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Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future Review
Chris Leyton
00/12/0000
Ecco's back to save the world FROM sinister powers.
During the last few years of the Megadrive's lifespan, a small european developer released a title on the system, that re-generated interest in the system.
That game was Ecco, it had fantastic graphics, a new style of gameplay and fiendishly difficult puzles that you just couldn't leave until you had finished them.
After the original Ecco, the team released a string of sequels and poor titles including the awful 'Three Dirty Dwarfs', now they hope to find their creative genius with the release of Ecco on the Dreamcast.
I have to say firstly wow, as soon as you begin to play, this game looks fantastic, never has a sea looked so beautiful, apparently months of work was spent on collecting videos and photographs of the sea-floor from The National Geographic and it shows, the whole thing seems so alive, it really is beautiful and a joy to watch. Thankfully Ecco has the same graphic realisation, and has some of the best animation I have ever seen, as he swims, swirls, loops, everything looks perfect, as do the other creatures inhabiting the sea, basically this game looks the business, check out the screens and imagine it running super smoothly and you're somewhere close to how good it looks.
At first I thought a game that looked this good could not possibly play that good, at first I was right, as I wrestled with the controls struggling to even make Ecco swim in a straight direction. After a few goes the controls sink in and literally become second nature, you don't even have to think about them, soon you'll be double looping, back flipping, the lot, I really have to give credit to Appolosa here, they've obvioulsy spent a while perfecting the controls, if they had got them wrong this game would have sunk without a trace, thankfully they are perfectly realised, and the end result is a joy to play.
The puzzles that made the first game so involving have crossed over to this version, at times you'll be pulling your hair out, and then the solution will come to you, that's the type of game Ecco is, avoid if you're an action fan, this definitely requires a certain amount of cerebral involvement.
By the looks of things the game is big, huge in fact, when loading your game you get a chance to scroll through all the levels that are in the game, obviously you can only select the levels that you've completed. However I believe the developers did this to have a bit of a laugh, as the lists scrolls you realise that you're going to be playing this game for a long time if you're going to complete it, each level is big and beautifully structured. The size of the game is refreshing old-school compared to how short games have become recently.
A special mention has to go to the music, a superb ambient soundtrack accompanies the action and perfectly suits the tone of the game, a definite for playing through your hi-fi.
David Brin, an award winning Sci-Fi author narrates the story, and sounds brilliant.
This game has it all, the graphics, the sound, the AI of the other creatures, the difficulty curve, if there was one thing that I had to moan about, it would be the story which involves Humans and Dolphins travelling outer space in little bubbles, until an evil alien species invades the earth and it's up to Ecco to save the day whilst the rest our up in space... don't ask, just skip the story and prepare to play one of the best games in recent years.
