Lunchtime Discussion: Water

It seems that the 360 lost another third party exclusive today in the form of Hydrophobia. As I pretty much covered exclusivity yesterday, and people tend to walk off if I repeat myself too much, lets take the other tact and look at water. Making bodies of water look and act real has been a challenge for years, and from what we’ve seen so far Hydrophobia seems to be the best implementation of fluid dynamics we’ve seen so far.

Going a fair way back now the earliest memory I have of being genuinely impressed with water was in Metal Gear Solid. To be fair there wasn’t a lot of water in the game after the opening scene, but when you’re walking around the loading dock and puddles reflect the environment I was genuinely amazed. Metal Gear Solid did a lot to improve games in general, but for me the puddles still stand out to this day. Obviously we’ve moved on since then, and reflections are now common place, but you never forget the first time.

However whilst how water looks and behaves may have moved on, it seems swimming mechanics haven’t really. Ok so when you’re swimming on the surface it’s fine, but I’m talking about moving underwater. I’m not quite sure how to improve on it, but the way our character move through water just doesn’t feel quite right. Either you have a button direct height and you control direction, or you use dual analog sticks to direct the action in full 3D.

The problem is firstly that underwater sequences seem to have almost no signposting, making it incredibly easy to get lost, and that very few developers make the controls feel quite right. Either you move so incredibly sluggish that the sequence feels slow and boring, or you move far too easily, the water not offering enough resistance. If you’re underwater you do move slower than on land, but it’s not treacle. You should be able to have a increased range of motion underwater, be able to do acrobatic turns, that sort of thing.

Have developers got water wrong, or am I the one in the wrong? What games do controls well (Tomb Raider) and what games do it badly (other Tomb Raider games)? Is it just something that’s too hard to get the controls right for? What games have amazing fluid dynamics, that just make water look and behave correctly?