Intro

Developer: Planet Moon
Publisher: Interplay
Giants official page: http://www.interplay.com/giants/index2.html

More Giants resources

Giants is going to be exceedingly hard to pin down in one game genre -- its runs through just about everything but the sports genre. You can plant it in FPS, TPS, RTS, racing, and maybe some other acronym I forgot along the way. Variety is the spice of life, no? Although, Giants might have a smidgen too much paprika.

Ooo...

The weeds

Story

Before we discuss the storyline, we'd like to mention the unique atmosphere present in Giants. Remember that little thing called humor? Recall that sensation of laughter, interspersed with the occasionally spurt of milk from an orifice or two. In this season, games seem to be pushed out too damn soon. So regardless of the broken nature of most of these new games, Giants has something a lot of other games can't possibly rival -- a sense of humor. Despite all the bugs, inadequacies, and general annoyances, the story of this game makes you want to plod forth in spite of the crap you run into. If for no other reason, you want to play long enough to find out what happens to Akhmed, a.k.a Timmy.

Giants will definitely elicit some gut-wrenching laughter. The dialog, the voiceovers -- spectacular! Half the comedy is in how these characters deliver their lines. There are so many references in this game that you would be hard pressed to name them all. Everything from Monty Python to South Park managed to sneak in. Screaming from the comic genius of so many people, there is no way this game will disappoint you, that is, unless you are " just an old man and have saggy balls." That, by the way, is a direct quote from the game.

Ahoy!

For the glory of GB.

Beware for the little kiddies though. If you were considering not buying this game for a youngin' because of the ta-tas, the dialog is just as lewd at times. Nothing too offensive, it probably ranks up there with what the little guys hear on the elementary school playgrounds these days.

The hilarity all starts when a wayward band of space travelers, Meccaryns, manages to screw up and crash onto the island of the Smarties and the Reapers. The Meccaryns set about to the task of looking for survivors, and in the process run into the Smarties, Timmy in particular. Timmy and family then proceed to explain the plight of the Smarties. It turns out the Reapers have been raiding and pillaging the Smartie villages, although, the daughter of the Reaper queen, Delphi, objects to these actions. And so starts some of the funniest sub-plots, romantic entanglements, and general mayhem to have ever hit my hard drive.

The docks

Timmy!

Controls

Movement and gameplay resembles the usual FPS setup -- mouse/keyboard combo. A nice touch that the developers added was the ability to customize the controls for each of the three races. The races differ slightly in what keys you will use, but the standard configuration worked best for us. Except for minor preferences, we didn't feel the need to muck with the controls a great deal. This is one of the few parts of the game that we didn't have much of a problem with.