Waterworld

Some time in the future, a shift of the earth's polar axis has resulted in a world of endless water where those who managed to survive reverted to a primitive form of life. What is left is the search for dry land. Floating cities, called Atolls, serve as a place of habitat for a simple and moral type of people who work to protect precious water, soil, seed, and other highly valuable resources that are essential for their existence. More mobile and larger in numbers than the Atollers are a gang of pillaging Smokers, led by the evil Deacon (aka Dennis Hopper). Their efforts are focused entirely on attaining and controlling anything and everything to build their evil empire. In half wrecked Atolls, the last remaining Atollers are waiting to be rescued.

As the Mariner (aka Kevin Cosner), your mission is to prevent Smokers from enslaving them. The Smokers most prized target is a little girl named Enola, who has a map to dry land tattooed on her back. In the game, Enola is the floating Atoller that flashes. If you are able to prevent Enola from being captured, at the end of the round the bonus multiplier will increase.

There's no intro, but the startup screen comes along with an exciting 5 minutes long intro tune. Sadly the in game music consists out of just one single additional theme which will accompany you throughout ALL the levels in the game. The sound effects also leave something to be desired, all you hear is a beep, a boom (that's the explosions when you kill a Smoker) and a blab.

But before I go on, I think everyone should have at least seen the motion picture movie of Waterworld first. I just remembered that I recorded Waterworld on video a few years back when it was on TV, I have to go look it up... *searching* ... yep found it in the middle of a huge stack of videotapes. I think it's best that I go watch it now, because reading the storyline up there makes me want to view the action scenes and ending again ... I;ll be right back!

... Two and a half hours later ...

Wow, this movie might have flopped in the theaters because of the slim plot, but for such a long movie I think it has a lot of great action and fun scenes, I enjoyed it, so again: go rent it now. (editors note: Waterworld is only recommended if you are attempting to lull yourself into a coma). You see, each level starts with the Mariner arriving at an Atoll. Upon nearing the Atoll, the Mariner is ambushed by an army of Smokers whose primary focus is to capture the Atollers (and Enola of course) within the Atoll. A level is finished when the final enemy is destroyed, which happens to be at the end of each level. Bonus points are awarded for each Atoller saved. If you lose all of the Atollers prepare yourself for the PT onslaught, enemies that are extremely hard to beat, but must be destroyed to survive and pass to the next round.

If a Smoker picks up an Atoller, they will begin to flash, destroy his craft (mostly water-bikes) to make him drop the Atoller back into the water, so that the Atollers can continue their "oh help me I've fallen into the water please rescue me" routines again. When you play, you can move your Trimaran everywhere in 3D, but that's about it, the animations of the four enemies (Smokers, Beserkers, Thrashers, and Seekers), are very standard and don't look much like 3D. More dodgy, but you do get that Arcade shooter feeling when you're firing at all the bad guys. You get an extra life every 25,000 points, so be sure to save Enola as much as possible.

I didn't mention controls before, because they are dead easy, handy is to press down on the controller to get a bird's eye over view, then look where most Smokers come from, thrust over there in front of them, and when the first one is next you to turn the Trimaran in their direction and take them all out in a row as you drift on. The levels get harder and harder as you get further, but they just don't seem to become more fun to play with the same level and enemies over and over again.

This is one of those games that you play every once in a while when you just want to blast things. Barely medium quality game, at least they gave the multiplayer game a go by adding an 1-9 alternating players option to have your friends join in. Unfortunately they had to cancel the 2-player linkup mode, because Nintendo didn't release the linkup cable.

It's pretty funny to see "mild animated violence" on the box when all you see when the sharks eat an Atoller is a scull rising up as the shark disappears. I don't dislike this game like a lot of people do, it's a nice try at this genre, it's just too average. I had lots more fun watching the movie, which most consider a flop too.