Hydrophobia (video game)/YMMV

• Author's Saving Throw: The developers, after picking a large fight with the negative reviewers, conceded to the flaws in their game. They released a massive patch for the game to address the major issues, created a newer, more intense demo, reduced the price, and then remade and re-released the game.
• Cliché Storm: Lots of this game is taken wholesale from other games, Tomb Raider and BioShock (series) being the most obvious ones, and played straight.
• Genius Bonus: The terrorists call themselves the Malthusians, after English economist Thomas Robert Malthus, who is known for his theories about the dangers of populations growth.^[1]

"We also wanted to make our terrorists real; to stand for something, not just to be game cannon fodder. It's about treating gamers as intelligent, well-informed people." -- Pete Jones

• Nightmare Fuel: The premise. You are trapped belowdecks on a sinking ship full of trigger-happy gun-wielding terrorists while all kinds of electricity and oil (sometimes combined) are being spat out by the damaged vessel. Got that? Good. Now get moving, you've got a ship to save!
• That One Boss: There's only one boss, and it's not that forgiving or intuitive. The only hint you get is that the ports on the side are targets. It doesn't tell you how to damage them, much less what to do after that. Thankfully, the boss is a pushover once you actually get the pattern down.
  • That One Attack: Do NOT stand out in the open when the grenades are flying.

1. ↑ "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." -- Thomas Malthus, 'An essay on the principle of population'