Deep Black: Episode 1 XBLA Review

Deep Black: Episode 1 is a third person shooter that seems to have borrowed it's feel and mechanics from a wide array of other good third person shooters. When playing the game and looking at your character from the back I couldn't help but see a striking resemblance to Isaac Clarke of the original Dead Space in his original space engineer suit with the helmet of an ODST trooper from Halo. The underwater sequences also harked to Dead Space series, reminding me of the low gravity sections. The action taking place on terra firma is unmistakably Gears of War with all the cover-based shooting you could wish for.

Deep Black manages to pull all these ideas together into a mostly cohesive and polished title. It's a shame the public seems to have decided to all but forget of it's existence, as the game itself is surprisingly good. I'm reminded of Amy, another supposed-to-be episodic gaming series that will never see a second episode. Amy had interesting ideas and showed some glimmer of promise but lacked execution, this has some interesting ideas and executed them pretty well seemed to have been more overlooked than Amy. It seems the curse of the dreaded water level trumps the dreaded escort mission in this case, as by my metric four times as many people played Amy than Deep Black.

Drones and other enemies can come from anywhere when you're swimming around

Overview
As stated above this is a pretty standard third person shooter, not bad, not good. It does offer a unique experience, with the underwater action being new and fun. Your character works for some sort of military, maybe private, and has been sent in under the guise of protection and or prevention of some disaster about to befall his people. It ends up being a sham and you've been unwillingly swept up in a conspiracy to steal new technologies from a rival company/country for the "good" of the people.

While your character is none to pleased about the situation he finds himself in he completes his mission like a good little soldier and kills hundreds of potential innocents along the way. Let's not sink to deep into the moral or ethical quandaries to be found here and talk more about the gameplay.

These guys come out of nowhere!

Rational
Deep Black distinguishes itself from the horde of other third person shooters by it taking place in a world where everyone thinks it's a good idea to have an underwater lair, or lab or some sort of dominion from whens to do their business. This affords some interesting new gameplay opportunities not seen in any other game of it's type. Having a fully three dimensional space for the character to not only move about in but also be attacked from can lead to some interesting situations later in the game. It also affords you some cool advantages, allowing you to sneak under patrolling land based enemies and also scout out a location from the relative safety of being seen by staying under water.

There's plenty of above sea level shenanigans too!

You are also armed with a grappling hook/spear that can be used to drag unsuspecting enemies from their patrols into the water for a grizzly execution and left to drown. This same grappling spear can be used to hack into consoles and the many drones that patrol Deep Blacks world. If you manage to hack a drone you will have an ally in your gunfights for as long as it stays alive or until you hack another. They can provide excellent distraction and allow you to flank or escape the other enemies in an area.

Deep Black: Episode 1 suffers the same end as Amy does however, with the story being completely unresolved. This time it's worse however with the action just ending abruptly, not even in a decent spot in the story with absolutely nothing learned about the situation you find yourself in. Even Amy's ending gave you a little more than that.

Summary
It's very discouraging to know that this game will never be resolved as I believe it is more deserving of a second part than Amy. Deep Black: Episode 1 did everything with more then enough quality and quantity than one could ask for from an episodic game and still didn't catch on. I think the mere fact a lot of it takes place underwater scared everyone away, which is a shame. It's not the most original game in the world, but it does have some new ideas and is executed well. The fact the story is cut of without any conclusion what so ever is the real downer here. If you have a chance to pick it up cheap maybe give it a look.