s controls felt fine. I wish her animations had been a little better - they seemed pretty stiff compared to the fluidity of everything else.

Playing this game is fun, engaging, and relaxing. I played it all in one sitting, and while the ending is anticlimactic, the way the story is presented and how it unfolds kept me playing eagerly. I hope more games where the focus is on exploration come out soon - as the next logical evolution of the walking simulator.

Next up: Playing an SG win and a HOG at the same time!

See you soon!