Drowned God Review

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Drowned God

Review by Orb

Drowned God makes not a whit of sense. I just thought I’d get all that out of the way right at the beginning. In fact, the story of Drowned God is so unbelievably convoluted that I half expect it was done on purpose by someone just to see if any game players were actually paying attention and would try to figure the thing out. Maybe it was a giant adventure gaming April Fool’s joke.

The funny part of this, of course, is that it really makes no difference at all if you understand it in the least. Making no head or tails of the game’s story in no way impacts a player’s ability to enjoy it. And that’s the greatest thing about this title, it’s a puzzle game masquerading as a regular adventure game. Oh sure, voices heavy in ambiance intone great and immensely important things as the game progresses, but as this was playing along you could answer the phone, watch the TV, or yell at your kid to go see who’s at the door, and it would not make any difference at all as to whether or not you’d be successfully solving the next puzzle.

But don’t get me wrong. Drowned God is great to look at—it’s right there at the top of the list as far as really well-designed (and well-organized, too) first-person adventure games go. The puzzles are fun and constructed well. There’s really nothing that the fact of the story’s being convoluted ruins as far as gameplay is concerned.

The music is well-written and as atmospheric and ethereal as one would expect for the subject matter. The music does loop and, although entertaining, gets old fast. There were appropriate ambient sounds, and these definitely added to the overall atmosphere.

Gameplay is straightforward. The player peruses an area and finds a path or a door, and through exploration finds herself at a puzzle to solve. The puzzles are all self-contained, which is to say noninventory. I thought the design of the puzzles in this game was very unique and clever, and they were some of the most unusual ones I’d seen. The people designing these actually thought up some original puzzles to solve, instead of using the same tired old litany of things like sliders and such. Several of the puzzles made use of an AI element built into the game. One of them, a Nine Men’s Morris game, seemed particularly devilish until it became apparent that the AI reduced the difficulty of the game each third try as the player progresses until the player is pretty much given the game. Considering the initial difficulty of the game, this was a stroke of genius by the designers, as this would keep someone from becoming otherwise bogged down.

The game is played in first-person, and despite this it is not a solitary game—there are quite a few characters met throughout gameplay. Players that love solitary exploration will still find plenty of it here, so both those who like to wander alone and those who need a little conversation to keep a game rolling will find something enjoyable about Drowned God.

The story (you didn’t think I was going to bother with this, did you?) concerns how aliens have been secretly involving themselves with the history of earth down through the ages, in order to control and manipulate how the human race perceives itself. Basically, it’s the theory of an alternative Genesis. Throughout the game, the story unfolds, and it manages to include probably all of the best and brightest of urban legend conspiracy theories that have been bought by the best-intentioned people over the course of the last several decades. It’s the writer’s ability to include so many of these in one story that gets the head spinning, really.

The graphics are really well-drawn and well-designed, and those of you that like playing games to see great environments and to walk around in them looking at stuff (yours truly included), this game will be right up your alley. It has a tremendous number of pretty prerendered pictures to check out—lots of stuff to make desktop pictures and the like out of.

The game docs thoughtfully include definitions for some terms the creators (of the game, I mean) thought the budding conspiracy theorist might need to fully understand, and these are certainly an amusement all unto themselves. They include Aleister Crowley, Men in Black, Einstein, Morgan Le Fay, Tesla, Philadelphia, Highway 666, Ark of the Covenant, Victor Hugo, and Arcadia. Go figure.  The docs also include the contact information for ten real-life UFO groups, in case the convoluted story and mishmash of conspiracy theories has pulled some chain loose in your brain and you feel compelled to talk to some live people about what they think about aliens coming to get them/us.

Unfortunately, the sequel to Drowned God, Cult, failed to materialize. The creator and writer of Drowned God, Harry Horse, at one time promised that the followup game would wrap up loose ends of the story (as if we’d be able to tell). Now, of course, would be my opportunity to do some sort of “The Truth Is out There” joke, but I’m gonna skip it—the pickin’s are too easy. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Inscape Publisher: Epic Mega Games Release Date: 1996

Available for: Windows

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System Requirements

Windows 95 Pentium 75 MHz 2X CD-ROM drive (4X recommended) 16-bit sound card SVGA with 65k colors 8 MB RAM (16 MB recommended)

Where to Find It

Check the Game TZ

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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14 Responses to Fear Factor

  • Fear Factor | Tap-Repeatedly.com | Reality Topics Blog

    […] nobody@flickr.com (graftedno1) wrote a very interesting post today.   Here’s a quick excerpt:My greatest fear is to be trapped alone in a confined space with a blind human, in total darkness. They have a heightened sense of smell and hearing, and. […]

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Lewis, you made me think of the scariest moments I’ve experienced in gaming, and we’re very similar people.

    Bioshock had two moments – the dentist and the flooded room filled with mannequins.

    Thief had Return to the Cathedral, which was terrifying to me. Thief 3 had Shalebridge Cradle, which is so scary it ought to be fined.

    System Shock 2 kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was more lonely panic than true fear.

    Korsakovia was so scary that I uninstalled it.

    And STALKER. Oh, god, the haunted labs in STALKER. The latter two games don’t have scares like that. Few games do.

    It’s especially rare for a game to have more than mere “moments” – for a game to be scary from beginning to end, that’s a triumph.

    Wonderful article. As if Gregg’s review wasn’t enough to convince me that Penumbra is not something I have the courage to play!

  • DPenn

    I’m with you Lewis … I’m a bit of a puss. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of dread as entertainment.

    Still, I’m drawn to dark stories when they have something interesting to say, whether it’s a game like Thief or a film like, say, Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. So I’ll push through, sometimes peering through my fingers.

    The trouble with games, though, is that if you look through your fingers, you’re probably just going to have to play through the scenario again. :~)

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    I wanted to play this game. I downloaded the demo but the controls were just too wonky for me to get my head around. I liked the atmospheric vibe a lot. I think I’m a bit desensitized from an overdose of horror movies in my youth so I don’t so much get the dread thing from these games as a nice creepy vibration. If only the controls were better…

  • Lewis B

    @ Mike, what’s wrong with the controls bud? As someone who despises poor control schemes, Penumbra’s is just like any other FPS, except to examine things you right click on them.  To use things you left click.  I’m not sure that can be considered difficult 🙂

  • Gregg B

    @Steerpike: Yeah my greatest shit-scared moments were with those games too. A few spoilers below people, so beware.

    Bioshock – Haha, I remember the dentist. I didn’t really find the game that scary overall but the bit where you go into the wine cellar and notice a mannequin facing the wall and after upgrading your weapon it’s stood directly behind you motionless and quiet just for a moment before attacking you. I shat a brick. I also missed that bit originally until Lew told me about it.

    System Shock 2 – same as you really, more unremitting tension all the way through rather than specific terrifying moments. Oh actually, theres a bit where you call a lift and it breaks then you realise a service droid is coming to fix it… I do remember having sleep issues after my first encounter with the cyborg ninjas though.

    Thief: The Dark Project – The Sword and Return to the Cathedral and Down in the Bonehoard and well, loads of them. The Sword made me break out into goosebumps though because there was a bit where you could hear this creepy giggling which seemed like it was following me about then it suddenly changed to this horrible throaty noise. What made matters worse was that the EAX (bless you Creative) made my foot steps sound like somebody else was there with me. That level was incredible, a bit too incredible as it seems I missed great chunks of it because I was so eager to leave.

    Thief II: The Metal Age – Trail of Blood where you end up in that opening with those damn tree beasts. God the first time I saw one of those hurtling towards me I actually died shortly afterward. Do you remember that Mechanist child walking around on one of the levels? That was a little creepy.

    Then there’s Penumbra: Overture – quite a few bits but I’m not mentioning them here.

    Oh and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – The brain scorcher lab just because it was so damn quiet. My imagination seriously got the better of me there. Those stuffed animals and heads I’d seen in various buildings led me to believe that those creatures were lurking somewhere in the Zone, specifically that lab.

    @Mike: My control setup was perfect after some tweaking (as well as the simple weapon swing fix). If you ever fancy giving it another go, give me a shout and I’ll let you know my setup.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not sure why guys, but one of my starting paragraphs had gone missing, even though I copied it straight from the original source, and It was fine earlier. 

    Incase you missed it due to some technical issue you might want to re-read just after “Well no she wouldn’t in truth, but in Penumbra: Overture you don’t want to move anyway.” at the very start for those who’ve already read the article. Apologies 🙂

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Lewis, it was the weapon swing. It had this terrible, unresponsive feel to it, like trying to hit through molasses. I couldn’t stand using it. I tried the .ini fix as mentioned in the review but it didn’t seem to help. Of course this was the demo…but that shouldn’t have made any difference. I might try the second game instead as I guess they did away with the weapons thing.

    I’m see your first paragraph just fine. It’s the dialogue, right?

  • jdeuel

    I like the argument that weapons can remove fear, but even loaded to the teeth with ammo in AVP’99 the Marine missions were frightful because the enemy was anywhere at any time.

    As for Penumbra Overture, if the controls are anything like the original Penumbra they need to hack in some Wii-Remote 3d controls. I did not like using my mouse for 3d movements.

  • Gregg B

    @Mike: I’ve read that many people avoided conflict altogether in Overture which incidentally is something forced upon you in Black Plague. As somebody who has been renovating a house over the last 6 months with no DIY experience I can safely say that swinging a hammer is significantly easier in real life than it is in Overture without the fix. The fix balanced that for me.

    I’d highly recommend completing the first Penumbra because it’s one big build up to Black Plague which spoils the ending to Overture in the intro. And it’s a great ending too. Just so you know!

  • Lewis B

    @ Steerpike, those moments you mention are all my worst too!!  Do you remember the Robot labs in SS2? Absolutely terrifying, waiting for robots to burst out on you! 🙁 oh and have you ever player Condemned?

    @ Mike, The use of weapons in Penumbra is different to say HL2, where the player is physically holding the weapon, as in Penumbra it floats slightly infront of you.  However, if you change the control method to normal weapon swing, it’s no different!  Speak to Greggi and he’ll tell you what to do 🙂

    @ jdeuel, AVP the original and its sequal were scary however what type of fear do you think it is? I don’t think it’s anything more than sheer tension.  Having a Smart Gun makes you feel incredibly powerful.  I can honestly say in Penumbra the fear is sheer unrivalled terror, where you actually have to force yourself to play on.  It genuinly is that scary! 🙂

  • Jason Dobry

    It’s so true, an arsenal of weapons and ammo rapidly deflates any sense of horror or uneasiness in any game for reasons you already mentioned. Sakey, I thought Bioshock was more “lonely panic,” while I was pretty much always terrified in System Shock 2. I really, really, REALLY did not want to enter The Many’s nursery, and my weapons were so unreliable and ammo so scarce that I never felt safe.

    Silent Hill was terrifying for the same reasons. Ammo was rare and I frequently had to rely on my pipe for self-defense.  Even when I had ammo, the game mechanics prevented my character from being anything other than marginal with any firearm.

    Fear had one moment for me: I was climbing up a ladder, and as I reached the upper platform, my guy briefly looked down as he climbed off. As my perspective looked up again, that Ring-esque little girl was RIGHT THERE, reaching for me. I screamed and she was gone.

    What else…the original Aliens vs. Predator sent me into a locker room and I could only hear the facehuggers scurrying about somewhere within. I had to go in there. I advanced about three steps before the damn thing screamed and filled up my screen with its repulsive underside as it implanted me with its spawn. My roommate made fun of me for weeks for screaming like a girl child.

    Korsakovia–meh.  I was too annoyed and frustrated by the box rearrangement/jumping puzzles to be scared. I uninstalled it after an hour of play, I think. Maybe the scary parts were later, but I doubt it.

    As for Penumbra, I did play through about half of it before other games distracted me. I remember unease and creepiness, but no sweaty fear. I think I’m to blame here, or, more precisely, my daughter, who was still an infant at the time and generally allowed me only to play during the day for 45 minutes at a time. I was denied total immersion and the fear effect suffered. Maybe I should give it another go after I finish Call of Pripyat since she sleeps through the night now. With any luck, Penumbra will keep me from doing the same.

  • Gregg B

    I played the demo of F.E.A.R. but that ladder scare is the only bit I remember. Christ, that made me jump. I’m not too good with cat scares.

    Also I felt exactly the same about Korsakovia. It was creepy at first but then it began to irritate me far too much and it just soured the experience. I stopped playing as a result. Not to mention, when I realised I could bash those smoke-things with my crowbar they didn’t bother me nearly as much.

  • Online Up

    Great article. I look forward to reading more in the future.

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