Elite / Frontier Underwater Elite inspired games

boringnick · May 12, 2010

Let's list in this thread all underwater Elite "clones". There are more of them than you think. Everyone knows about space clones, like Privateer, but the underwater pedants are less known.

Let's start with:

Sub Culture

Sub Culture was released in 1997 and was developed by Criterion Studios (the maker of Renderware).

Story: Deep under the surface of the oceans lies a civilization of extremely small human-like beings. They are divided in two camps: The laissez faire hippies called the "Bohine", and the autocratic technocrats, the "Procha".

You're seemingly a Bohine and you've got a problem: Your home was destroyed by a giant metal can (that the humans have thrown into the oceans). All you're left with is your yellow submarine.

Gameplay: Typical elite: All you have is your submarine at first. In the underwater world are several stations manned by the Bohine, Procha and the obligatory "independents" (pirates etc.) You trade goods from one Station to the next. You can also collect various goods, like Plankton, human waste like cigarettes and cans that are floating in the water and sell them to the stations. The pirates are there too, trying to kill you. The game isn't are free as Elite though. There is a overarching story - you must take missions from the Bohine and the Procha to finish the game. The missions are often times pretty creative and funny, like raiding a underwater prison.

Graphically the game is top notch, and supported almost all graphical APIs of the time (D3D, Software, Glide..)

One great feature of the game was the ability to relax. The game world felt like a big aquarium. Turtles and various fish were swimming, and looking very lifelike (and huge, since you and your submarine were so small). Although the map was relatively small, it had lots of caves and various other interesting places. You could just roam around for hours doing nothing but looking at the environment and still have fun.

The physics felt realistic and gave it a real underwater-feeling.

The Bad: The ending is a bit of a downer though: You have to destroy the Pirate HQ. That's it. The game gives hints of a bigger story-arc (like stopping the humans to pollute the oceans, and a doomsday device) but none of it really happens.

Screenshots:

Steve O B Have · May 12, 2010

there was one for the Acorn Archimedes that was a sub based trading game - decidedly average if I remember rightly... Can't remember the name of it tho.

boringnick · May 12, 2010

Archimedean Dynasty:

Released in 1996, and made by Massive Development (released by Blue Byte)

Story: The big one (WW3) finally happened and as predicted, it didn't turn out too well. In this scenario however, the fate of the survivors is worse than usual: The earth is polluted heavily by radioactivity, and there are absolutely no safe places on earth.. The space program was not advanced enough to take the space route.. so, the only way was to go under. The last humans fled to underwater research and mineral extraction stations, since the only place free of radioactivity was the bottom of the ocean.

The survivors called their underwater-prison "Aqua".

The game takes place in the year 2661, centuries after migration to the oceans. You're an mercenary with the super cheesy name Emerald "Dead Eye" Flint. You messed up an easy escort job and you have lost your advanced submarine in the process. You start again from the bottom up with a trashcan of a boat called the "Hiob".

The game world fiction is incredibly detailed. The manual is pretty hefty and contains the whole story, together with descriptions of places, weapons and equipment, written in a style that reminded me of the FE2 manuals. The storyline is told through very well made cutscenes.

What's great is that they really took advantage of the apocalyptic underwater setting. You learn how food is processed in this environment, the problems of the cities like underwater pressure, claustrophobia and processing of breathing gas for inhabitants.

Eliteness: Less than in Sub Culture. You can trade. But it is a bit of a hassle, since you can only trade with weapons. Most money is made by taking jobs. Many of them are optional and are offered only for money, so that you can upgrade your boat.

Gameplay: The underwater physics seem to be accurate. And combat is very interesting because you need to take advantage of the underwater-environment. Instead of a radar you have sonar - if your opponents don't make noises, you can't detect them. You can turn off your engines too, and become undetected. Torpedoes are attracted by noise too, so the combat is very tactical. Trading is boring though, because you have only control of your submarine when in combat mode, and you're in combat mode only when you take a mission. If you want to move to a another station, you only get a cutscene and you are immediately in that station afterwards.

The Bad: Throughout the game you're dealing with criminals, bizarre cults, military forces of the various factions, shady businessmen.. the whole feeling and setting reminds one of Blade Runner. But at the end of the game the plot becomes "more serious" and then.. it appears, THE ULTIMATE EVIL! The Bionts!

The Bionts are essentialy underwater-Borg. The game doesn't really explain how they came to be, (I guess some AI experiment gone wrong), but they are a threat to all human life and you need to destroy them! A last Alliance of Men and Elv.. eh, I mean of all forces of Aqua is assembled to kill the Bionts and you must lead them!

I wish the game never took this turn. The scenario of Archimedean Dynasty was and still is very fresh, and dealing with shady human elements was much more fun than the cliched Borg-clones. That's the problem, the game began to lose its unique touch at the end.

Another problem is the "Captain Obvious" nature of some of the (English version) cutscenes (the original German ones seem be better in this regard). For example: In a cutscene its said that the head of a dubious research station is "melancholic". Duh, really? So, a scientist who is overseeing cloning and "fishmen" experiments in a poorly lit station that looks like a prison, 1000 meters below the radioactiviy infested surface is NOT a happy man? Who would have thought! Another one is the mentioning that the dystopian Entrox corporation (the sole source of breathing gas) is "monopolistic".. huh, REALLY? Some of the dialogs and cutscene monologs are bit cliched too. (My name is Emerald "Dead Eye" Flint! I hit what I aim at! yawn...).

Still, it never lost it completely, the first 2/3 of the game are incredibly well made, especially the atmosphere, despite some of problems. And don't read into my critical statements too much. The good points overshadow the bad points by far.

The graphics were for 1996 top notch, too.

Screenshots:

Steve O B Have · May 12, 2010

Heh - found it - it was called UIM or Ultra Intelligent Machine. It was an almost direct clone of Elite without the playability. Just didn't cut the mustard really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ovqPMajr9A

Kenny 10 Bellys · May 12, 2010

I do remember Sub Culture being quite a fun game, if a bit unrewarding at the end. The visuals and controls were quite fun, and the size difference was a nice twist. Collecting enormous metal bottle tops and coins with your magnet could be a challenge.

Marcus · May 12, 2010

Never played Archimedian Dynasty, but I did play one of its two sequels

Which certainly looked amazing at the time...but the plot....well...ahem... anyways

More (as ever) here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AquaNox

boringnick · May 12, 2010

S.A.R.A.C.:

Now this one is really exotic. I would be surprised if someone knows this besides me on this forum. S.A.R.AC. (also known as Sarac and The Sarac Project) was a late 90s MMO that can maybe be compared to Eve Online. As far as I know, it was released in Germany, the US (for a very short time available at AOL apparently) and Japan. Maybe the game was released in other countries too, I am not sure.

I played the German version. The game was hosted on mightygames.de, a now defunct small publisher who also was the main distibutor of Jumpgate in Germany and in Britain. Sarac was free to play, and was used by mightygames to lure people to the non-free Jumpgate.

I am not sure who exactly the developers were. The developing company was called Vr-1 and was based in Canada and seems to be defunct now, but the real developer appears to be a Russian company called Gemsoft (at least that's what the sarac.exe file description said) and then I read on some page that the developers were from Japan..

Information about the game is hard to come by. Almost all traces of the game are gone. All that's left are 10-12 year old articles on some sites and one-two forum posts:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-67569418.html

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3275.0

But, ok, now about the game itself:

Story: It's far in the future and on the distant planet Amun minerals and gems had been found. There is a problem though: There is no visible land mass to land on! The planet is just a massive ocean. Cities under sea have been established and mercenaries from Earth are arriving on Amun to scavenge the riches from the surface of the Planet.

Gameplay: Classical Elite gameplay here. You're a mercenary and start in your lousy submarine. The submarines are called S.A.R.A.C. just like the game (the acronym stands for Sub-Aquatic Reconnaissance and Acqusition Craft)

You have to scavenge gemstones and other riches, and sell those in the cities. You can also trade. The twist is that the game was like I said a MMO, so you were not alone.

The world was much much smaller than Eve online, i.e. you need around 30 minutes to reach the western border of the map if you start from the eastern one.

The unique feature in the game was the ability to produce your own equipment. To do that you needed to capture certain "factories". Another interesting feature was how you gained rank: You needed to fight for outposts. The outposts were able to defend themselves.

There were also the obligatory pirate stations, there were hidden in the game map, and you could only reach them if you knew the exact coordinates. The game reminded me of Sub Culture in some ways; as in Sub Culture you would meet giant turtles for example.

It was also interesting that although the game world was small (compared to today's MMO games), it took a while to reach destinations, because there were absolutely no ways to speed up travel. The cities were approximately 15 minutes travelling time apart from each other and you really needed to travel those 15 minutes. Usually you activated your autopilot and stared for 15 minutes at the screen. Oddly enough, IT WAS NOT BORING! I can't describe really why it wasn't boring to watch the underwater graphics for 15 minutes and doing nothing, but it was the case. Maybe the included chat functions really helped here.

There were also various artifacts hidden in the world. They gave some special abilities (like enormous shield power) for a short period of time.

The Bad: The graphics. They were dated even back then and looked like they were made in 1993/1994. The sound was not much better.

It was a tremendous little game, and I had much fun with it. It's a shame that isn't more widely known. I liked it even more than Jumpgate back then.

Some screenshots:

boringnick · May 13, 2010

Anyone played Subwar 2050?

It seems to fit right into the underwater-Elite genre:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/subwar-2050
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/greviews/subwar/subwar.html

But I've never played it, so I can't say anything about it.

Kenny 10 Bellys · May 13, 2010

I remember that one, I wasn't sure if it was that Archimedian Dynasty one until you posted this. From the write-up they're quite similar in looks and feel, and in the way combat is conducted. I dont remember being that enthralled by it and it fell by the wayside quite quickly. Again it was more like Freespace and X-Wing, a space sim with missions that you completed to finish the story and win.

Bungarus · May 13, 2010

These seem to be nice games, strange that I missed out on the entire genre, especially considering how much I enjoyed being under water in Infestation.

Geraldine · May 13, 2010

boringnick said:
Anyone played Subwar 2050?

It seems to fit right into the underwater-Elite genre:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/subwar-2050
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/greviews/subwar/subwar.html

But I've never played it, so I can't say anything about it.

Yep got both the AGA and CD32 Amiga versions, lots of fun and it even had a "Das Boot" mission, if I recall

There is also a nearly identical PC version, which runs nicely under dosbox

steve tyler · May 13, 2010

Subwar was great, who wouldn't want to torpedo a whale?

It was basically a flight sim underwater with some interesting missions and a heavy stealth element - you'd have to avoid using active sonar in many missions and stay within certain sound channels - sounds in the ocean become sorta trapped at certain depths due to temperature and pressure differences... you can avoid the enemy if they can't hear your of course.. and their own active sonar becomes trapped in their own layer (at least in the game anyway) A heavily atmospheric game, i enjoyed it a lot but it had zero of the elements that make it similar to elite. no trading, no free roaming.. just linear, but entertaining, missions, from sneakily from polluting competitors fish stocks to secretly planting nukes... and times of all out combat too when it all goes wrong

Steve · May 14, 2010

steve tyler said:
Subwar was great, who wouldn't want to torpedo a whale?

Yeah, it's one of those strange desires that few of us own up to

steve tyler · May 14, 2010

perhaps i should rephrase it... What other game would let you torpedo a whale? And i think that speaks volumes for the political incorectness of the game and its disregard for the enviroment, A fairly unique aspect to subwar. It gets away with it because its all about doing the dirty for faceless, amoral corporations. I guess thats a similarity to frontier where you can dump radioactives and also that you can work as a merc for corporations on morally dubious contracts.

Kenny 10 Bellys · May 14, 2010

Grand Theft Auto would have been a lot less successful if it had been a commuter simulator, where you drove very calmly with the traffic to your insurance job in the city.

I quite liked the stealthy aspects of Subwar, I am a bit of a sub warfare fan as it is, so using thermoclines and passive sonar had me geeking out. Ultimately it was just another flight sim though, and not being a sandbox environment like Elite or Grand Theft Auto meant that its replay value was limited.

boringnick · May 14, 2010

There is a forgotten Sequel to Sub Culture:

Deep Fighter. Made by the same developers.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/deep-fighter

http://www.mofunzone.com/download_games/deep_fighter.shtml

It seems to be completely forgotten.
As far as I see, it's just a straight "flight"-sim, where you are getting missions from your military commanders. No Elite mercenary-trader elements.

Sci-Fi Gene · May 16, 2010

Deep: Submarine Odyssey

Deep is a complex Elite-style game, even though it's a mobile phone game. I played this one for months while commuting. It's set on a waterworld with 200 or so underwater habitats, as the game opens out you can travel between them freely. There are fish to catch, commodities to make from them and trade, pirates and allies, a mission system with quite a few varieties of mission, and a plot - as you progress through the game a war between different factions takes place and many of the stations change their allegiance. You have to upgrade your ship to reach shallow or deep stations, and can buy new ships: Frontier is the only game to really get this right (it's about being able to buy a ship that fits a particular career, not just getting bigger & better & blingier) but Deep comes close.

I would strongly recommend this game to Elite fans. It's way better than any other mobile phone game I've seen and several PC games for that matter. There's only one aspect missing from the experience: docking is achieved by a single keypress

Bungarus · May 16, 2010

Concerning "political incorrectness": I find it ok if a sandbox game offers the freedom to act "evil", but I hate it if a scripted game forces me into that direction. I liked the Mechwarrior games, but the storyline I found pretty disgusting in places and distracting from the fun I had with the gameplay. I guess I prefer a non-evil roleplay; in Elite for instance I never shot first and so only pirated the pirates.

Sci-Fi Gene said:
Frontier is the only game to really get this right (it's about being able to buy a ship that fits a particular career, not just getting bigger & better & blingier) but Deep comes close.

In Jumpgate the ships are also specialized - fighters (balanced for PvP, some strong but clumsy, some light but fast and maneuverable), bombers (low maneuverability and speed, but strong shields and armor and carry plenty of heavy missiles, used escorted by fighters in team fights or against big structures), exploration (light and vulnerable but extremely fast), mining / transport - so it makes sense to change your ship depending on your current plans. And of course there is a variety in equipment to further specify the capabilities of individual ships. Besides PvP-training the simulator in Jumpgate is often used to test ship configurations (otherwise you may end up in real space unable to fire your lasers at full thrust for instance).