Being underground is never pleasant. Basements are only halfway underground and they are a defacto for horror movies. Being buried alive is an awful kind of nightmare. Being trapped all the way under the ocean floor in an unknown location is a special kind of horror.
Hidden Deep takes us beyond the depths of reality with a limited view of the surrounding, creating an undeniable feeling of clausterphobia. Taking inspiration from Aliens, The Thing, and Half-Life, you crawl and climb your way through a catacomb of caverns littered with creepy crawlies and flying creatures
Your character is a member of a search and rescue team that has been ordered to find a group of researchers trapped in a mysterious facility well below the depths of the ocean floor. They had been investicating “anomalies” in the and completely lost contact. Exploring the depths requires the use of a variety of gadgets to shoot, blast or sneak your way through dangerous traps and alien lairs. Not to mention, making sure not to get eaten by the facility’s inhabitants – including your own crew members!
The game is a 2D side-scroller that offers realistic graphic elements, displaying a dark primary pallete with punches of yellow and red. Standard character movement like running and crawling is seamless and quite comforting. Other characteristics of gameplay take a bit longer to pick up – allowing yourself to become easy prey.
Jumps and falls from ledges that look probable in most games, prove to splatter your character into pancake batter on arrival. Swinging too cavaliar on your grappling hook will also provide a one way ticket to never never land. Gameplay can be unforgiving, be prepared for a bumpy road before you get into a groove.
In story mode, there is well over 20 hours of challenging gameplay. You will also have the option to play through a challenge mode that provides some randomized object finding expeditions through the vast array of caves, as well as a co-op split screen.
Overall, this is a well crafted game that packs a lot of punch in a small space. The one big down-side is the fact that the game is a 2D side-scroller. For the large percentage of gamers that are used to playing more advanced graphical games, there is nothing here that will win them over.
For the niche of people that enjoy side scrollers, however, there is a lot of fun gameplay to be had with Hidden Deep. To sweeten the deal, there is also a content update called ‘Kill It With Fire’ that will surely add an extra element of bbq excitement to the small cavern cooridors.
Download now on Steam here.
