Titanic Download (1991 Arcade action Game)

After developing a new suit for diving in deep waters, Urine and Deepman decide to use it to search for the Titanic. This dive will be useful to test the new suit, but also to find the secrets that are hidden in the lost ship. Fight against all kind of sea lifeforms to make your way to the Titanic. Find the secret that was lost with the ship.

Diving games from the 80's and the first half of the 90's were mostly similar: a side view of the action, and you get to control a diver that shoots harpoons, fights sea monsters and collects treasures and oxygen. Titanic is a solid game from 1988 published for Amstrad CPC, MSX and Spectrum made in a similar manner. It consists of two large parts. The first takes place in underwater caves and you have to go deeper and reach the Titanic, while the second part takes place inside the famous shipwreck. Gameplay focuses on finding the right path as much as it is focused on action. The DOS version was released after three years and with many changes. The technical parts were greatly improved, but gameplay suffered some bad changes and, unfortunately, has some serious flaws.

The biggest difference is that now you progress by levels instead of having two huge parts. Every level is the maze of underground caves and you have to find the right way to the exit. You are now much more pressured to look for oxygen, but you also have unlimited harpoons. Sea creatures can be divided into two groups: the ones that simply move in a predefined path and the ones that chase you on sight. Also, you now die immediately if you collide with anything lethal and you have three lives.

There are two big flaws that will immediately get in your way. The first one is bad collision detection. You will die without being touched, especially if the creature or projectile comes from behind. It will take some time for you to notice some sort of rectangular space that is around your diver and that actually counts towards collision. Another very irritating (and illogical) thing is that the diver moves faster than the harpoons he shoots. This means that if you move to the left or to the right and the sea creature is in front of you, you have to stop and fire. If you fire and actually keep moving towards the creature, you will die. This is incredibly annoying. You are supposed to hurry because of oxygen, but you have to keep stopping to kill monsters because of slow harpoons. This is not the case, though, when you move up or down since the diver can't shoot upwards or downwards, which is another flaw since it was possible in earlier versions. Also, now you can only move in four main directions instead of eight.

As if all these bad things aren't enough, every time you lose a life, you have to start the entire level over. So it gets even more frustrating as you play. You will lose many lives trying to find the right way through the maze and wasting all your oxygen. Then you have to start the entire level over; and again, watch how fast you move, and how close you are to the enemies. If you lose all your lives, you have to start over from the first level. It is simply too annoying.

Better graphics and sound can't make up for those flaws. Even the sound effects may seem exaggerated and unnecessary, although the music itself is not bad. The game does have something to offer and looks promising, but those flaws will most likely make you drop the game soon.

Controls: Q - up A - down O - left P - right SPACE - fire

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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