Red Ocean Demo

In the world of shooters, the biggest gun always wins, regardless of who stands before you. You can, however, tweak this concept by implementing a few tactical elements, such as cover spots and the ability to do more damage depending on whether you hit something vital or not. Thus, gameplay becomes a bit less erratic and the players are forced to stop meeting the opponents head on with every occasion.

Red Ocean is one such FPS that, although puts some pretty powerful weapons at your disposal, it also features a touch of strategy, since the enemies can quickly kill you if you refuse to take cover and shield yourself from their bullets. They do the same thing themselves, making it more difficult for you to shoot them as well.

The story takes place in an abandoned Soviet base, that also happens to be underwater, for a change. Your character, Jack Hard, is merely a diver that mistakenly hired a CIA agent when he was looking for a buddy to dive with, who naturally dies pretty quickly and leaves you to take care of the rest of the bad guys. Aided by an operative that keeps in contact with you over the radio, you must slowly deal with wave after wave of enemies and get to the bottom of the mystery.

Despite the fact that the plot might sound almost reasonable, you quickly find out that this is definitely not the case, as you stumble upon a huge centrifuge that somehow creates energy from rocks mined at the bottom of the ocean. Although most of the weapons are modeled after real ones, the plasma gun shatters the illusion, just as it shatters anyone who comes in contact with the bullets.

As previously mentioned, the gameplay mechanics are a combination between classic shooters and a few tactical elements, which give you plenty of options whenever you enter a fight. Thus, beside having a lot of objects scattered around the environment that can provide you with cover, headshots are also very useful in getting rid of the enemies much faster, although you need a bit of game time before you are able to achieve them on a regular basis.

In the end, the unusual location and the refined gameplay are the elements that make Red Ocean an experience worth going through, even if the story line makes no significant effort to keep you interested. The visual appearance and the level design are very well made, giving you plenty to admire as you explore the underwater laboratory.