Hydrophobia: Prophecy

Aesthetically it's a 10/10. The enviroments look really nice and the water physics are great. Gameplay-wise it's more of a 6.8/10.

If you can find this on a deep sale, the gameplay is clunky but fun. I really enjoyed how much of a factor water physics played in this game.

An interesting game.
Built, and hyped, purely on its water physics engine Hydrophobia is an action adventure a la Tomb Raider or Uncharted although on a much smaller scale.
This is and always will be, the first episode of a planned trilogy.
Which is why the game ends abruptly on a cliffhanger.

The graphics are actually pretty decent for such an old game and definitely portrays the almost hard sci-fi I feel they were going for quite well. The environments have that clean sci-fi look that production designers like to think the future will be like.
The 'star' of the game is obviously the water, which again for the time is very impressive.
Actually, although many games since have included some type of water physics I don't know if any of them improved on this particular type. A lot of games have neat effects like the Spintires series and such, but Hydrophobia has water flowing from rooms with more water in them to rooms with less through doors and windows which I think is very different from the smaller scale water physics whereby it only interacts with objects.
It reminds me a bit of the physics in pixel games like Clonk and Noita.
The water is fairly gelatinous though.

Sorry I went on a bit of a tangent there.
The audio is good enough.
Guns sound a bit weak and there isn't a lot of music, but it's all serviceable.
The voice acting except for the protagonist is also acceptable IMO.

The core gameplay is not bad, but the jank of the controls makes it a bit annoying at times.
Sometimes your character won't jump, or grab onto a ledge and the 'super power' system is terrible.
Which is a minor issue since you only get your power in the last five minutes of the game, but it does make the boss fight more frustrating than it needed to be.
The basic gameplay loop consists of running/swimming/climbing around until you get to a locked door, find the two parts of the key and go to the next section to repeat everything. With the occasional simple cover shooter combat inbetween.

Would I recommend it?
It's often on sale for less than 50 cents and for that price, it's certainly an interesting forgotten game.
And well, I still wouldn't recommend it really but it'll keep you busy and mildly entertained for a few hours.
If Steam had an actual rating system I'd say it's a 6.5/10 or 3/5.

Hydrophobia: Prophecy

...is a third-person action platformer. When the Malthusians attack the Queen of the World floating city, it's up to engineer Kate to stop them from sinking the vessel.

⚙ Game Description & Mechanics ⚙

As global warming, rising tides and overpopulation all strike Earth in the mid-21st century, five "Founding Fathers" corporation unite and build a large floating city. One of them, NanoCell Corporation, is researching nanotechnology, which attracts the attention of a terrorist organization known as the Neo-Malthusians who want to destroy the technology and doom humanity. An engineer aboard the floating city, Kate is forced to face the attackers in a desperate attempt to survive.

You will need to navigate the corridors of the city as water levels rise. The platforming mixes underwater segments with climbing and jumping, all while fighting off enemy gunfire. In addition to explosive gel or rapid-fire ammunition, your main weapon is a chargeable sonic pistol which works above or under the water, and can be used as a tool to cut electrical wires, break glass or cause explosions to go off. You eventually unlock a strange power, giving you control over water to push objects or drown enemies.

☺ What I enjoyed ☺

Some great effort was put in the water physics, the likes of which few if any game has achieved before. The higher the water or the stronger the current, the more resistance you get when trying to move. Crates, explosive barrels and other objects float around or are carried by the water current in a realistic matter. You can see the water levels being different through windows, and when breaking glass or opening doors, you can see and feel the higher level pouring into the other one.

Besides the third-person shooting, there are multiple ways to use the environment to your advantage. Hanging wires can be shot to fall in the water or electrical panels can be blown up, either of which will electrocute nearby foes. Some containers or fuel barrels can also be shot for a burst of flames covering the surface, while you might turn valves to flood an area to put out a fire. And then there is the hydrokinetic powers that allow you to push water away and upwards in a column, being able to raise and then throw floating objects along with enemies.

☹ What bothered me ☹

It's a very short game, taking me less than four hours to complete my first playthrough where I didn't actually know what to do or how to complete it. The game is divided into three acts, with the first one being little more than a tutorial where very little fighting happens to get you acclimated to the game mechanics. However, you only get hydrokinetic powers about halfway through Act 3, which means you barely use them at all before having one boss fight and calling it quits. The Challenge Room is not particularly interesting enough to keep me playing.

Hydrophobia: Prophecy is a good example of a game that didn't age well. The climbing and wall-crawling mechanics feel very outdated, even for its time when Assassin's Creed II was showing us how to do it right. The floating city feels like a maze and the map is as unhelpful as it gets, which does little more than hide the most linear corridor-funneling of games, where the extent of getting lost is accidentally backtracking because everything looks the same. There is no branching paths, all doorways are either locked as "malfunctioning" or encrypted if the area is meant for later. There is no exploration, no secrets to be found when diving in stair shafts, and collectibles are usually in rooms you'll need to visit anyway.

Verdict: ★★☆☆☆ - "Forget it."

Another very forgettable title, or at least one that didn't stand the test of time. It brings nothing special to the table, wastes the potential of its water physics, and doesn't offer anything compelling storywise. I'm sorry, but I can't recommend purchasing this.

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This was just my opinion.

If you found this review helpful, please consider giving it a thumbs up, and feel free to check out more of my (purely opinionated) reviews.

Recommended

Hydrophobia prophecy is a flawed game, startup errors, graphical bugs, glitched achievements, i experienced it all during my playthrough but i'd still recommend this game if u can look past the aforementioned bugs. The highlight here is the water physics, its probably the best i have seen to this day and for the time it was released its pretty impressive, the water reacts to everything bullets, debris, and characters. The story is good enough but its a very short game if u r not going for achievement hunting and its dirt cheap even without any sales.

(Overall Rating- 2.9/5)

Pros: Water physics
Cons: Buggy, You'll need to lower your fps to 60 just to make a jump in Act 3.

decent game with interesting water physics. unfortunately story itself is very short.

O jogo parece uma desculpa pra usar a simulação de água (que talvez fosse boa pra época, hoje meh).

Tecnicamente ele tá incompleto também, ele termina num cliffhanger (que parece ser completamente diferente da versão xbox 360) mas a desenvolvedora foi comprada pela THQ e desmantelada antes de lançar a sequencia. E sinceramente, se a segunda parte fosse seguir as mecânicas do final dessa primeira é melhor que nem tenha saído mesmo.

The visuals and gameplay are decent for the game's age, but what I really liked about it was what they did with the villains. I don't think I've ever seen a game have the villains be Malthusians, even though that ideology underpins much of environmental leftism. Even when media have eco-terrorists as villains, they are usually pretty tepid about it.

In this game, the villains are very clear about how you save the environment. Their motto is "Save the world. K*ll yourself." They also say in a note: "Don't pity viruses and don't pity the humans that imitate them." The Prophecy referenced in the title is the one made by Malthus that humanity will inevitably overpopulate and destroy the planet. Malthusians rebel against the technological solutions that heroes are developing to save humanity, because Malthusians don't think people have any value.

My one criticism of the philosophy behind the game is that they seems to try to mix Malthusian ideas with Marxism, so the Malthusians are from the lower classes, but that doesn't map onto reality. Malthusianism and environmentalism in general is dominated by wealthy elites. Wanting to prioritize the lives of polar bears over the lives of people is a luxury belief pushed by those who want for nothing, not by the poor and downtrodden. Fortunately, the ill fitting Marxist elements are only mentioned in a few notes, so it doesn't play a large role.

My biggest criticism is that the game seems unfinished. There's a final boss and the credits roll, but tons of questions are left unanswered. There isn't even a ending cutscene. You just beat the boss and that's it. I'm guessing that they ran out of money. The controls are also a bit rough if you want to use a controller. You can use it most of the time, but there are a few sequences, including the final boss, where you need to switch to keyboard and mouse. I found that rather annoying.

Overall, despite it's flaws, I think they did enough interesting things with the plot for it to be worth the few hours it takes to beat it. I say get it on sale if the philosophy involved is of interest to you and you don't mind some 2011 era slightly janky gameplay.

For $5, not a bad game. The water physics hold up and are interesting even compared to today's standards. This PC version is superior to it's Xbox 360 Arcade version but overall i can only give it a 3 out of 5. The ending was WAY too blunt and disappointing for all the world building the devs put into it's universe, it's like they stopped caring once it was over. Kinda sad too, it deserved a more satisfying ending.

Meh.

What do you mean you don't get the water powers until the last 15 minutes.

if U wanna know what being CLUNKY is.. then this is the game for U..

this type of game quality past 2007 ( being generous ) is just simply unacceptable..

Yeah I played it through but can't remember anything remarkable about it, other than water is wet and I have a gun and some sort of gimmick gadget to control my surroundings (mostly water).