Should have been called Whale Shark with the way this thing controls: Tigershark (PS1) Review.

 Overall Score: 3.2/5

D+

This game is a perfect example of what happens when you have a genuinely interesting and unique concept, but completely drive the bus off a cliff in the execution. The concept is you have a high speed hydrofoil assault craft skipping along and blasting ships, aircraft and land targets and at the push of a button submerges and becomes a submarine fighter. This could have been one of the best games of the PS1. But what happened? Well, read on...


Gameplay: 2

The gameplay concept was certainly something I've never really seen before, nor have I seen many others try to do anything similar since. It's a "flight" sim and an arcade style 3D shooter.

You control the Tigershark, a combination hydrofoil attack craft/midget attack submarine. On the surface the Tigershark is a high-speed attack craft armed with a 25mm gatling gun, and a variety of guided missiles and rockets. You have full control over the craft and control the vessel on a 2D plane while on the surface. On the surface the game plays pretty well. Not the best, but not horrible either.


The point where the game goes off a cliff and where the problems lie is when you take the Tigershark underwater. The Tigershark controls way too slow and clunky. Underwater you have the option of two control types, an advanced type and a simplified type. In the advanced type, pushing Left or Right on the D-pad rotates the Tigershark and it controls like a flight sim. However the issue is that the Tigershark is slow to roll and slow to bank. The other issue, is there are no controls for Yaw, you can't turn the craft from side to side, without rolling the whole thing and banking. It is literally slower to maneuver underwater than the F-4 Phantom or A-4 Skyhawk starter planes in Ace Combat 2 (which came out in the same year). This lack of mobility would be a noting more than a nuisance, in fact it could be the factor that sets it aside from a flight sim, given there is more resistance in water than air. But the thing is, the game doesn't take the slow movements of the Tigershark into account and the player is essentially a sitting duck for guided torpedoes. While flight sim games like Ace Combat has guided missiles being fired off at the player, the missiles can either be evaded though tight turns, or countered with chaff or flare. Here you're unable to do any of that and just end up having to take the hits, and of course, take too many hits and you die. Not just torpedoes, but the underwater gun-towers also have sniper accuracy. You simply cannot evade attacks due to the control's clunky response, and the enemy comes at you from all angles.

In the simplified type, Left and Right on the D-pad turn the Tigershark. While this gives it faster turning, it's pitch still remains slow and doing a loop is near impossible. Both control styles are essentially unplayable under water. Even with the Dual Analog or Dual Shock controllers, the game doesn't take advantage of the analogue sticks.

To sum it up, the game only becomes playable when you play with cheats enabled. If you want to see this idea well executed, check out the submarine levels in Warship Gunner 2 on the PS2. These levels are one of the ways this game could have been effectively done. But I stand by the statement that had this game played like Ace Combat when underwater it would have easily been an excellent game.


Stability: 5
At the very least the game isn't broken in terms of stability. It runs without crashing, freezing, or locking the player in a can't advance situation. The game doesn't have issues in saving or loading or with game save data on the Memory Card.

The game also runs well, but that I mean there isn't a bad polygon tearing, or major collision issues. so at least it has that going for it.


Plot: 4
The game actually shines pretty well on the plot. As usual the plot puts us in the near future where natural resources are running low. To solve their energy issues Japan had developed a series of underwater geothermal taps constructed along fault lines on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. All is well till the technology is stolen and copied by the Russians.

The Russian taps however, like the Soviet-built Chernobyl nuclear power plant, are inferior to the Japanese taps, and run the risk of the destabilizing the "Ring of Fire". As a result of the Russian taps, Japan is hit by as series of massive tsunamis and 60% of the country ends up underwater. With Japan in shambles the Russians move in to gobble up what's left.

Enter the US Navy with it's experimental underwater carrier the USS Olympus, and it's prototype one-man hydrofoil-submarine attack craft. The USS Olympus and the Tigershark prototype are the most advanced naval vessels developed, and spearhead operations to send the Russians back. 

Yes, it's another case of "the Russians are bad" but the way this is gone about is done is a completely different manner. Rather than the "trying to restore Russia's place" we see all to often today. Russia in this game has more a Soviet machine feel to it. It doesn't come off as a fallen superpower, but rather one that never relinquished the title. Though I suppose you could say the plot is a product of it's time to an extent, it hadn't even been 10 years since the Berlin Wall came down when this game was released.

The story is moved along though mission briefing sequences, and there are few cut scenes. Which isn't really an issue, as it means there is little in the way that would interrupt the gameplay.


Graphics and Visuals: 2

The visuals in the game are about what you would find in the early days of the PlayStation, around what you would see when the system came out in 1995. Here's the thing, when this game came out it was 1997. Ace Combat 2 with it's excellent graphics came out in this same year. Even the modeling of the titular Tigershark looks likes something from the Sega CD. I know that graphics aren't everything, but I'm sorry, 1997, on the PlayStation? This is unacceptable.

To add to the dated look of the game, the explosions and smoke trails seem to use low-res sprite based graphics. The graphics would have been acceptable as a launch game along side Warhawk, but this was 1997, the PlayStation had been out for two years at this point. Again, I'll mention Ace Combat 2 that came out in the same year. The graphics between these two games look
almost a generation apart.

I'll admit, maybe it isn't a fair comparison given that Ace Combat 2 was made by Namco, a much larger company with more resources, but it still doesn't change the fact that the game looks very dated for the year it came out in.  It wouldn't even really be a big deal if the gameplay was fun, but the game having poor play mechanics, is just made exponentially worse with the poor graphics. Just like how great graphics accompanying great gameplay can improve a game's overall experience, poor gameplay with poor graphics will have the inverse effect.








Art and Music: 3

OK I have to admit, the Tigershark itself is a very cool design. It's sleek, looks very high-tech and the menu screen is actually the Tigershark's holograpgic cockpit (real shame the game doesn't have a cockpit view, but maybe given the graphics, that's for the best). The USS Olympus itself is also a slick design.

By contrast the Russian vessels have a very utilitarian, made for mass production, very "Soviet" look to them to contrast with the American Tigershark's top of the line design. If the Tigershark is an F-16 or a French Rafale, then bulk of the Russian subs and ships are the MiG-21 or MiG-23. The only thing comparable to the Tigershark is the Russian's own hydrofoil/attack sub prototype that's encountered later on in the game.

Where the art and design certainly stand out from an otherwise bland package, the music, like the gameplay falls short. There isn't much to say about the music other than there are only a few tracks and all of them are pretty forgettable.


Final Verdict: Don't bother.

I really wanted to like this game, I really did. But it's slow-as-molasses controls underwater just completely hamper any attempts to have any fun with this game. It's a unique and interesting concept completely hampered by poor execution. Maybe in the hands of a more talented developer this could have been an awesome game. But the awful truth is that the team at N-Space just wasn't up to the task of taking this concept and making something great out of it. Maybe this was just too ambitious a project for the this dev team.


Truth be told there there is some fun to be had with the game if you turn on the invulnerability cheat and just play the game as a power fantasy, but that's the thing, the game is only really fun after you "break" it. But then if you're at the point of doing that, then unless you're playing for the story, what's the point after a couple levels?