Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising for Windows, Mac

Way back in 1984, through the mists of computing prehistory there came a game called CARRIER COMMAND. Originally for the Atari ST, it was later ported to the Amiga and PC. It involved an island-hopping campaign in a carrier that had Aircraft and Amphibious Tanks. It was one of the most fun games I have ever played. I always wondered if and when anyone would ever do a remake of this game.

Another game that holds a place dear to my heart is Battlezone II, one of the few games to be an order of magnitude better than it's illustrious predecessor.

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising - or HW for short - is best described as a combination of these two games. HW was published by Rage - a now-defunct British-based games programming house that was famous for its earlier offerings like INCOMING, with which it shares a lot of graphical elements. However when it came out in 2001, HW was far more than an INCOMING knock-off.

And so to the backstory: In a future world of peace and prosperity, a group of the old guard decide that they want things the way they used to be. From a bunch of islands in the South Pacific they launch missile strikes against major cities. In response, The powers that be reactivate the last Antaeus-class cruiser - a large carrier that has the ability to synthesize craft out of scrap and populate them with "soulcatcher" AI chips containing the personality profiles of dead warriors.

The first few missions get you used to the idea of controlling the carrier and the limited types of craft and personnel you have available (your personnel and equipment options will expand significantly during the course of the game). Your training complete, the Antaeus proceeds to a Wet-dock where it is to be upgraded and made fully operational while you protect the ship and the dock facilities from enemy attack.

While mostly a strategic game, there is also the opportunity to jump into the middle of the battle at any time and take direct control of any vehicle. Sometimes the occupant may be pleased to see you ("Captain on deck!"), while others may be less enthusiastic ("With all due respect, sir, I can manage!") if not downright annoyed at your intrusion ("Get out of my head... it hurts!")

Much has been made of the fact that HW has no multiplayer element. However, the nature of the game would mean that a multiplayer version would have to be radically different, which would have effectively meant designing a different game to keep the multiplayers happy. While I may not agree with this, I can understand the reasoning behind this decision.

The game will run well on slower machines - all the way down to about 300MHz - though it runs better, faster and smoother on faster hardware. Anything above 1GHz with a decent videocard should be smooth as glass. While not as good as the current state of the art, the standard of the graphics in this game is very good indeed. A full install of the game takes up a modest 550MB or so and does not require the CD to be in the drive - always a big plus point for me.

It is the saddest of ironies that the best feature in the game - the sound - is also the worst. Each of your soulcatcher chips has a distinctive personality. Some of them are happiest driving certain types of vehicle and will complain voiciferously if you put them in the "wrong" type ("This is not a gun!"). This is a good thing.

Each persona has his or her own individual accent - American, British and Australian are readily recognizable. Now I know that some Americans insist on believing that theirs is the definitive variation of the language. If so, this is a good opportunity for you to broaden your horizons while the rest of us enjoy the diversity. This is a good thing.

Some, like Ransom and Patton are abrupt and brusque to the point of rudeness, while others like Sinclair are downright sycophantic. It is a genuine joy to listen to them talking amongst themselves, especially when in the fight. Though it can get a little repetitive towards the end, I didn't find it to be an irritation. This is a good thing.

This leads to my only negative comments about the game, and the only reason that I must qualify my otherwise wholehearted recommendation. It has to do with the language used in the game. To put it bluntly, there is a lot of swearing. This is not a good thing.

Ironically - and somewhat predictably, the foulest language comes mostly from those with American accents. On the other hand, the cheery, plummy-voiced Brit Sinclair never swears - you get the impression that he doesn't need to. While there is a setting to turn off swearing - a plus point, to be sure - even with swearing turned off there is a level of bad language, such as invoking the names of God and Jesus Christ in a manner that I found offensive. The language used is close to what you can expect from prime-time TV these days... but that still does not make it acceptable. Perhaps more than a simple on/off setting might have helped.

The graphics are surprisingly good for a game that came out in 2001. Naturally, they are not quite up to the standard set by some of the latest games, but this is more than counterbalanced by the fact that this game can run on a surprisingly modest hardware configuration.

The cinematic cutscenes are very well done, and feature first-class voice acting from Tom "Dr Who" Baker, along with Paul Darrow and Glynis Barber (both out of Blake's Seven).

Game play is very good, if you like being the general and giving orders. I found that I was spending a lot of time in the war room setting up orders, and then switching back to the battle to watch my troops carry them out, which they generally did rather well. Once in a while, one of them would get "stuck" and I would have to jump into their craft in order to "un-stick" them, though that was a relatively rare occurrence. What was a little more annoying, however, was watching them zigzagging along, when a perfectly good straight-line course was available. Certain crew members sometimes had a tendency to wander into the middle of a killzone if not closely watched, although others were better at avoiding trouble.

In terms of playability, the game takes roughly 20 to 30 hours to complete. Out of curiosity you may decide to repeat the game once or maybe twice, but that's about it. However, given that this game is now available in the bargain bin, it represents surprisingly good value for money.

There are a few aspects of the game that I feel could have been improved.

1) Although you are the captain of the carrier, you cannot actually steer the thing - it just sits there.

2) The Magpie Automatic Heavy Lifter only takes units from the Carrier to Land, not the other way.

3) Each mission starts with a preset amount of scrap (the resource that you use to build vehicles). The advantage of this approach is that each mission is self-contained and does not depend upon how well you did in the mission before. The disadvantage is that it takes away from the feeling of continuity between one mission and the next.

4) The missions end as soon as the last objective is met, which I found somewhat jarring. I would have preferred that the player had the opportunity to end the game when they wanted, or to require that all characters and vehicles return to the carrier.

In the global scheme of things, however, these are minor gripes, an are more a matter of personal taste than anything else..

In conclusion, while some might find the language used in the game appropriate (a trooper, can, after all, be counted on to swear like ... well... a trooper), the game is rated "M" for Mature. I feel that with a little cleaning up of language and the removal of one particularly gory cutscene the game might have garnered a "Teen" rating and consequently far more sales.