Overview

From Homeworld

Relic Entertainment hasn’t been in the gaming biz very long but they wasted no time making a name for themselves with the release of Homeworld. Homeworld added a new dimension to the RTS genre (no pun intended) by creating a completely 3D battlefield. While even early games like Total Annihilation featured 3D terrain, Homeworld was the first to put players in space. Such a revolutionary title is hard to follow, but Relic is certainly trying with their new game, Impossible Creatures.

Army builder screen

Get a baboon

With a cheetah

Impossible Creatures is certainly one of the stranger concepts when one first hears of it. The unnatural Zerg aside, few games offer players the opportunity to use creatures in strategy games. Impossible Creatures may be completely unique in the fact that those creatures are based off real-world critters.

Rather than just settling on real animals, Impossible Creatures allows players to mix and match from two base animals to form a new, superior one. In addition to combining the best traits of the two, the resulting animal is a lot larger and fiercer. Mixing a tiny lemming with a cat-sized skunk produced a critter about six feet tall.

Say what?

Players will very likely spend as much time in the Creature Chamber as they will playing the game. Finding the perfect combination is really quite the obsession. Our own experiments with the creatures in the demo (available in this month’s PC Gamer) resulted in hours of quality time with the big beige box. Animals of any type can be combined; there’s nothing to keep a creature designer from taking a fish head and putting it on a terrestrial or even flying creature.

Make a babeetah

Giant archerfish

With bear legs

The creatures are made up of up to five body parts, though wings do count as a provisional sixth part. The head, front legs, torso, rear legs and tail are all completely interchangeable (fish are simpler, having only the head, torso and tail). Mixing body parts changes the creature’s stats and abilities. Putting bear paws on a creature that’s otherwise an archer fish will give it significantly more hitpoints, a vicious melee attack and the ability to walk should you add rear legs as well. On the other hand, sticking a tail from an archerfish on a grizzly bear will give it very limited swimming ability, at little cost to other stats. Certain body parts also produce special attacks, like a skunk’s tail or porcupine torso. It’s not always the best idea to maximize your creature’s abilities, since its cost in resources goes up correspondingly. Powerful combinations can also bump the creature’s level up a notch, forcing the player to research that technology before he can build it. Technology offers other benefits to the player, like researching ability upgrades for his creations.