In our ongoing weekly column spotlighting some of the secretly classic, kitschy, overlooked, or downright wack games in the vast Xbox library, we’re on a boat, for the derivative yet innovative Cold Fear. Read on for more about Ubisoft’s survival horror revelation and check out past Backtracking entries here.

Until the Xbox 360 rolled around and put an end to major third-party exclusives, Microsoft consoles and survival-horror games did not mesh well. Case in point; Capcom kept the Resident Evil franchise off of the original Xbox (but we really appreciated Genma Onimusha and Dino Crisis 3, you guys). As a result, there was little meat on the genre’s bones, as horror fans had to make do with substandard scares from the likes of Obscure and Curse: The Eye of Isis.

This wouldn’t have been a huge bother had the genre fallen down the drain it had been circling for years. After the first three Resident Evil classics, the standard bearer for survival horror began to show its age as spin-off semi-sequels like Code Veronica, Resident Evil Zero, and the unloved online Outbreak series brought in fewer and fewer fans to the fray. While original Xbox’s horror-deficiency was noticeable throughout its lifespan, it became far more apparent come January 2005, once Resident Evil 4 released.

With so many major titles that have released in the following seven-plus years, it’s easy to overlook how revolutionary Resident Evil 4 was. The control scheme was much more intuitive, the Spanish-set visual style was strikingly different (but just as scary) as the Raccoon City-based entries, and the story kicked up the action elements to temper the franchise’s overbearing gloomy horror. It single-handedly saved the survival horror genre and changed how many viewed the Nintendo GameCube (the game’s then-exclusive home). While the Xbox had spent the first three years of its existence as the “mature” home console, Resident Evil 4 blurred the lines, and once again made Capcom’s survival-horror franchise the top third-party exclusive in gaming (since the Xbox circa-2005 was already home to entries in the Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto franchises). The previous console generation’s powerhouse (the PlayStation 2) soon received a version of Resident Evil 4 all its own. A few months later, the Xbox received the closest approximation it would ever get to Resident Evil 4: the Darkworks-developed, Ubisoft-published Cold Fear.

Released in March of 2005, the short time difference between Resident Evil 4 and Cold Fear may lead you to believe the games were developed in tandem, but don’t be fooled; RE4’s many delays gave Darkworks plenty of time to catch up with Capcom’s biggest game in years. While RE4 was developed in the public eye, Cold Fear was developed in relative anonymity as the team at Darkworks hadn’t put out a game since 2001’s Alone in the Dark: A New Nightmare (which was that genre-starting franchise’s first attempt to cash in on Resident Evil’s breakthrough). When Cold Fear came to pass, its similarities were all the more striking.

The biggest common thread between Fear and Evil was the over-the-shoulder third-person shooting system that offered a great deal more versatility in combat than the tank-style control scheme utilized in past horror titles. Like Leon Kennedy, Cold Fear protagonist Tom Hansen’s weaponry is enhanced with laser sights to best acclimate shooter fans to this new form of gunplay. Unfortunately, the camera systems at play in Cold Fear were not as fit to contain the action as Resident Evil 4, as both options (over-the-shoulder and cinematic) shifted too wildly during the non-combat portions of the game.

Unfortunately, the issue was likely tied to the game’s greatest (and most innovative) strength — its locale. The whaling ship infested with parasitic “exocell” creatures not only offered tons of cramped confines fit for quick scares, it added an element of tension that extended beyond the enemies, as the environment on the ship’s deck was just as deadly as the enemies. With the stop-affected ship prone to frequent shifts that adversely affected Hansen’s balance, traversal was made tougher and combat extremely tense. As much as the laser sight aided in combat, aiming through a downpour while dealing with the potential of the current tossing you overboard brought the tension to a level few horror games could ever aspire to.

Unfortunately, for all the good the game’s biggest innovation brought to the table, the rest of Cold Fear was either too derivative of the Resident Evil franchise (read: the enemies) or inexplicably lacking (how does a CIA-ordered Coast Guard not have access to the map of a large tanker ship?!), which ultimately sunk Darkworks' haunted ship.

The game’s legacy has floated to the surface in recent weeks, however, given recent events. Resident Evil: Revelations, the most significant entry to the franchise’s canon in three years, takes place on a ship (though in Capcom’s defense, the 2001 Game Boy Color survival horror entry Resident Evil Gaiden took place on a cruise ship, even if it didn’t utilize the environment). And Darkworks’ only post-Cold Fear project — one they were taken off development two years ago, but started development on nonetheless — is due to release in less than a month. Here’s hoiping the innovation apparent in I Am Alive won’t be as coolly received as Ubisoft’s last foray into survival horror.

(Cold Fear is available pre-owned at GameStop for $6, but it’s not playable on the Xbox 360 via backwards-compatibility. However, you could download Resident Evil 4 HD to your console and play it while on a cruise ship for similar results.)