Undertow

Undertow has been available on Xbox Live Arcade for a couple of weeks now. It’s a small download at only 49Mb and to unlock the full game will set you back 800 Microsoft Points.

Undertow takes place after the polar ice caps have been melted covering the planet in water from an attack perpetrated by an unknown aquatic alien race.

The game is a side scrolling shooter where the player must fight for possession of strategic control points to achieve victory. Both the player and the opponent have a number of “tickets” (points) available which decrease in speed depending on the number of control points that have been conquered. The player will win by forcing the opponents “tickets” to zero.


Conquering a checkpoint is simply a matter of wiping out all opposition in that sector and waiting until it changes to your teams colour. Of course once you’ve taken a control point there’s nothing stopping the opponent taking it back, and thus control points swing back and forth between the player and the opponent during the course of a level.

The controls of the game are very straightforward using the left stick for movement, right stick to shoot, left trigger to drop a depth charge and right trigger to boost. In addition “X” can be held down for a continuous boost and the D-pad is used to select one of the four different unit types available to the player.

As you’d expect each of the different unit types have strengths and weakness but the player can interchange between them during the level if so desired. The “Marine” is fast and agile and has a decent shooting range, the “Dragoon” is slower than the marine but is better armoured and has a very powerful short range attack, the “Corsair” is fast and fires long range missiles but is lightly armoured, and finally the “Destroyer” is the slowest class but is heavily armoured and has the most powerful, but slowest firing weapon in the game. Each of the four units can be upgraded three times during the game once enough points have been racked up from destroying units and taking control points which increases there overall effectiveness.

Jotted throughout each level you will also come across various power-ups such as the “Frenzy” which doubles damage for 30 seconds, “Depth Charge” packs to add three depth charges to your arsenal, or “Health” packs to restore your unit to fighting fitness once more.

The trial lets you play the first three single player missions; “Training”, “Tide Pool”, and “The Line” from the first campaign. The game does have a story and the action is punctuated between levels with cut-scenes, but to be honest I didn’t really find them to be that enthralling.

Undertow looks great with some gorgeous backdrops and some nice graphical effects and I found fighting for control points with the tide of the battle swinging back and forth to be an enjoyable change from the shooter norm.

The full game offers multiplayer co-op as-well as versus modes and if you like playing the occasional shooter then this would be worth trying out.