Steel Diver review

Who here has ever said that Nintendo only make games for kids? Yes I know that you’re one of the guilty ones, nearly everyone is – except me. It’s true that Nintendo went a bit family crazy during 2007 with a slew of colourful games on the Wii, but anyone who was seriously interested could find core games on the DS and Wii if they tried. Despite this I wouldn’t have ever thought that Nintendo would go out and create a submarine simulator.

Submarines aren’t often featured in video games even though they’re very advanced modes of transport and warfare. What else can silently move at great depths through the oceans into enemy territory whilst carrying nuclear weapons? Maybe it’s because on a day to day basis we don’t encounter submarines, but then we don’t actually see alien spaceships and there’s enough games and movies featuring those. Who knows!

Steel Diver is the latest title for their brand new handheld,the Nintendo 3DS. It’s time for a Steel Diver 3DS review to find out if Nintendo are sinking to new depths or torpedoing their way to success. The game is co-created with Vitei Inc whose staff have previously worked heralded titles titles such as; Starfox, Stunt Race FX, and Super Mario 64. So it should be good…right?

First up comes the story; “A power-hungry rogue nation has invaded its neighbouring countries, placing the stability of the entire world in danger. In order to preserve the peace, a secret submarine fleet, chosen from the best and brightest world’s navies has been formed. They are known as the Steel Divers”.

So the story is unimaginative but if you’re the sort of person interested in a strategic action submarine game, you’re probably not that worried about intriguing narrative. That isn’t an insult, rather I predict that most submarine fans will likely be more interested in the specifics of the game than whatever fictional story is placed over the top of it. The game has three modes; Missions, Periscope Strike and Steel Commander. Each is different - here’s a quick over view of them.

• Missions is just as it sounds, play through seven campaigns with a choice of three different submarines. You can either play the story or compete in time trials.
• Periscope Strike allows you to sink enemy subs and ships with torpedoes in a first person viewpoint.
• Steel Commander is a strategic board game which has feels a bit like Battleships and can be played with the CPU or against a friend with another 3DS.

In Missions mode there are a total of seven levels to play through but only the first five are unlocked at the start. You start by choosing one of three submarines which each have different abilities:

• ND-01 Manatee is a compact sized sub that is slow yet highly manoeuvrable that can fire torpedoes horizontally and vertically.
• ND-03 BlueShark is a midsized sub that is nimble, fast, and can fire two torpedoes in short succession horizontally.
• ND-05 Serpent is a large sub. Powerful to the extreme with four horizontal torpedo bays, the trouble is the manoeuvrability is pretty sluggish.

The missions themselves are fairly standard, for the most part your main goal is to start from the left most part of the area and finish on the right. But it’s what goes on in the middle that really counts…the beginning missions are basic but they’re designed to give you a feel of what’s to come.

The first mission for example just requires you to navigate the underground terrain and surface at the other end but listen to how it’s described; “Aerial recon has located an enemy base. Capturing it will give us a foothold in the area, Your mission is to find a way into the base so we can deploy our troops”. Things to get much trickier in the later missions, for example mission five requires you to not only make your way through a tricky set of underground caverns. You also will need to navigate mines, enemy subs and take out a huge enemy (boss) warship. Mission five is also a good example of how the game varies depending on which sub you choose. Like me you may breeze through mission five with the small sub because its unique ability to shoot missiles upwards makes taking out the boss simple. The larger subs however cannot shoot vertically so other tactics are required – but telling you those now would be spoiling it.

You view your sub on the top screen with a side-on (2D-esque) viewpoint and the bottom screen is solely used for control because the DPad, Circle Pad and Buttons are all defunct in Steel Diver. Around one third of the touch screen is dedicated to a zoomable radar style map. With this you can view the geometry of the level before you arrive, theoretically giving you ample time to move your sub. To do so you need to use two slider panels, one that controls the vertical movement and one that controls the horizontal. Learning how to use these is vital because reacting to an enemy can be a two step process.

First you will need to slow down your speed or even throw the sub into reverse, then secondly you may need to start to surface (go up) or dive (go down). Of course even moving around the twisty depths of the ocean requires adept skill; you simply can’t send your sub roaring forwards and hope to survive. Every movement is critical and one accidental move or slow reaction could see you hitting a rock and breaching your hull.

The bottom screen is also where you can activate your air masker, a system to cloak yourself from enemy homing torpedoes. You only have a small air supply which may need to be refreshed by surfacing if you run low; this in itself is risky and could leave you vulnerable to attack from enemy airships. Your own torpedoes are launched from the bottom screen also, simply align your sub in the chosen direction with your sliders and tap the torpedo button and watch the missile fly (or should that be swim?). At the end of each mission you are given one shot at the periscope mode in a bid to win decals, successfully shooting ships will earn you random sets of decals and when you have enough – you can assign these to your ship to earn bonus powers such as; taking less damage from mines and reducing the health of a boss.

Periscope mode can be played on its own for high score purposes but you will not win decals, however it’s still fun to play because the use of the 3DS gyroscope means you can literally move the 3DS around in the air to help aim, if you have an office swivel chair then this makes it all the more fun. For those times when you can’t do motion control there is a slider panel on the touch screen that lets you control the periscope manually.

Steel Commander is the final game mode and sadly is the only one that can be played with friends. I described it before as being similar to the famous board game Battleships, and that is true – but it’s in no way identical. In fact it’s a little more complicated, here’s what the in game help menu says; “Steel Commander is a turn based strategy game played on sea maps divided into hexagonal spaces”.

The map is divided into two areas, friendly and enemy territories but each side cannot see the opponents ships/subs until they’ve been discovered. You need to enter the same space as an enemy to discover it, or use the sonar on your sub of course! Players take turns moving their three types of units (submarines, Escorts and Supply Ships) which move varying by type, e.g. Submarines are the only units that can enter enemy territory.

When your sub does encounter an enemy the gameplay is switched from the boring 2D map to live first person 3D where you enter periscope mode (once again) to take out the baddies. Missiles are limited so accuracy is essential, if however you are under attack yourself from an enemy sub you can drop depth charges into the sea in an attempt to blow them up. Whether you strike or miss is random, a bit like Stone Paper Scissors but with 50m, 100m and 150m depths.

Steel Commander mode is fun but very difficult against the CPU, if you have another 3DS owning friend then you can send them the game via local download play for some multiplayer fun with no need to buy a second copy…nice!

So fundamentally that’s the game, I’ve not mentioned the graphics yet so I guess I should right now. Visually Steel Diver is quite attractive if a little short on variation, the underwater scenes are very pretty with some nice graphical effects. Small attention to details like the shoals of fish swimming around are nice but rarer than I’d have hoped. Almost every mission area looks identical to another, apart from one or two that feature stormy weather – I do understand that the sea probably looks like the sea everywhere – but a few different underwater environments would have been nice, an area full of coral perhaps?

The use of 3D in Steel Diver is subtle but rather effective, it doesn’t change the gameplay in the same way as say Pilotwings Resort, however I think the sense of depth is superb. It has to be seen to believed but it really does look like you’re looking into the depths of the ocean.

Subsequently this means that those who can’t see 3D or get motion sickness by trying, are not really missing out on too much by playing in 2D. Oh one quick mention of the audio – it’s okay, but there’s not much to hear besides the ping of your radar and a few phases of spoken dialogue. To be honest, you’ll probably get bored of hearing your sub captain shout “Ship Damaged”, “Surface” and “Dive” – I know I did.

Overall Steel Diver is an interesting title which will no doubt be forgotten in a few months due to its theme, the action in my opinion is great and I really enjoyed the change of pace and controls. Being forced to plan movements and move the (deliberately) slow to respond depth sliders feels quite realistic. However, content is light – there are only seven missions and to extend the gameplay you need to play each one at least three times, more if you want to collect all the decals. Also a lack of online play is a huge mistake, not only for the Steel Commander mode but I can easily envisage a terrific multiplayer hide and seek game of Periscope Mode for four players – a big missed opportunity there.

Steel Diver is a great concept title and in my opinion is worth a play if found at a good price of around, $30 or £20 – but no more than that. 7 out of 10.

Get Steel Diver now
New: Buy Steel Diver from Amazon.com

Related: Advance Wars Dark Conflict review, Pilotwings Resort