Impossible Creatures

Yuo can even make flying piggies!

Impossible Creatures is a real time strategy game by Relic Entertainment. Following squarely in the shoes of Age of Empires, the game bits you and your army of genetically altered animals against a plethora of fiendish enemies, hell bent on your destruction.

You play as Rex Chance, who’s a square-jawed Flash Gordon type swashbuckler. In an incredibly contrived series of plot twists, he finds himself on a chain of islands, inhabited by bad people with animal-splicing technologies. Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of an unfeasibly pretty scientist who also has animal splicing technology. Lucky, huh? Well, that's the plot out of the way, so what do you do?

Do the monster mash

Looks a little nicer than Age of Empires.

In true RTS form, you build a base, gather resources, build an army and then throw everything at the enemy army. The part, which distinguishes this game from Command and Conquer and Age of Empires, is the army building sections.

In order to build your creatures, you must first gather the raw materials. This is done by skulking about the landscape prodding things with a dart gun. Once you've collected genetic material from two or more beasties, you can nip back to the lab and make ‘em into a cocktail.

The army builder screen allows you to select two animals from your "Zoo" and combine them, by selecting heads, torsos, limbs, wings, and so on. By paying attention to your mutant’s stats, you can build rapid scouts, semi-invulnerable tanks, vicious warriors and so on.

Once your army has been built, it's time to head out and confront the bad guys. Sadly, the actual strategic element of this RTS title is somewhat weak. Simply having more units than the enemy will win every battle in the first three quarters of the game. The final quarter of the game has had a serious difficulty hike in that the enemy units are more inclined to come looking for you rather than simply patrolling and reacting to incursions. The enemy AI appears to be slightly overworked, with enemy units choosing pre-defined strategies that are simply not appropriate for the battle in question. Anyone who has seen "Cossacks" will probably find the strategic elements of the game disappointing.

Trouble brewing in the lab

It's a hyena! No, it's a weasel! No, it's a, errr, something!

Unfortunately, the seemingly infinite numbers of combinations possible in your army do not add any more to the game than the units in, say, Age of Empires. In fact, the gameplay is so close to Age of Empires that once or twice I suspected Impossible Creatures was Age of Empires with a sleek and shiny skin.

But what a skin! A few hours with the intuitive interface and the gorgeous visuals and any lack of groundbreaking new features is forgotten. True, the largest army usually wins. True, it's the same old "Build a base, build an army" formula, but it's a good formula, which has worked very well for other games in the past.

It's not only the gameplay, which can seem like a bit of a mixed bag - the in game audio suffers from a bizarre kind of split personality. The audio effects are spot-on for the game - a fantastic kind of 1920's morning sci-fi serial to match the wonderfully retro graphical styling. The music, on the other hand, is bizarre. Not that it's bad, far from it. It just doesn't quite fit. Given the visuals and sound effects, the soundtrack from "Crimson Skies" would have fitted in beautifully. Instead, the studio has gone for incredibly catchy tuneful little jazz ditties. On their own - on the main menu, for example, the music is great but in game it becomes so jarring that I soon found myself switching it off.

Command and Condor

Ohhh! Big Bangs!

It's difficult not to like this game. The lovely 1930s style technology, the bright colours, and the just plain silly plot all serve to immerse you in a grand world of daftness. The game is a little light on the strategy side of things but is, nonetheless, a very entertaining title, with a few caveats.

If you already own Age of Empires/Kings, then this game should really be considered a graphical upgrade. There is little new here. That said, the gorgeous visuals do add a lot to the game.

If you already own Command and Conquer, you're probably going to be disappointed. The strategy element largely comes down to "who can build the biggest army in the least time". If you've ever played Age of Empires online with someone who cheats, you'll be quite at home here.

Someone looking for a light introduction to RTS games can't really go far wrong with this title, but someone looking for a challenge can do better elsewhere.