AquaNox

I still think Aquanox is a long forgotten gem that gets overlooked far too often in the sci fi genre. Besides some small bugs like too fast mouse input (which can be solved by a mere google search) its actually good to play.

Aquanox is cool as hell, dude. Great art direction, enjoyably wonky voice acting. It takes some getting used to and the controls are listed exactly nowhere, but I love it. I love just hanging out in the menus in the different settlements between missions. Very high up on my "menu screens to have on in the background while I look at my phone for two hours straight" list.

The worst voice acting I ever heard in a game was in some fan-made Star Wars mod. The second worst voice acting I ever heard in a game is AquaNox. It's not all bad, granted - some characters sound okay. Most of them, though, are just reading their lines with no emotion to speak of, sometimes interrupted by equally emotionless laughter. After a while (say, half a minute) it really gets on your nerves, ha, ha, ha. The writing of the dialogues is equally horrendous. No one ever talks like this, thank goodness. The intro is possibly the worst offender - the main character talks and talks (possibly explaining what happened in the first game), and it sounds like he's reading a shopping list. Forever. And then you get to float around and shoot stuff. Fascinating. Caveat emptor.

NOT RECOMMENDED unless you are an Archimedean Dynasty veteran, otherwise five stars (AD AFAIK has much more "game design" to tolerate). The engine is decent, the controls are passable sans the hair-pullingly annoying jerkiness and steering resistance that makes aim correction with minor adjustments impossible, wrist-breaking mouse controls for driving, the idiotic double-tap thrust for turbo (you'll be accidentally activating it all the f-ing time) and a clearly rushed latter half with a lot mission objectives that don't work or that are outright misleading. The music is pretty solid. The voice acting is slightly over average. Don't get it. It goes downhill very fast after a solid beginning.

Aquanox was medicore. I would really like GOG to bring Archimedian Dynasty to the masses. Deadeye Flint at his best.