Deep Black: Reloaded Demo

Triple-A games may not always be as good as you expect them to be, but they at least have the common courtesy to work properly most of the time and make it very easy for you to enjoy mediocrity. However, when something like Deep Black: Reloaded is announced and not much is known about the developers or the game itself, it is indicated to wait and see, rather than jump at the opportunity.

The game appears to be a basic third-person shooter at a first glance, with a classic point of view and a clean user interface. However, the problems begin right after you first start playing, since you may have a bit of trouble getting the game to run properly and it might send you to desktop every once in a while. After you get used to the technical issues, you can start making your peace with the rest of the flaws, since there are plenty of them.

Story-wise, it is quite unclear what the plot intends to transmit, but the message is quickly lost over the course of the game. Supposedly, it revolves around the possession of a biological weapon, espionage and various other such governmental activities, but the missions are not very keen on reminding you the purpose of the main character and you usually just have to keep shooting in order to advance further.

Advancing is only fun for about half an hour, though, since the very same environments seem to be reused ad infinitum, making it really difficult to immerse yourself into the atmosphere and have a bit of fun with the game. Moreover, there are underwater sections as well, which, beside the fact that they require slightly different playing styles, are just as repetitive and annoying as the ones on land.

From a technical point of view, the game at least looks good, especially when it comes to special effects and textures. However, the rather good looking environments do not make it easier to overlook the fact that they are basically the same over and over again. The animations are not very spot on most of the time, especially when it comes to the main character.

In the end, Deep Black: Reloaded is definitely not worthy of a second glance, since it makes no efforts to be liked or appeal to the fans of the genre. In essence, the developers hoped they would get away with it by integrating a decent graphics engine and they just designed a grand total of three levels for the entire campaign.