PixlBit

Aside from the one man army first person shooters there have been other methods to kill enemies and your friends, from dog fights to, my personal favorite, glorious battles in mechs equiped with unconventional weapons. And then one Nintendo Direct later a new means to kill people in solo and multiplayer modes has been annoucned: submarines. Steel Diver: Sub Wars, the sequel to side-scroller Steel Diver, is the first attempt at free-to-play and for a submarine FPS game, it's worth the download.

 

The controls can be floaty but they are well tuned. All buttons and pads have been assigned appropriately (with the option to use the levers on the touch screen.) and features on-touch-screen buttons for the periscope, mask (temporary invisiblity which uses air restored from the surface.), and mose code (risky chat). Each sub has its own stats, including submerge/surface speeds, HP, and torpedo strength. Stats can be changed by adding special crew memebers to the submarine (each sub having its own crew limit) with increases and decreases to aid the player's preference. Submarines and customizations can be unlocked through completing the missions in a record time and playing multiplayer to stack up the number of matches.

The solo missions have one straight-forward objective with a number of obstacles ranging from the underwater terrain to enemy subs. Each mission has three difficulty levels and will spawn a random crew member to rescue to add to your roaster. Multiplayer is where the real action is, featuring a local mode for wireless competition and an Internet mode for regional and woldwide matches, which can match up the player up at their own skill level or take the risk of taking on any level. The map is always random and will rarely give you a chance to rescue a crew member during online matches. Players should be careful with their torpedo (and their team mates) since friendly fire is always enabled.

The submarines have a distinct look to them, with the custom paint jobs giving a bit of personal identity. The 3D effect, much like other 3DS games, gives the top screen depth in the field of vision. There isn't much to say about the graphical design for the levels but when it comes to multiplayer it's always fun to see your match is taking place in a swimming pool or a fish bowl.

This is fantastic game, but is the game really worth ten dollars to upgrade from Free to Premium? The Premium Version gives you more missions to unlock more customization options as well as permit you to use all premium subs that you unlock but it's not necessary. The Free Version is good by itself and you can't go wrong with free when the first free submarine you unlock is based on the Red October(Sean Connery not included.). Go premium if you want all the options but the Free Version is worth to dive into first.