The best (and one of the only) RTS games I could be bothered to play!! (Hostile Waters PC (PC))

Member Name:

Product:	Hostile Waters PC (PC)
Date:	25/05/01 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very different, great action/rts balance, beautiful graphics and AI

Disadvantages: Quite tough, need a ninja PC, Can be repetitive

I've bought some RTS games in the past that got great critical acclaim. Recently I got Homeworld : Cataclysm which looked beautiful but I couldn't really get to grips with. Even following the tutorial, I don't really understand what's going on?

Hostile Water is very different in that you play it as an action game, either from an overhead, isometric style map viewpoint, or controlling vehicles from a great 3rd person view.

The story is simple but workable..war has ended and peace reigns. A couple of ex-generals decide to start a new war to take control of the planet, and you are brough in to relearn the art of war. You start with a robotic aircraft carrier, that has a nanotechnology engine that can build vehicles from pure energy. If you remember the superb "Carrier Command" on the old Amiga computer, you'll feel right at home.

Hostile Waters is easy to get to grips with, with a couple of tutorials that explain how things work. Very central to gameplay is collecting energy to build new vehicles. You can also collect old technology that you find on missions, analyse it and use it for yourself. You recycle scrap metal and broken vehicles using a tank that has a recycling laser. You can fly the tank into action using a lifting helicopter. You have other vehicles like combat helicopters and combat hovercrafts.

As well as being able to manufacture new vehicles, you have a supply of AI chips that contain the personalities of dead soldiers, a bit like Rogue Trooper from the 2000AD comic. These chips are quite chatty and will complain if you install them into the wrong kind of vehicle for their expertise.

Combat is fast and furious, as you attack some heavily defended structures littered with ak-ak guns and missile-firing apache helicopters. The controls are a bit vague at times, and make combat a bit infuriating, but overall the vehicles fly/drive well. You can choose the control your vehicles from t
he map screen, and Rage boast that you can complete the game without ever taking control of a vehicle directly. I'm not sure about this as I've lost plenty of AI controlled vehicles to enemy fire.

As you progress through the game you start getting to grips with controlling your troops, and things start to make sense. The missions can get repetitive unless you save at critical points. The game is quite hard, and you'll often have to tackle a mission in several different ways before finding a solution. The enemy bases are so heavily defended that you might have to try each mission 50 times before breaking through.

The missions are quite different which keeps you interested..a great mission involved defending your aircraft carrier from enemy bomber and gunships whilst it sat in a drydock. During the mission prior to this, you find an automated gun turret technology which you can conveniently use in the drydock mission..handy!

Hostile Waters : Anateus Rising (to use the full name - anateus is your aircraft carrier) is very different to other RTS games I've played. It's fast, furious, well coded and boasts an engaging story. The graphics are the usual Rage feast (if you've seen their driving games you'll know what I'm talking about) and put any other RTS to shame. Proper 3D graphics instead of crappy isometric bitmaps..lovely! Explosions are suitably colourful, shadowing and lighting is stunning. You'll need a hefty PC to get the most, my Athlon 900/Geforce 2GTS/256mb copes very well but it didn't run too smoothly on my friend's K6-500/Voodoo 2/64mb.

Highly recommend, especially if you're sick of Command& Conquer clones.

Summary: