Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising

Rating:
Summary: The best RTS ever, bar none, Awesome!!!!!
Review: Antaeus Rising is an EXCELLENT game. I give it a 5 of 5. Undoubtably the BEST Real Time Strategy (RTS) game I have ever played. Better than Starcraft or Total Annihilation. It has very addictive and fun gameplay. This game came with very little "hype" because it doesn't need any. The entire scene is beautiful, except in bad weather and dark nights, which do not last the entire mission. The rain and lightning is strikingly realistic. All the units are easy and fun to control. You can switch to "War room" to give units orders with the game paused. The Artificial Intellegence (AI) is excellent, the best that I have seen, and being also an "action" genre gamer I have seen alot. There are dozens of missions giving around 100 hours of initial gameplay. There was however 1 mission I did NOT like: a one-on-one mission with a hovercraft (me) and an "alien" "cargo loader" which was very difficult and I did not understand what I was supposed to do. I used a cheat which I found on the internet ... to skip the mission. The game frame rate is good at 1024X768 with 16 bit color (I have a PIII 500 W/384MB no win98 swap file (no "Virtual memory"), Riva TNT (1st) AGP, 7200RPM HD). The game is as good as Deus Ex (which is action/adventure/RPG genre). It has replayability, I am replaying it a second time now. I am looking forward to a sequel.

Details: Mission objectives often change during the mission to reflect newly acquired info. Mission objectives are NOT just the standard "Destroy", "rescue", and "gather resources". It has a strong story line ... explained well with very good sound with GOOD voice acting (Brittish accent) and are NOT cheesy. The only part not narrated with audio is the mission debriefings, which can be ignored if you like. Speaking of sound, the game sound is awesome (I have a "Soundblaster live! X-Gamer 5.1" and "Altec Lansing ADA-880" speakers with subwoofer). The explosions shake the house, the unit sounds are realistic, and the stereo surround effect is excellent and the pitch of other units (other than the current one) changes with location to reflect hills, canyons, and distance. There is a night vision toggle which allows a green-and-white view of everything, and it is NOT unrealistically clear. If it is used during daytime, it is very hard to see anything. The AI does have a few glitches, but is still the best I have seen. The glitches are limited to getting stuck in a few places where the land becomes too steep (perhaps this is realistic?), and when ground units move they tend to move in only one of the four basic directions at a time instead of diagonal. Also attacking cloakable units will not cloak between firing rounds, they will only cloak when specifically ordered to, and cannot fire without decloaking. Everything is beautifully rendered, including clouds and explosions: unit or ordinance. The missiles have smoke trails which quickly fade away. The snow looks real, and vehicles make tracks on it (which quickly fade away). Weapon damage causes black spots on the target, which fade away also. Attacking helocopters do not just sit still and fire, they perform evasive maneuvers while firing. Units can be given up to ten (I think) orders to perform in sucession, and includes a good waypoint system which works well. Some of the cinematics between the missions are a bit wierd, but not cheesy. The only other thing I did not like about the game was the inability to read pilot proficiences and background. This is very briefly outlined in a screen which only shows when the between-mission cinematic are loading, and my computer is very fast, so I only have about five seconds to read several sentences (insufficient time). Other than that, the pilots do speak their minds (actually verbally spoken) when assigned to a unit, which gives you an idea of what they might be good at. Some people (me) might prefer to turn off the swearing (an option is provided, defaults to on), they do use the ... word.

Rating:
Summary: The best RTS ever, bar none, Awesome!!!!!
Review: Antaeus Rising is an EXCELLENT game. I give it a 5 of 5. Undoubtably the BEST Real Time Strategy (RTS) game I have ever played. Better than Starcraft or Total Annihilation. It has very addictive and fun gameplay. This game came with very little "hype" because it doesn't need any. The entire scene is beautiful, except in bad weather and dark nights, which do not last the entire mission. The rain and lightning is strikingly realistic. All the units are easy and fun to control. You can switch to "War room" to give units orders with the game paused. The Artificial Intellegence (AI) is excellent, the best that I have seen, and being also an "action" genre gamer I have seen alot. There are dozens of missions giving around 100 hours of initial gameplay. There was however 1 mission I did NOT like: a one-on-one mission with a hovercraft (me) and an "alien" "cargo loader" which was very difficult and I did not understand what I was supposed to do. I used a cheat which I found on the internet ... to skip the mission. The game frame rate is good at 1024X768 with 16 bit color (I have a PIII 500 W/384MB no win98 swap file (no "Virtual memory"), Riva TNT (1st) AGP, 7200RPM HD). The game is as good as Deus Ex (which is action/adventure/RPG genre). It has replayability, I am replaying it a second time now. I am looking forward to a sequel.

Details: Mission objectives often change during the mission to reflect newly acquired info. Mission objectives are NOT just the standard "Destroy", "rescue", and "gather resources". It has a strong story line ... explained well with very good sound with GOOD voice acting (Brittish accent) and are NOT cheesy. The only part not narrated with audio is the mission debriefings, which can be ignored if you like. Speaking of sound, the game sound is awesome (I have a "Soundblaster live! X-Gamer 5.1" and "Altec Lansing ADA-880" speakers with subwoofer). The explosions shake the house, the unit sounds are realistic, and the stereo surround effect is excellent and the pitch of other units (other than the current one) changes with location to reflect hills, canyons, and distance. There is a night vision toggle which allows a green-and-white view of everything, and it is NOT unrealistically clear. If it is used during daytime, it is very hard to see anything. The AI does have a few glitches, but is still the best I have seen. The glitches are limited to getting stuck in a few places where the land becomes too steep (perhaps this is realistic?), and when ground units move they tend to move in only one of the four basic directions at a time instead of diagonal. Also attacking cloakable units will not cloak between firing rounds, they will only cloak when specifically ordered to, and cannot fire without decloaking. Everything is beautifully rendered, including clouds and explosions: unit or ordinance. The missiles have smoke trails which quickly fade away. The snow looks real, and vehicles make tracks on it (which quickly fade away). Weapon damage causes black spots on the target, which fade away also. Attacking helocopters do not just sit still and fire, they perform evasive maneuvers while firing. Units can be given up to ten (I think) orders to perform in sucession, and includes a good waypoint system which works well. Some of the cinematics between the missions are a bit wierd, but not cheesy. The only other thing I did not like about the game was the inability to read pilot proficiences and background. This is very briefly outlined in a screen which only shows when the between-mission cinematic are loading, and my computer is very fast, so I only have about five seconds to read several sentences (insufficient time). Other than that, the pilots do speak their minds (actually verbally spoken) when assigned to a unit, which gives you an idea of what they might be good at. Some people (me) might prefer to turn off the swearing (an option is provided, defaults to on), they do use the ... word.

Rating:
Summary: the futur in an action-strategy game
Review: considered by most not to be a good game. but a closer look at the game by those that have the time and brains will reveal a few very remarkeble things:
the story in the game is that sometime in 2011-2012 their was some kind of war for peace ageced the old rulers of the wold. afterwords the wold had settled into some kind of peace for twenty years. in 2032 missles hit the capitle and antaeus00 is reactivated...
at first look you would say "what?! peace in 2012? it would take one milion years for their to be wold peace on this planet!!!" but if you look at it in a different way it actualy dous seem to be possible!
take a look at a few facts:
1)females do not tend to be as violet as males do, after all men are the ones that are controlling this wold in such a violent way.
2)they use nanotechnology, microscopic robots that can change matter. with this method they can creat anything from nothing! monny becomes rothless in a wold where tou can easily turn garbudge into gold!!!

3)the controll of the earth, if their are no rulers over the world it means that it is not devited into contries. if the land dose not belong to anyone most of the resones for war are defieted.
takeing all that is obove in conclusion world peace seems to be much closer that "one milion years"!!!

i say that someone will take thees ideas seriosly and verry soon we all will be fieting for world peace. than i will know that this message has reached the right hands.
sincerly
shlomo

Rating:
Summary: Don't let the same happen over there!
Review: Hostile Waters has already been released here in Europe (almost a month ago now). Quite simply, this is one of the best games of all time. Every segment of this game - the helicopter piloting, the tank driving, the tactial planning and resource management - would have worked on its own. Combined with everything else, this makes for an astonishingly varied, complex and never less than entertaining masterpiece.

The problem is that it's not selling well here, largely ignored by a public more interested in flashy ad campaigns and big-breasted heroines than genuinely great games. Don't let the same happen over there in the States, and buy this game as soon as it's released!

Rating:
Summary: A great game
Review: Only the lack of multiplayer and a bit difficult doesn't give it 5 stars

Rating:
Summary: A memorable game which is almost a classic
Review: There have been quite a few "first-person strategy" games over the last three years or so. The whole genre started with Battlezone and Uprising, and continued in 2000 with Dark Reign 2 and Ground Control. And now, we have Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising.

If you've played any of the previously mentioned games, you'll feel right at home with this one. So what exactly sets this one apart from the rest of the pack? The biggest difference is the moderately well-written storyline. Obviously, Warren Ellis put some thought into it, because instead of setting his storyline in an apocalyptic post-nuclear world, he sets his story in a post-21st century utopia. Which is a pleasant surprise...and much needed considering recent tragic events.

The interface is also very well thought out, but does require a bit of time to master. The result however, is probably the best (and easy to use) interface for a first-person-strategy game to date. A few quick keystrokes, and you can command other pilots to act as your wingmen, or command them to attack a target of your choice.

Most of the missions are of the bog-standard "kill everything that moves" variety. That's fine by me, as I never excel very well at defence or espionage missions.

You get some pretty neat units and weapons in the latter half of the game. Some examples include the Rhino and Behemoth tanks, which can be outfitted with devastating artillery cannons. An EMP cannon, which can be used to quickly disable enemy turrets. And a super-flamethrower, which can be used to, quite literally, burn down buildings.

The hardware requirements for this game are quite steep. I played this game on my old Pentium III 550MHz and had to use low details on the final missions. However, I've also played this game on my new Athlon 2000+ XP, and I can play it on the highest detail levels without even slowing down. So anyone with a PC faster than 1GHz won't have a problem running this game.

I've owned this game for almost two years now, and I'm delighted to say that I'm still having fun playing it. It's unfortunate that Hostile Waters wasn't more popular when it was first released, because this game from Rage Software is a definite classic.

Rating:
Summary: The first classic game of the millenium
Review: This game has been on UK release for about a month. I bought it along with black and white(which does not match its hype).Hostile does,combining strategy and action in a manner never seen in a game before. The game play is captivating,the graphics and engine are unreal. The most original and addictive game I've played for a long time,if you love strategies,you'll love it .If you love action and fantastic realistic graphics,you'll love it. Don't take my word for it,it was the most highly acclaimed game(even above black and white)this side of the pond,so as you guys say,"enjoy".

Rating:
Summary: Best game since Deus Ex...
Review: This might just be one of the best games I've ever played (and I've been playing since the Atari 2600). It has quite a steep learning curve but once you get into it, it is just plain awesome. You play the captain of a battleship type craft and you are given different objectives to complete as you make your way along a stretch of islands. The story is kind of an afterthought (something about the world being in total peace and then a group of CEO's start a war against an unsuspecting planet that has forgotten how to fight?) Anyway, the most enjoyable part of the game for me was assigning my crew. Each person under your command has his or her own personality and strengths. The people aren't just throwaway clones. You really get attached to each character. During the battles you get constant updates from them and you have to decide what their next move will be. It's just a very complex game and once you master it, it becomes quite a satisfying experience. Defiantly pick this game up if you haven't already... This game might be a sleeper but it's tons of fun.

Rating:
Summary: Best game since Deus Ex...
Review: This might just be one of the best games I've ever played (and I've been playing since the Atari 2600). It has quite a steep learning curve but once you get into it, it is just plain awesome. You play the captain of a battleship type craft and you are given different objectives to complete as you make your way along a stretch of islands. The story is kind of an afterthought (something about the world being in total peace and then a group of CEO's start a war against an unsuspecting planet that has forgotten how to fight?) Anyway, the most enjoyable part of the game for me was assigning my crew. Each person under your command has his or her own personality and strengths. The people aren't just throwaway clones. You really get attached to each character. During the battles you get constant updates from them and you have to decide what their next move will be. It's just a very complex game and once you master it, it becomes quite a satisfying experience. Defiantly pick this game up if you haven't already... This game might be a sleeper but it's tons of fun.