Deep Blue is an underwater shooter

Shooter game

Shooter games are a sub-genre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon. Usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon". A common...

 video game created in 1989 by NEC

NEC

, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....

 for the TurboGrafx-16

TurboGrafx-16

TurboGrafx-16, fully titled as TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem and known in Japan as the , is a video game console developed by Hudson Soft and NEC, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, and in North America on August 29, 1989....

. In it, you control a submersible

Submersible

A submersible is a small vehicle designed to operate underwater. The term submersible is often used to differentiate from other underwater vehicles known as submarines, in that a submarine is a fully autonomous craft, capable of renewing its own power and breathing air, whereas a submersible is...

 fighter shaped as a Freshwater angelfish that must fight through waves of mutated marine life.

Story

A hostile alien presence has descended upon the Earth's waters. Using their own bacteria, the aliens have infected and mutated numerous deep sea and marine life forms causing them to enlarge and to follow every alien command. The aliens use their infected marine life to attack the shores of the Earth's continents, initiating an invasion from the deep. Alone, players control the Earth's only defense against the attack, the A.N.G.E.L. Fish Attack Sub.

Gameplay

As far as shooters go, Deep Blue was a basic horizontal scrolling shooter: players collected power-ups and different weapons to fight their numerous enemies with. Players were able to scale up and down the screen allowing them more space amongst levels. What differentiates Deep Blue from most however is the challenge the controls feature: the player's Angel Fish is extremely slow while most of its enemies are incredibly fast.

Players were given a chance at survival as the Angel Fish took a few hits before exploding (or imploding in this case) as the ship's energy was gauged by the color of its 'eyes'; The eyes of the ship start out a solid blue, but when damaged, the eyes blink blue until going to green, then yellow and red. Players would also lose any and all power-ups once damaged by an enemy and 90% of the enemies used kamikaze

Kamikaze

The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....

methods, so agility was very crucial to survival.

Weapons

Pulse Bullet - The sub's default fire-arm, it is a weak, but quick firing weapon. Proffered as a brown circle resembling a fish-egg.

Bubble Beam - A long beam of strong bubbles that can be extended depending on the longer the fire button is held down. Proffered as a blob of purple bubbles.

Swirl Cutter - The strongest of the three weapons, but also the slowest firing. Proffered as a green vortex.

Power-Ups

Healing Power - Fully increase the strength of the player's sub, proffered as a circle of brown reefs.

Speed Power - A green, V shaped object that drastically increases the speed of the player's sub.