The Adventure Continues...
The Abyss: Incident at Europa is a 1998 Survival Horror First-Person Shooter developed by Sound Source Interactive (mostly known for making licensed games), based on the 1989 film The Abyss by James Cameron.
The game is a sequel to the film, taking place six years afterwards. Protagonists Bud Brigman and Lindsey Brigman return to the Deepcore underwater platform responding to a distress call sent by the NTIs (Non-Terrestrial Intelligences) and discover that the crew of the station have been infected by a mutagenic virus and transformed into mindless mutants. The two of them must find a cure for the virus in order to save the world as well as the NTIs.
The game combines a first-person 3D perspective with 2D sprites and textures (similar to Doom) with puzzle-solving Action-Adventure elements, in a manner similar to games like Realms of the Haunting and Star Trek: Generations. The game's most notable gameplay element is the fact that enemies cannot be permanently killed, only knocked down for several seconds as your character is only armed with a stun weapon.
This video game provides examples of:
- Action Survivor: As in the film, Bud and Lindsey are civilian commercial divers, not soldiers, yet here they're going to have to survive through a zombie mutant outbreak.
- Anti-Frustration Features: If you fail to find the multicharger that upgrades your ammo capacity from 3 to 50 before leaving Deepcore for the NTI Ark (at which point you can't return to Deepcore), you can find another multicharger in the first closet you come across in the NTI Ark.
- Apocalyptic Log: You can find video tapes from human personnel on the Deepcore detailing the onset of the viral outbreak, while NTI memory orbs on the Ark and Europa Station give you the NTIs' record of what's happening.
- Cast of Snowflakes: Almost every mutant on Deepcore has a unique character model. You do get some repeating enemy sprites in the larger NTI Ark, which has a higher mutant population.
- Early Game Hell: The game starts with you armed with only a stun pistol that only holds a maximum of 3 rounds of ammo, with 2 shots being required to knock out a mutant. You'll often have to juke around mutants or otherwise accomplish your tasks while avoiding them. You can eventually find a multicharger in an out-of-the-way location that upgrades your ammo capacity to a much more useful 50, and later you'll find a stun rifle that knocks out regular mutants in 1 shot instead of 2, but since you'll still be unable to permanently kill the enemies you still need to be on your toes at all times.
- Elite Zombie: Mutated NTIs are tougher than mutanted humans and require twice as many shots to knock down. Fully mutated mutants (completely red flesh-blob humanoids with no remaining human features at all) as well as large mutants (rather resembling the Rumblers from System Shock 2) are outright immune to your stunner.
- Find the Cure!: The main objective of the game is to find a cure for the virus.
- Genre Shift: The original film was a science fiction story, while the game has a more straightforward horror plot.
- Guide Dang It!:
- The NTI Ark is a sprawling non-Euclidean maze and navigating through it can be very confusing, especially as there is no in-game map. The Europa station is likewise a confusing maze of indistinguishable non-Euclidean corridors.
- Some of the Spire activation control rooms in the NTI Ark are accessed via secret doors rather than the main force field door. If you don't know this you might think the force field doors are bugged because they flicker when the secret door opens but turn back on too quickly for you to go through.
- The game in general does a poor job of letting you know what your objectives are or what you're even trying to do. Playing through without a walkthrough generally involves the old 90's adventure game logic of attempting to interact with everything you find until something happens.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: You can restore a small amount of health by eating things like frozen chicken straight out of the meat locker or fruit that's laying on the floor. Eating seaweed restores a decent amount of health and is apparently a special healing seaweed cultivated by the NTIs.
- Immune to Bullets: The larger/more evolved mutants are immune to the stunner. Towards the end of the game you can find a Containment Field Projector that can immobilize them in a force field net.
- It Can Think: One log from a doctor attempting to diagnose the virus mentions that it appears to be intelligent. A later audio log by an NTI scientist indicates that they found the virus on an ancient starship in Europa's core and that the virus was sent by an unknown race and mutates any lifeform it contacts into their image.
- Late to the Party: By the time Bud and Lindsey arrive at Deepcore and later the NTI Ark, everyone has already mutated into mindless mutants, with the exception of a couple of uninfected NTIs who seem to have no ability to help contain the situation themselves.
- Pixel Hunt: It can be very hard to tell the difference between key items you need to pick up or interact with and random background objects, especially due to the ransacked state of most of the game's rooms.
- Red Shirt: Bud and Lindsey are accompanied by a military scout in the game's opening movie. Said scout manages to immediately get attacked, knocked out, and infected by a mutant less than a minute after setting foot on Deep Core. The player has to retrieve his weapon and take over from there.
- Static Role, Exchangeable Character: At the beginning of the game you choose between playing as Bud or Lindsey. Whichever character you pick, the other will remain aboard the sub as your Mission Control.
- Survival Horror: You start the game with very limited ammo capacity, enemies cannot be permanently killed and mostly must be juked or avoided, and healing items are quite rare and only restore a small portion of your health. Later in the game your ammo capacity is increased, but ammo recharge stations become much rarer and spaced further apart which combined with larger more open areas results in you needing to manage your ammo usage. In the final levels on Europa, there are no ammo recharges at all, and you'll have to do with what you had when you left the NTI Ark. There is a Containment Field Projector with slowly regenerating ammo, but it's in a hidden area that you have to find.
- Yet Another Stupid Death: If you try to fly the jumpship on the NTI Ark without lowering the hanger bay forcefield first (something which isn't made obvious), a cutscene plays in which you crash into the forcefield and explode, ending the game.
