S&S; Review: Deep Black

Title: Deep Black
Format: PSN
Release Date: August 21, 2012
Publisher: 505 Games
Developer: Blart
Price: $15
ESRB Rating: T

Deep Black slipped under the radar last week, and for good reason, the game is not good.  A third person shooter with a heavy underwater element sounds like a good idea on paper,  but doesn't come to fruition at all.  
Presentation and Story: You play as secret commando Syrus Pierce, thats sent into Gondwana underwater facility to retrieve intel and rescue hostages.  You quickly find out that there are no hostages to rescue, and your focus changes to researching mysterious weapon technology.  The story is pretty mundane, it'll never really interest you at all.  The narrative is told through poorly acted brief cutscenes, I've never heard such life-less voice acting in a game, you can tell the actors are just reading the lines off the script.  The game looks solid, offering up a pretty detailed player model for your action hero.  Cool effects like your oxygen tanks compressing after you ascend from the water are pretty cool.  Other graphical components suffer though, only a handful of different enemy models will oppose you, creating a very repetitive experience.  The music is the only bright spot in the game, a very heroic orchestral score sounds off as you continuously mow down waves of brainless enemies.  Sadly, the great music can't save the game's uninspired environments.  Each level is continued gray upon gray faculties, with shallow underwater spaces as well, never really giving you any incentive to explore the underwater caverns.  Core Gameplay and Multiplayer: You would expect that a game with all of its hype surrounding it's underwater gameplay to not be so lackadaisical when you actually play through it.  You use harpoons to open gates and lower stairways for escalation from the depths.  Using your trusty jetpack doesn't add anything exciting to the gameplay either, since its only purpose is too propel you through strong currents.   When you ascend from the water, the game becomes a third person shooter.  The cover system is slow and stiff, I've died too many times moving between covers waiting for Pierce to get behind something.  When the game revs up the number of enemies shooting at you, the framerate slows down to a crawl.  The game really stops being fun and just starts being a repetitive mess rather quickly.  I had to frequently force myself to start the game and continue my playthrough.  The game features a pretty basic multiplayer component as well, but literally no one is playing.  I've had the game for a couple of weeks now and have been only able to find a one match to play.  There are only two modes, deathmatch and team deathmatch only five maps.  There probably will never be an online community seeing how the game isn't good at all. Final Thoughts: Deep Black has a lot of ambition, but never really accomplishes any of the goals made for itself.  It falls short of a lot of things, gameplay being the frontrunner in that category.  A mundane story doesn't help at all, giving little to no reason in dropping $15 bucks on it.  
S&S Rating: 4.5/10 @whatsPlay