Titanic

I remember coming to my dad's computer in the nineties, launching something from a floppy disk, and waiting to see what would appear. This game had a simple premise: you take a diver, throw him in the water, and somehow he has to survive down there. Sounds dumb? It does. And yet it worked.

Titanic by Spanish studio Topo Soft is an action platformer set — as the name suggests — in the underwater environment around the infamous wreck. The Spaniards from Topo Soft were quite prolific back then, supplying the European market with games for Spectrum, Amstrad, and MSX that didn't have big budgets but occasionally surprised. The MS-DOS version from 1991 is one of the later ports of this title.

The game is divided into two major parts. In the first, you navigate underwater caverns, fight sea creatures, and collect oxygen just to survive to the next screen. A harpoon is your only weapon, and don't rely too much on accuracy — here it's more about getting close and hoping for the best. The second part brings you closer to the wreck itself, where obstacles pile up and things get complicated. Managing oxygen while aiming at attacking fish requires a certain kind of concentration that therapists today would probably call unhealthy.

What the game delivered was a pretty solid sense of underwater claustrophobia at the time. The diver's movement is stiff, the controls respond with a delay that was normal back then but will frustrate you now. The graphics in the DOS version aren't impressive by 1991 standards either — Topo Soft were never visual revolutionaries. Still, the game has its charm: the slow, tense progression through dark tunnels with bass-heavy music humming in the background. This aged surprisingly well. What aged worse is the lack of any progress indicator and occasional hitbox inconsistencies. You died without knowing why. Back then you accepted it, today it will test your patience.

Today Titanic appeals to those who enjoy short retro sessions with a clear-cut challenge and don't need the game to hold their hand through every step. It's a solid piece of European gaming from the turn of the eighties and nineties that never became something big, but did its time honestly. If you played it back then on Spectrum or CPC, the DOS version will feel familiar. If not, it's an interesting document of what underwater action looked like before Ecco the Dolphin took it over and made it a nightmare.