never played it on xbox (dont have one) but the pc version i think is really good and worth buying (its not that expensive anyway)

Also not having any problems with the mouse seems to be working ok for me.

I'm really enjoying it. It plays and looks like a big budget game if you ask me, but was only $10. It's probably short, but still... great value here. The water effects blow me away and the lighting ain't bad either. Lots of good PC options in the video settings. V-synch caused my mouse issue, but I found out I prefer the pad anyway.

The story is somewhat weak, but the gameplay so far is excellent. Tomb Raider style climbing with some of the best swimming ever in a game. I just got to the part with guns and it seems pretty solid there too. I know you eventually get water powers of some kind.

Not sure what the problems were with the Xbox version, I heard something about controls and getting lost. The controls work perfectly for me and you can choose to have a waypoint on the screen all the time now, or as I chose you can have it only on the menu screen. Great game!

From what I've seen, the original Xbox version (before they updated it) was much more of a mess than what you see today.

And today we are judging recently released PC version.

Which is awesome. (the game, not the judging)

Somehow I missed this thread. I finished Hydrophobia and it's a To Be Continued downer of an ending. Given how much they seem into re-releasing the original I'm not sure they'll ever finish (one article mentioned a re-worked ending in some versions).

Also, the demo used to not include any gunplay (and still probably doesn't), this is good for the demo because the gunplay is "meh" at best and honestly relatively weak. I used the starter gun the entire game because it was the best one (and it blew chunks).

This game has excellent water physics and fairly entertaining platforming. The demo makes you feel hectic like you'll be fighting the clock to survive a lot but really there's very few sections like this.

It's a rather mediocre game and I'm sorry to have recommended it at full price. If you find a sale for 5 bucks or less it might be worth your time.

Bah IMo it's destined to become a niche classic. :) Give it time....even Penumbra started with a somewhat weak(compared to the other parts) first installment.

No, it's mediocre. I played it on Live and was royally pissed at the ending. Go ahead and google it (you won't be spoiling much) and ask yourself if that's a game you want to play.

The water physics are great, go ahead and play the demo to see them.
Well since the story remains unfinished, only one of the major plot points has been revealed (and it's minor as they get), and the whole to be continued thing is still hanging out there, yeah it's got time.

I bought it on sale and still feel ripped off.

Thing is it's breaking into alot of new areas in terms of gameplay so of course it should be allowed a BIT of slack(empahsis on just a bit).....to see where it goes.

For the sake of argument, what do you think was so new about it? All I saw was an engine with really nice water physics with a standard platformer/shooter game with what started out as a nice storyline that they just threw out the window at the end with a TBC. So if there was something new or innovative that I missed, I'm happy to hear it, maybe I would change my mind, so far I'm mostly irritated though.

To me innovative is something other than the shlock we get from the big studios constantly. And yes the water based gameplay is a big part of that. Not saying you shouldn't be upset....just that IMO it'll get better with time if another part is released.

And not to point just at you but that's something I don't get with people these days...lamenting the ingenuity of the past and wanting something if even just a tad different then when something tries to push the envelope it gets nitpicked to death and thus risks the chance of dying before it even gets a chance to flourish properly while killing off various projects that could bring new or newish gameplay and such to the table given time.

As I said Penumbra Part 1 is awkward in parts and not the most polished of the series but it led to the other two parts of the trilogy AND Amnesia's style of play. This could lead to great things too.

I bought it on Steam for like $3 and I feel a little ripped off. The game starts good, it has good platforming and the water physics are nice but not ground breaking. The bad part starts the moment you pick up a gun. The Aiming and cover mechanics feel off and often I couldn't even tell from where I was being shot at and died. This has never been an issue for me with any other 3rd person shooter.
Then you get your water powers but the controls were awkward so I decided not to use them much. Shortly after you get the water powers there is a boss fight and the game ends abruptly.
I had fun at times but I can hardly recommend it to others because of frustrating controls.

You have to play it with a gamepad.

Since I played it with a gamepad all the way through I can assure you the shooting doesn't get any better just by switching to gamepad. The platforming works fine with one, as you might expect. The cover system is off a bit on the XBox 360 version, your character gets stuck on cover at times and can't always aim around the side if the angle isn't at or near 90 degrees. Sometimes you'll vault low cover when you didn't mean to, which can get you killed (not that death is any big thing, the worst spot in the game only has you replaying 5 minutes of content, tedious but not hard).

As well, aiming at a distance isn't terrible fine grained, you'll often end up hitting a railing that in code is way thicker than the its display (walkway railings are everywhere), so it becomes really hard to shoot someone in the legs or chest, even though you should be able to do so.
I'm not criticizing their ingenuity, if they'd finished the story or at least wrapped up a good bit of it I'd be much happier. The writing actually started off good, i.e. you give a crap, which is better than most games manage these days. The water physics were good. The tension was good in places (needed more work, but the potential was there).

The problem is they petered out at the end on the good parts, leaving you with a title that's mediocre at the things you're used to and fairly bare bones at anything that might have been different or interesting.

In effect, Hydrophobia, to me, is an illustration of what could have been but ended up not being.

I never did finish Penumbra (need to go back to it) but I actually thought the part of it I did play was really awesome.

Since I played it all the way through with a gamepad I can assure you I thought it was fine ;)

Did they improve the PC version's ending?

SPOILER
This is the ending from the 360 version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuktxKUXIss