Back in May I was lucky enough to get invited to the Gamerscore Blog Road Tour in Toronto. One of the XBLA titles they were showing off was Undertow. Going into the event, I had drooled over all the fantastic screens, but came out of the event somewhat disappointed with how the action blended into the background, making it difficult to know what was going on. While it has been a short three months since that day, I can gladly say, the problem has been solved...mostly.

If you pause Undertow in the middle of the action it is still difficult to distinguish the main character from his surrounding. Luckily, unlike the last time I saw the title, that's the only time you can see the problem. To be honest, I couldn't really tell what Chair Entertainment changed, but on the level I was able to play, I had next to no troubles making the distinction.

The level I played consisted of my character, in full scuba gear, fighting alongside about 100 of my colleagues against about an equal amount of enemies. There were two ways to complete the level, either take out all of the baddies, or control all three checkpoints at one time. The promise of both online and offline cooperative play, will certainly add to the experience.

When this game finally does come out, I worry that people are only going to be talking about the graphics. While the graphics are head and shoulders better than anything currently on, or coming any time soon to XBLA, it does so many other things well too. Building on the Unreal Engine 3, Chair Entertainment have pulled out all the stops with a game that looks better and better every time I see it.

All in all, getting to play the game again has certainly put my two main fears to rest. The game seems to no longer suffer from action blending with the background, and it certainly looks to be far more than just a graphically showpiece. If the multiplayer component is up to the same standard as what I've played so far, I can see myself putting many hours into Undertow. Possibly even enough to get 10,000 kills. :)