Aquaria

Some games are non stop action, lots of enemies, lots of guns, and lots of explosions, we'll call these "good" games, while others are introspective journeys of emotion and color, we'll call these "Not so much with the good" games; Aquaria is not one of the "good" games.

I didn't play a lot of this game, but I did spend half an hour as an underwater nymph, gaily swimming from location to location, taking instructions in an almost poetic rote, and singing the songs of underwater life. To be blunt, I was ready to shoot myself after those 30 minutes.

Underwater singing, the only thing missing from Serious Sam!

This is not an action game, it's a type of fluid platformer. You play a girl, swimming through caves and using a unique song system to interact with the world around you. The physics and controls work well, and it is an astoundingly beautifully rendered environment, but nothing I'm going to spend time in.

This may not be a bad game, but it's not one I'm willing to call good. I'm sure if I spent the time to discover the story promised by it I would appreciate that much, but the game mechanics are not to my taste. 4/10, it's good looking and well built, like a pretty girl with no personality, but, also like that girl, interaction left me with the same satisfaction I would have gotten from screaming at a sheet of paper for the same period of time.