DEADLY TIDE

When we were given Microsofts Deadly Tide to review, we jumped to the obvious conclusions. Deadly tide. Dead-ly tide. Yep, its a sub game for sure. You know the sort; drifting silently under the waves, your periscope just peeking above the surface, maneuvering your tiny sub into position; torpedoes primed and ready to blow up that enemy destroyer.

In fact, though, Deadly Tide is a lot more like those old-school arcade games of yesteryear. It’s not so much about explosions and sinking ships as it is about avoiding them. You’re a submarine in this game, but your mission isnt so much to sink enemy ships as it is to weave through them without being destroyed yourself. Once you’ve gotten through three levels (each with five stages) without dying, you’ll have beaten the game—but thats no mean feat.

When we were given Microsoft’s “Deadly Tide” to review, we jumped to the obvious conclusions: Deadly tide. Dead-ly tide. Yep, it’s a sub game for sure. You know the sort; drifting silently under the waves, dodging periscopes and torpedoes, looking for the telltale white wake of your enemies before -BOOM-ing them with a torpedo of your own. After all, how could an educational game about dolphins not be a seafaring simulation?

So it was that I was surprised to see that this title is actually an adventure game—with A.I. dolphins! The games story is broken into three chapters: “Search for the lost dolphin”, “Return to the ocean”, and “Revenge on Captain Hook”. In each chapter you are in control of a different dolphin who must complete specific tasks before advancing to the next chapter.