Funny, I thought exactly the same about Witcher 2.
Hydrophobia is a cute, little game with beautiful graphic and mediocre story, but it never promised anything spectacular, so I really fail to see how are you ripped off. Too much drama IMHO.

It retails for 10 bucks or more, for that you could get Icewind Dale complete off of GOG or a number of other games that are a ton more engaging and well done. FWIW Hydrophobia isn't a totally horrible experience, but it's like getting into the sack with a hot chick with a lot of talk about how great it'll be only to find out she's boring between the sheets.

The game doesn't really deserve the hype, I had originally recommended it personally based on some initial gameplay. I was later disappointed and even though most people don't give a crap what I think is good or not, wanted to retract my recommendation. I did, I didn't feel the gameplay was worth it or the game was worth the purchase if one had a limited gaming budget.

Dude, comparing it to the games here for ten bucks isn't fair as the games here originally retailed for 40-45 bucks. Even though they sell for 10 now that's not what they're worth in terms of gameplay and nostalgia.

It's a short game so it sells for 10, whereas longer games sell for more/etc.

Those are pretty bad comparisons orcishgamer. Feels like you don't quite know what you're saying. It's somewhat like listening to Brandon DiCamillo doing a prank call on CKY.

So true, GameRager. Many games here achieved highest possible peaks in success and glory, like no new game ever will. Haha imagine if Baldur's Gate came out today, they'd rip it into 10 games with 10.000.00 DLC's and it still wouldn't be as good. Ehhh, how I long to be young again.

Yeah. Plus Hydrophobia was already like $3 on sale.

It doesn't really matter how much the game cost to make or what somebody else paid for it. All that matters to my purchasing decisions are what I get for my money and what else I could be getting instead.

I can't aim with a gamepad at all. The only game that forced me to do that was GTA4 because driving was impossible with a keyboard and the auto-aim fucks with me all the time targeting always the guy far away from me instead of the one that I'm looking at and is killing me :S
Anyway, I don't see how a gamepad would make Hydrophobia any better, platforming and camera control is just fine with K/M. The problem is that the cover system is broken, sometimes you are on the edge of cover, press RMB to aim but it wont do anything unless you break from cover and try again. Also, as I said before, my biggest gripe with the game is 99% of the time I can't tell where I am being shot from. It may have something to do with the bland colors and how everything looks the same but I have trouble locating enemies. You can think it must only be my problem but I've played other 3rd person shooters with K/M like Resident Evil 5, Red Faction Guerrilla and I never had that problem.

You can turn auto-aim in GTA4 off, plus the complex reticule, which makes mouse aim a lovely experience. Also I thought driving with WASD was fine.

As for Hydrophobia I said that because the KBM controls were broken at launch for me, not because I thought it would generally be better with a gamepad. It might be fixed now, I don't know.

Yeah, I know a lot of people can't stand WASD driving. It never bothered me for some reason.

If it's your only 10 bucks for gaming that month then it's a fair comparison. However if you want to compare it to other titles in its category, you could pick up dozens of Live Arcade games at or around that price point with better gameplay (or on Steam if you prefer).

Defense Grid, Torchlight, the new Warhammer Kill Team one, Bastion (will probably be better), Limbo (if you missed it), the list goes on and on.

To many though 10 bucks is a bargain even for such short gameplay, when compared with titles as we've seen released for 50ish dollars with around 10-20 hours of play.

Just saying that for some it's worth it. :\

This may be a bit off-topic but I have this internal unwritten rule that says that any game I buy and play must provide about 2 usd an hour worth of game time. So either a game must be cheap and short or it can be long and expensive. I never buy FPS when they are brand new because most shooters these day are about 5 hours long. RPGs tend to provide the best bang for the buck.
I do agree that you can't compare Hydrophobia to games here on GoG because it's an invalid comparison. I picked up the game at the Steam sale for about 3 eu but haven't tried it yet. I'm not a huge fan of indie games because they may have some great innovative idea that are usually dragged down by other aspects of the game being broken. But even so I do tend to be more forgiving with an indie game with a 10usd price tag than with a AAA title with a 100mill budget.
As for money and games then clearly quality is important and not just bang pr hour but what do you guys think? Do you have an inner dollar pr hour ratio or does it come down to how much you want the game and reviews? (Clearly this only aplies to people who aren't loaded with money since if I were a rich person I wouldn't worry about this).

Here's the problem, Hydrophobia had 2 things going for it: water physics (which isn't enough to recommend it all on its own) and story. The story started out strong and they just flubbed it in the end with a clumsy To Be Continued (so far no word of any sequel), actually one of the worst handled TBCs I've ever seen.

So the length wasn't terribly long, but for 3-10 bucks probably long enough for most (but if you're pinching pennies, no, there's better titles in that price range, both new and old, better and with longer, engaging gameplay). But the quality just wasn't there, the gameplay in the demo leaves out any of the gunplay, only showing some of the platforming and story (platforming is average, but passable enough that folks would not have been turned off by any means), the latter seeming quite good. It's only once you buy it that you get to see all the ugly bits (or read reviews), such as the really clumsy gunplay and horrid ending (I might have waited for all parts to be released before buying if I knew it had such an ending, I would not have been alone, I'm sure).

So in the end, I felt like the game was misrepresented on several levels. When all parts were presented, and not just the best parts, the game seemed a whole lot more mediocre (or even subpar). But it retailed for 15 bucks originally (10 now is retail, though sales range from 3-5). The hours spent playing felt like a waste as well, with such an ending, I could have put my time into a dozen other games I haven't played yet that actually gave a crap about presenting a complete product.

Hydrophobia prophecy wasn't imo a bad game. Quite different and that was refreshing. It's short and not great but it is good.