Nintendo World 2011: Steel Diver Hands-On Impressions

We urge you not to pass this one up, its actually great fun! More on Steel Diver inside Steel Diver has been quite the dark horse at Nintendo World 2011, and has indeed seen quite the face lift since its initial unveiling all those years ago at E3 a...

We urge you not to pass this one up, its actually great fun! More on Steel Diver inside

Steel Diver has been quite the dark horse at Nintendo World 2011, and has indeed seen quite the face lift since its initial unveiling all those years ago at E3 as a much more humble Nintendo DS game. Steel Diver is a submarine game, yeah, sounds riveting, but it has that Nintendo EAD magic on it that makes it feel so great. We managed to sample two modes of the game, a side-on view for controlling the submarine and a first person mode, where you control the periscope with the Nintendo 3DS’s built-in gyroscope.

The first, side-on mode sees players navigating a submarine through a 2D level. The controls were all based on the bottom screen, and offered multiple options when controlling the submarine. First of all, you can control the depth of the submarine using a vertical slider, with the speed being controller by a similar horizontal slider. There is a little time delay from when you slide to when the submarine actually reacts, however this is more likely a design choice to mimic the resistance of the water. Alongside these movement controls, you can tilt the submarine using the on-screen “steering wheel” to alter which way the submarine is pointing.

During this mode, there are several on-screen obstacles – in the level I played these included the actual sea bed itself, natural paraphernalia, boats on the surfaces and rocks (which can be destroyed by missiles). To add to the challenge, the submarine also has a limited supply of air and must surface to refill otherwise it is game over.

The second of potentially three modes, the first person mode, utilises the 3DS’s gyroscopic sensor. This mode took the form of a shooter that was carried out as if looking through the periscope of the submarine itself. The game required me to turn my body to change the view and fire missiles to sink oncoming ships. The 3D focus, thankfully, was not lost as I turned with it, however it would be lost if you were to turn without actually moving your body and only the 3DS. During this mode, the only on-screen controls are a zoom function, and a “duck” function to drop your submarine under water to avoid enemy fire. Going underwater allows you to see the underside of the nearby boats too.

The 3D effects were used in both modes of the game to make it easier to judge when to fire, and also used quite cleverly to give the ocean true depth. The second level of the demo also featured my submarine in a storm which was quite impressive visually.

To conclude, although Steel Diver is a little generic in its presentation, overall it was quite a blast to play. We urge you to give it a look despite its generic presentation.

Daniel Vuckovic

The Owner and Creator of this fair website. I also do news, reviews, programming, art and social media here. It is named after me after all. Please understand.