Song of The Deep, done by Insomniac Games, was the first game I had the privilege of trying out at RTX and I can’t say as I was disappointed.
Call me shallow, but whimsical style graphics catch my attention EVERY SINGLE TIME and this time was certainly no different. Watching someone else play as I walked by was enough to make me want to try out the completed version of the game that they were letting people demo.
You start out as a girl whose father has traveled out at sea and disappeared. You are absolutely heartbroken when he does not return, but this doesn’t mean that you give up on him though. You manage to fashion a little submarine crafted out of spare parts lying around and go out into the depths of the sea in hopes of finding him.
You pick up old coins along the way, unsure of what they are, but you plan to ask your father about him as soon as you find him. This particular line struck a chord within me as I have this thing about hope. As long as you have that one thing, anything in the world is possible. (That is my theory in any case.) That alone would be enough to make me want to play the game, but then there is the sound and the background music. It somehow manages to convey longing, which I found extremely intriguing that a game could portray such a thing with music alone.
One other thing that really aroused my curiosity was a seahorse that was composed of different parts which makes your character wonder aloud at who could have made such a creature. Early on in your journey, you pick up a magnetic claw that fulfills many roles. You can pick up and move things as well as attack with it. This comes in handy as there was definitely a slight puzzle aspect to even the small part of the game I saw. You need your claw to move barriers so that you can move past them and it becomes even more important in what appears to be the first main battle of the game.
There is a statue head that is throwing bombs at you and you have to manage to grab the bombs with your claw, aim, and throw them at the statue head; all before they explode on you. This I found to be a little tricky as there was some tact involved. This was actually preferable for me as if I had just been able to instantly get a handle on the mechanics and finish the battle immediately, I would have been more likely to lose interest in the game.
This is the point at which my time ended, but Just from this quick peak at things, I am very excited to see what the rest of the game holds and cannot wait to play it when it comes out on XBOX One PS4 and PC next month.