Dive Alert (import version) review by Wilson

How does Dive Alert work?!! How do you play the game:

Dive Alert (DA) is one of the most original games I've seen for a while now. For those who thought this is an RPG, you are wrong. DA has some RPG elements in it, but this game is more like a submarine simulation. What is the game all about? I am not going to go into the background of the story, I think most people are more into how this game works. At the title screen, the player is given the options to start a new game or continue 1, just like a normal RPG. After that comes the usual dialog screens- the screen is divided into 2, bottom the dialog box, and on top the picture displays. Anyway, an event will take place, and will put the player against a few enemy ships, sort of like a pratice battle. After this, you will be able to play the game. The player will find himself at the Dock, where items are available for you to buy. There are 3 playable modes you can choose from in here, the story mode (where the player is on the journey to find the dry land), the battle mode (the player will be sent into battle with enemy subs, for experience and money gaining), and the mini-game (helps the player makes small bucks. content of it, I am not getting into). This is basically where the real game starts. As most people should know, battles are taken place in a "sonar senser" like screen. The player basically just have to shoot whatever weapons equiped on your sub at rival subs. There are 4 levels in the ocean, lv 1 being the surface, and lv 4 deep sea. The player will not be able to hit subs detected on ur screen that are not on ur level. That means if your sub is on the surface(lv1), you can see all rival subs on your screen, but you can only hit those that are on the same level as you. How do you know what level they are on? There is a number on every rival sub indicating the current level they are on. And you can know what level you are on by looking at the right side of the screen, you will see 3 blue boxes, and a yellow 1 indicating the level your sub is currently on. (check screen shot on the preview page.)

Gameplay: A+
The gameplay is very original, and fun at the same time. It really makes me feel like I am on a sub looking at the "sonar senser" style screen, it really adds a special feel to the game. It is kind of hard to start off, but very soon the player will get used to controlling the sub. A problem that the game has is that sometimes, the player will wonder if they are really moving. When the player controls the sub to move forward, there are no indications that you are moving at all, so I have to keep telling myself that even if it looks like I am not moving, I am actually leaping foward 1 step at a time... it discourages me sometime.

Sound: B
The sound effects... well, they are good enough. There arent that many sound going on in the game. Should there be? Its a submarine we are talking about.

Presentation: A+
Nice box cover art, for both versions. I personally like the Blue version more (or Burn... well, the male version). The menu was great, not only the arts, but I found it quite informative, certainly helps a player start off.

Overall: A+
Dive Alert is a very original game. It saves players from all the usual fighting games, sports games etc. A very refreshing game for not only NGP owners, but PS, DC owners as well. This is a must have for all NGP(C) owners, except if you are one of those fast action lovers type of player. It is slow, but it sure is fun.