Giants: underated original brilliance (Giants - Citizen Kabuto (PC))

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Product:	Giants - Citizen Kabuto (PC)
Date:	05/09/01 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Original, Beautiful, Varied gameplay

Disadvantages: Quite difficult, Needs high-end PC, A bit odd!

Giants:Citizen Kabuto is one of those rare games that garners crticial acclaim yet fails to sell through at retail. Every time I visit CEX in London's Tottenham Court Road, there is a stack of Giants games, unsold and unloved.

I've owned a copy of the game for months, but it looked a bit weird and sat on my shelf gathering dust. I just got a new video card, a Geforce 2 Ultra, and had heard that Giants was power-hungry so it seemed like a good time to try it out.

The first thing that surprised me was the off-beat humour and regional English accents that the Meccs and Smarties have during the cut-scenes. The missions are quite varied, but very action orientated, which makes a change from the usual unit-building RPG games. I think this is where Giants slipped through the net, it can't be easily classified by a particular genre. You can play the game using 1st or 3rd person views, which immediately confuses classification. There's isn't much resource building, there is lots of action but even this is varied.

Some missions require a subtle approach, using natural cover, shielding and a sniper gun. Other missions are better tackled head-on, charging Reaper Barracks before you are overwhelmed. Weapons like the machine gun and grenades come in very useful during full-on battles.

The enemies are a great bunch, the reapers are like the bugs in the Starship Troopers film, whilst the Sea-Reapers are sort of fishy men with big guns. Then you have the Evil-Reapers, Kabuto and his offspring, etc. Kabuto is a giant creature who gives his name to the game.

The game is played in three stages, starting with the Meccs, who are humans on the way to planet Majorca for a lads holiday. They crash land and lose a crew member, who you have to find. During this you become involved with the native Smarties, rescuing a young smartie from the evil Reapers who have enslaved the island. You get to play a dozen Mecc missions, and t
hen the giant Kabuto creature, followed by Delphi who is a good sea reaper. Playing with three differenc characters isn't new, MDK2 did this very well, but in Giants it introduces varied gameplay.

I liked the Mecc and Delphi missions the most, Kabuto is a bit hard to control.

Something else I should mention is the game environment, which takes places on several huge island. Giants has some of the best graphics I've ever seen in a PC game (and I've played loads). The islands are beautifully rendered in glorious detail and colour, with whispy clouds across a multi-coloured sky. Sun flare is blindingly bright, really adding to the feeling of "being there". Playing this game at 1600x1200x32bit resolution on my 19" monitor was a real treat.

The animation of the enemies is very good, and gives each enemy class a distinctive character. If you use the sniper rifle and zoom to maximum distance, you'll appreciate the work that Planet Moon put into the environments. Sea-Reaper walk around watchtowers, Evil-Reapers sit glowing, Reapers tunnel under the dirt. Leaves on the trees move in the breeze and the sky is beautiful.

You'll need a powerful rig to get the most from this game. I can't really comment on how low you could go, but my old Geforce 2MX video card did struggle even with my 900mhz Athlon processor.

Since I got the Geforce 2 Ultra I can run at max resolution with all details turned on, no slowdown or clipping - it just looks great.

Overall, it's a very original game, which explains it's lack of sales. Games that can't easily be classified as 1st person shooter or Gran Turismo clone don't tend to sell very well. I would be interested to see the sales figure for this game?

If you have a powerful PC and are looking for an original, creative, beautiful game then check out Giants. You can find it for £15 second hand so it won't set you back the Ea
rth. Just be prepared for a tough time as it's a tough game and you'll end up replaying some levels many times. But the experience is very good, so it drags you back for another go. Highly recommended.

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