Reviewed: July 3, 2001
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Interplay

Developer
Rage Software

Released: June 12, 2001
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1
ESRB: Mature

10
10
10
10
10

System Requirements

Antaeus Rising borrows heavily from several other games, which is perhaps why I like it so much. While playing through the first half-dozen missions I had flashbacks to games like Extreme Assault, Nuclear Strike, Battle Zone, Incoming, Wargasm, Recoil and just about any 3D RTS game that's been released in the past year.

The premise for Antaeus Rising is so original that I can't even imagine how the designers at Rage even began to think this one up. The opening movie tells the amazing tale of a world that has finally achieved a global peace, a world where Star Trek-like replicators provide life's daily necessities and a world where there is no disease or sickness. Sounds like paradise.

Of course there is always somebody wanted to stir up trouble. In this case it's a bunch of criminals and powerful businessmen who can't adapt to a world where money has no object. They have formed a cabal and have hoarded weapons from the pre-peace time. They now launch random attacks on populated cities in order to destabilize the planet and incite war.

The only hope for the planet is a sunken carrier, the Antaeus. This is not just a normal carrier however. This is an Adaptive Cruiser with abilities straight out of a futuristic sci-fi novel. The Antaeus is not only a floating battle platform; it also has the ability to manufacture weapons of war using the latest in nano-technology.

Resource management is often the bane of RTS games but Antaeus Rising handles it quite cleverly. Using a tank-like vehicle called a Scarab you scavenge the landscape for scrap metal and other pieces of salvageable material. Your disintegration beam converts the matter to energy that can then be used by the replicators on your carrier to create new items. While this may sound just as boring as mining for Tiberium believe me, its not. The graphics alone make the entire process spellbinding. Once the game locks on you get a wire frame mesh over the object and pulses of energy ripple through the item. If the item is large it will explode into smaller pieces, and then you will absorb each piece until nothing is left.

Your carrier can create up to four weapons at any given time, and once these are deployed you can create more with a total of ten vehicles under your command at any given time. These crafts consist of attack choppers, hover-tanks, cargo helicopter, and other devices like turrets, etc. Since your launch platform is out on the water, vehicles like the Scarab require transport to the mainland by either a cargo chopper or the ship's Magpie carrier before you can use them.

Perhaps the most unique concept in the game is the Soulcatcher device. This device is explained briefly in the opening movie and becomes clearer later in the game when you acquire the Soulcatcher Chip of your first pilot, Ransom. Basically, the Soulcatcher was a device that was fitted onto all the crewmembers of the Adaptive Cruisers. If anyone were to die in combat their thoughts, abilities, and memories were instantly captured onto a silicon chip. These chips could then be inserted into the Soulcatcher interface on any new craft becoming the ultimate autopilot.

Each Soulcatcher chip has the personae of a specific soldier with their own unique abilities. If you put a tank commander into the cockpit of a chopper you can't expect premium performance. Likewise, if you put hotshot pilot, Ransom into a Scarab he will complain until you recycle him and his craft. You can only use each chip once at any given time, but as soon as a vehicle is destroyed or reabsorbed you can use that same soldier in a new craft.

Of course you can always opt to not insert a chip and take control of any manufactured vehicle yourself, and in many scenarios this is required. At this point, the game becomes very action oriented much like the aforementioned Battlezone, Recoil, or Nuclear Strike games.

The missions are all tied together in a very nice story told through amazing cutscenes and mission briefings. The script was written by famed author, Warren Ellis, and you can really see a level of professional storytelling that isn't always present in other games. There are over 20 missions and they increase in difficulty at a comfortable pace. The first few missions feature a tutorial mode that instructs you on the basics of play, so you can jump right in without even opening the manual.

The first thing to do is to manufacture a Scarab and get it onto the island to begin building up your energy reserves. You always start with a preset amount of energy, but that is seldom enough to complete any of the missions. As you create each vehicle or aircraft it appears on one of the four launch pads. You can then deploy these craft by selecting them with the mouse or their hotkey and then pick a sub-command such as "move to", "attack", "pick-up", etc. then click on the map to execute the command.

You can queue up to ten commands at any time, which comes in very handy when the action starts to get intense. At any time you can bring up the strategic map, which halts the action. You can then assign commands to any active craft. A good example would be something like assigning my cargo chopper to drop off my Scarab near a ruined refinery then go pick up a crate at the dock and return it to the carrier for analysis. This sequence of events is easily entered by clicking on the cargo chopper to make it the active craft. I then click on the Scarab and then on the map near the refinery. The intelligent icon system picks the proper icon nine times out of ten, but you can always override if you want to do something out of the ordinary. You can then click on the cargo container and then on the scanner back at the ship. As you click each waypoint, they are connected by lines to give you the entire route.

As soon as you exit the map view the pre-programmed flight plan will be carried out in real time. Once the Scarab is dropped you can then issue up to ten commands for that vehicle while the chopper continue to collect the cargo and return it to the ship. It's an amazing control system that is easy to learn and even easier to use. Even with ten craft you will be stunned at how easy it is to create waypoints, issue commands, and control every aspect of each vehicle.

When things get too intense you will be pleasantly surprised by some amazing AI. Of course the quality of the AI is directly related to the pilot you have in each craft and that soldier's specialty, but for the most part pilots will take the initiative with surprising results. If there are no specific targets on your map you can send a pilot into a general area and he will proceed to obliterate anything with an enemy signature. The same goes for the Scarabs. If you send them into a general area they will proceed to absorb all available material without the need for you to click on every piece of scrap.

Sometimes the AI can become too aggressive and pilots who are on standby can be lured great distances by a series of targets that are spaced out across the island. There was one mission where I had to complete some preliminary objectives before assaulting an airbase, and I was instructed not to get close to the airbase until I was ready to attack. One of my eager pilots who was left unattended got lured into going over the mountain by chasing down an enemy chopper and all hell broke loose. Given the choice of aggressive AI or dumb pilots who just hover and die, I'll take the former any day. And you always have the ability to temporarily override the AI and pilot any ship yourself.

Along with the great AI are some even better pathfinding routines. Pathfinding is the ability for a unit on AI-control to get from point A to B while navigating any obstacles in the terrain. While the AI may never be as quick or as smart as a human I was amazed when I commanded my hover-tank to attack a large cargo ship at the docks. It tried to attack from several locations starting from a nearby hilltop and then down on the pier itself. The shots kept getting blocked by various obstructions and just when I though the pilot would give up he found a ramp leading to the water and hovered out over the surf to blast the hull wide open with a volley of rockets. It's not perfect, and on more than a few occasions a hover-tank will get caught on a steep hillside or a chopper will try to fire through a building at a tank behind it. But for the most part you can trust your AI to find its way 95% of the time.

As the missions become more complex you will find yourself recycling your vehicles. Sometimes you will need the energy and other times you may simply need to free up a Soulcatcher chip to use in another craft. As you proceed through the various missions you will obtain new technology. This is accomplished by sending out your cargo chopper to pick-up wrecked craft or cargo containers and having it scanned by the Antaeus. This new technology can then be used to replicate new craft or updated weapons.

Ground and air assault vehicles have several "slots" that allow you to customize each craft at the time of construction. The Soulcatcher chip takes up one of these slots and you can fill the others will armor plating or other devices like cloaking technology, repair units, recyclers, etc. You can also arm some of these craft from a selection of weapons that vary in their range and destructive power. Creating a good mix of ground and air assault craft with a variety of long and short-range weapons take a lot of trial and error, but it is essential in completing the later missions.

Your carrier has huge cannons that can launch devastating firepower on mainland targets. Due to the extreme power of these cannons you have very limited use of these weapons. For the most part you will have to defend your carrier with a patrolling attack chopper or a gun turret setup on a nearby beach. If your carrier is ever destroyed the game is over.

The interface is extremely intuitive and makes controlling multiple craft easier than you can imagine. All of your available craft are listed along the top of the screen and you can summon picture-in-picture screens for each pilot to see what they are seeing. Double tapping the designated number switches to that ship and a pop-up window provides a clever quick-command interface that allows you to control that ship without returning to the map view.

Some of the later missions become quite lengthy and it is easy to do very well in the beginning and have it all go bad near the end. For this reason you will be glad to know there is a save game feature that allows you to save anywhere in the course of your mission. Not only does this keep things from getting frustrating and repetitive, it also allows you to experiment with various strategies for specific assaults.

The various crafts are highly detailed and the islands are composed of realistic terrain, buildings, and vegetation. Water effects are incredible with lapping waves on the beach and rippling lakes. There are plenty of weather effects like fog, rain, thunder and lighting that flashes through the sky. There is even a real time night and day cycle that takes place throughout the mission. You may start a mission in the daylight but as you proceed it will slowly get darker as the sun sets and finally the stars and moon will be your only source of light. There are also various levels of clouds that can serve to both hide your presence or hinder your visibility for planning your next attack.

Special effects are in abundance and include glorious explosions, rocket trails, lasers, and some of the most incredible disintegration graphics I have ever seen. Sometimes I still find myself just watching my Scarab absorb scrap material - it's just that cool!

The overall presentation is one of the best I have ever seen. From the moment you start up the game to the minute you close it down you are never taken out of the environment. The menus and options screens are all integrated into the game graphics. The game screens and interface are perfectly laid out, and while you cannot customize them I couldn't think of a better layout if I tried.

It should be noted that the game is rated "M" for a very good reason. The salty lingo of these silicon soldiers is laced with abundant expletives and while it's nothing you can't hear walking down the street it does get excessive at times. I found it interesting that the game is rated "M" solely for language that can be turned off in the options menu easily turning this game into a Teen rated title.

The use of EAX surround sound is amazing, and if you have a four-speaker setup you are going to be amazed at your ability to locate enemy craft simply by the direction of their sound. Sound effects are high quality and unique to each craft and weapon.

Of course diehard gamers will want to play each mission on a do-or-die basis, so you can expect at least 20-30 hours of gameplay from this title. While there is no story-based reason to ever play the game again, the strategic possibilities for each mission are endless and the game is just so darn fun you will probably find yourself replaying your favorite missions or even the entire game.

Sadly, there is no multiplayer support for Antaeus Rising. This could have kept the game alive long after the solo campaign was over, and the possibilities for coop and versus play seem obvious and abundant. I'm not sure what the design decisions were that kept a multiplayer feature out of this title; especially in this day and age of mandatory multiplayer support, but it will be sorely missed.

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising is easily the best RTS game of its kind and will hopefully spawn many more games with a similar style of gameplay. This game has it all, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.