Deep Core

The Good
Nice title screen features HR Giger inspired art work and some rollicking heavy metal music, which starts proceedings. Following this is a cool intro sequence to set the scene in motion.

In-game visuals are well presented, clean and uniformly consistent. Special effects like protruding foreground objects, and monsters’ cast realistic wobbly reflections in the lightly flooded environment that looks fantastic. Other details such as the shadow play on the backdrops, and swimming fishes and bubbles can be seen through semi-transparent glass throughout the sub. Sprites are well drawn, with a good level of detail, though some quite static.

The sound effects are very convincing, with great attention to detail, like sloshing through the ankle high water, buzzing of mechanical monsters, explosions and laser blasts. Other ambient sounds assist greatly with characterizing the setting. Title screen music is moody and well composed, definitely worth a listen.

The controls are fairly responsive, even if your character isn’t as fast as you’d like him to be.

Things get more interesting when you collect more powerful weapons as the game goes on, making for more devastation resulting in extra fun. Good weapons include triple-shot fire, large plasma single shot, and rapid fire variants.

Some simple puzzle involving shooting buttons to modify an object’s behaviour to assist your progression adds some extra interest to the standard ‘collect that’ ‘kill that’ play style.

The Bad
Game-play essentially consists of trial and error routine for learning the level layouts, finding ‘X’ key for the door to the next area, while also having to proceed very cautiously, and at the same time watch your oxygen metre which is steadily depleting all the time. You are also only given a meagre initial three lives, leaving somewhat little margins for error. In short, this translates into high frustration, which can be off-putting. Expect to die a lot.

Sections are far too long between receiving a level password. Things could have easily been more manageable, whilst still maintaining challenging play.

One collectable weapon in the game is quite impractical. This is a mine that you throw, and it bounces around, and explodes into projectiles. You can sort of nudge it in a direction with your body, but it is really daft, and given the difficulty of the game, it’s annoying having to remember to avoid during fire fights.

There is no in-game music, this could have livened up the game considerably. I don’t know, but this may have been rectified in the CD-32 version.

Your character’s somewhat slow reaction movements can prove to be inherently frustrating. For example, if you exit a lift, and if an enemy happens to be approaching you upon exiting, it is impossible to move out of the way quickly enough, resulting in a loss of life.

All the environments become too familiar and repetitious as the game goes on, sure there are some minor visual tweaks, but overall things get tiresome, and a little boring on this front. Some more variety wouldn’t have gone astray.

The Bottom Line
Deep Core is a slick, if somewhat understated familiar platform affair, that is quite fundamentally similar in play mechanics to Bitmap Brothers earlier Gods, and also in parts visually reminiscent of Xenon 2 Megablast on the same token.

To wrap things up, the main problem here is the game’s repetitive nature, coupled with some what ferocious difficulty level, that makes it hard to want to stay for the ambience. A shame, because with some extra overall variety and more manageable play it could have been a real winner.