It is the 27^th century and a New World built after a nuclear war leading to the destruction of the Earth's surface has been created.  The survivors have built this world in the depths of the oceans have now called it Aqua. A secret scientific experiment goes fatally wrong and has unforeseen consequences for the citizens of AQUA. Caverns that have been concealed before by the continental slopes and have been well hidden underneath the sea bottom are now collapsing and releasing horrifying monsters. These creatures are ancient gods that have been shut up as captives up to that moment. 

Nox is really a sequel to Archimedean Dynasty, which was a popular game about five years ago and has many devoted fans.  You are a mercenary Emerald "Dead Eye" Flint who is in dire need of a new ship and weapons after his vessel was stolen from him.  As you complete missions to save this new submerged world from the terrible monsters, you earn credits to buy new ships and weapons to aid you in your campaign. You can also sell equipment to get more credits to buy something else that may better assist you in the latter missions.

There are 30 campaign missions that have you following a story line that is very widespread.  Some of the missions are a bit short, but the last 10 or so a bit more extensive.  There are also 4 instant battle missions as well.  Gamers who like multi-player options will find modes on both LAN and Internet.  These games include deathmatch, and team-based with Internet based player matching.  There are over 40 different enemies and vicious undersea monsters.  There are 9 different underwater fighting vehicles with 18 or so different weapons (guns, torpedos, etc) that you can equip. 

Nox has not only raised the bar in the graphics department but pretty much obliterated it.  They are splendid.   Some technical features include, environmental effects like plankton, plants etc.  Photo realistic materials, radiosity lighting, reflections, shadows, etc.  Very impressive multi-colored volumetric fog effects, and an advanced physics engine.  Uniquely detailed 3-D graphics in a real-time richly rendered underwater world of steep mountain ranges, intricate caverns and glittering underwater cities. This means the graphics ROCK!  Unfortunately that’s about it.

The game though visually stunning had some faults in my opinion that I would like to address.  Yes, there are 5000 lines of text from 70 different characters. Sounds really involved, but you find yourself talking to everyone.  Many of which are totally meaningless and just plain time consuming.  The dialog is so long and drawn out that it just gets boring.  Too much talking and not enough shooting!  Not to mention the voice-overs or acting or what ever else you want to call it is lousy and annoying.  I have heard better acting and foreign accents at a 6^th grade play.  The missions are quite linear.  You sometimes have other members trying to help you out in the missions but you cannot assign them commands.  (What's the point of even bringing them along?)  The missions auto-end after completing the mission objectives.  Personally, I would have liked the option of be-bopping around a bit just to check out the beautiful environments a bit more closely. The interface is cumbersome at first because it is not entirely mouse driven.  You will have to arrow down and hit that enter button quite often.  I felt this was a backward step in technology, despite the giant leap in the visual department.  Each PC needs its own copy of the game and a CD Key even on a LAN.  Which by the way you need to type the CD Key in EVERY TIME you play the game.  (What's up with that)

Personally I have never played the predecessor AN, so the loyal fans may find this game just plain awesome.  Some forums have had mix reviews, but it looks as though most fans of the original were a bit disappointed.  For a $40 MSRP it's really a coin toss if it's worth it or not.  

Install: Medium-hard

Lengthy and you need a ton of HD space and newer PC with all the bells and whistles to enjoy this game to its fullest.  You also need to install Game Spy if you want to play via the Internet.  There are already patches that need to be downloaded to fix some bugs.

Gameplay: 7
Interface takes a bit of getting used to.  You have to type in the CD key EVERYTIME you play.

Graphics: 9
Finally a game utilizing the latest technology.

Sound: 6

Decent sound effects and music but the dialog and voice-overs could use some work

Difficulty: 9
You can toggle the settings to make it as difficult as you can handle and there is the ever so challenging human intelligence via multi-player

Concept: 7
Not too many underwater action games out there, basically an underwater first-person shooter.

Multiplayer: ?

Supported by Game Spy available but due to the freshness of the new game, not many people online when I tried to play, rooms were full or empty and regrettably was not able to play before time of review. Each PC needs its own disk and CD key to play on a LAN (disappointing)

Overall: 6.8
Multi CD's needed for LAN play, too much dialog which got to be quite boring. Graphics saved this rating.