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Enigma: Rising Tide Review - PC

7th March 2004 by
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Enigma: Rising Tide takes place in World War II, but follows a fictional storyline; during the game, the United States of America didn't assist Europe in their time of need when the Germans rose to power, slowly taking over more and more countries. As the League of Free Nations - made up of Imperial Japan and the Royal Navy in Exile - defends its waters in Asia, Germany extends its empire across Europe, even taking over England. In a time of great desperation to bring the German empire to its knees, you're sent into the war as a Commander in the Navy, and must take control of various ships and submarines during your campaign to destroy the enemy's forces.

Gameplay

Although the storyline in Enigma: Rising Tide is partially fictional, the technology and general structure of World War II remains true to the major event. The game does a good job of recreating naval warfare, throwing you straight into the sea with nothing but your ship, your weapons, your crew and your trusty radar, and leaving it up to you to travel to your objectives and enemies.

The game features two gameplay modes: Patrols mode and Campaigns mode. Patrols mode features a list of preset missions that can be played in any order and aren't linked to each other through a storyline as the Campaigns mode is. At the top of the list are multiple training missions with easy objectives so that you can get used to handling the various ships and their weapons. Unfortunately, it doesn't guide you through the ship's functions in detail; instead, you're given an objective and some basic initial instructions and left to complete the mission on your own. Luckily the manual describes the game quite well, but it would have been nice to learn how to get the best out of your ship hands-on instead of reading it on paper. The Campaigns mode is the meat of Enigma: Rising Tide, and features a number of missions linked by a basic storyline and storyline-related objectives. Before beginning each mission, you're given the option of choosing from surface or underwater duty. Choosing surface duty will put you in the command of a preset ship with a preset weapon setup, while choosing underwater duty will, of course, put you in the command of a preset submarine with a preset weapon setup. This allows players to play the missions with their preferred type of craft without disrupting the game's storyline. Before beginning Patrols mode or Campaigns mode, however, you'll need to setup your character in the game's Preferences menu; here you can type in a name, country of origin and faction (the United States of America, Germany or the League of Free Nations) for your commander.

On-screen during missions you have a Heads-Up Display spanning a small area of the bottom of the screen, which neatly offers all of the control over your ship or submarine that you need: from speed and rudder control, binoculars and periscope control, submerge control (submarines only) ... (continued next page)

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