Gamplay

Hagar?

As a straight-up action game, Hostile Waters can be pretty fun. Mind you, I like games where it's you against a billion and a half enemies. Games like Final Fight, Raiden, and Serious Sam I enjoy a lot. There's something about wading into a swarm of enemies and hacking them to bits that you can't get from strategy games or most of today's head-to-head multiplayer games. As you can guess, Hostile Waters mostly consists of this type of against-the-odds gameplay. You pilot a tank, hovercraft, or helicopter with unlimited ammo against hordes of enemies. When you're in control of a vehicle it's a game of twitch as you dodge enemy fire and hunt down bogies.

Fighting is more complicated than just pulling a trigger though. The enemies actually put up a fight in Hostile Waters. The air units will dodge your missiles and hide behind terrain when they can. The ground unit's aren't as smart, as they stand still when firing. You can also have a number of wingmen, basically turning this into a squad-based game. Your small army can buzz around enemy bases covertly using stealth and fast strikes, or dive in guns blazing.

Got him

Hangin around

The computer AI needs some work. One of the biggest problems in the game is that the friendly computer controlled units don't fight very well. They're actually worse than the computer opponents. Enemies will make evasive maneuvers and generally try not to get hit when you attack - friendly units just sit there. They make no attempt to dodge enemy fire or take cover. Why couldn't they put the better AI in the friendly units as well?

The AI has pathing issues as well. Ground units are fairly dumb when it comes to getting from point A to B. They always try a straight line, even if it means going over the largest mountain on the map. And when they figure out they can't, they just tell you they can't reach their destination. Seldom do they try to find easier paths to their waypoint.

Don't think too hard

The Strategy aspect of Hostile Waters barely deserves to be called strategy. Resource gathering is more of a chore than a strategy element like it is in an RTS like Starcraft. In a true RTS resource gathering gives you the ability to produce more structures/units to help turn the tide of battle. In Hostile Waters the enemy has unlimited resources from "oil wells," while you can only scavenge marginal materials from the battlefield. In other words, you always have limited resources while the enemy is only limited to the number of units the programmers feel is fair - you have no chance to use resources to gain a tactical advantage. Basically the whole resources gathering aspect as it applies to strategy is a big steaming pile. Stick to the action elements and you'll be much happier.

The War Room	Enemy power supplies
Smile for the camera	Shields taking damage

The rest of the strategy can be summed up thusly: destroy the enemy power supplies, destroy turrets from a distance, and then demolish the base. There's no more strategy involved by any stretch of the imagination. You can never trust the computer controlled friendly units to do anything on their own. You're always stuck with them as wingmen or having them sit around until you're ready to control them. They do a decent job of covering you, but if you send them off on their own they just die.