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Platform: PC |
Developer: Relic |
Publisher: Microsoft |
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Genre: RTS |
ESRB: Early 2002 |
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Impossible Creatures (Formerly Sigma) No doubt most gamers have heard of Sigma, following the community-wide gripe with the stagnation of creativity in PC gaming about a year ago. After some original titles since then, Sigma may be just in time to add a drop of creativity to the rainfall of formulaic games and sequels. During World War I, you the gamer play as Rex Chance. During a search mission over the South Pacific, you crash over a series of islands and discover an evil mad scientist is creating mutant animals. Discovering the entire search mission was just a setup by said scientist to try and recruit you for his own purposes, you must now use the technology of creating animal mutants to fight back. The story is already strange enough but not as original as the gameplay. Resources will be a selection of over 50 animals and insects, and units will be created by the gamer based on the animals gathered. Imagine wolves with scorpion tails with the ability to fly thanks to their eagles’ wings. Not only will such combinations result in some strange looking creatures, but they will also result in the mixing of the base creatures’ attributes’ and AI. So the above-described abomination of nature will hunt in packs, and have the sharp-shooter vision of eagles. Not only that, the AI, or the temperament or disposition of the base creatures will be combined. One cool feature will be the ability to create super units. These will be created through the correct combination of genes and a random creation feature. This means that these super units will not be easily created as chance will play a part in their availability. The actual process of combining animals will be ratio or percentage based, meaning that the gamer will be able to select how much of a base animal gets mixed into the new mutant. Relic is saying that at least two or three animals can be combined with perhaps the possibility to combine four or more. The nightmare in programming something like this is can be seen and it would be understandable to see Relic limit the number of creatures that could be combined. Another feature which Relic is thinking of including is the possibility to combine the mutant creatures created by the gamer to create still more strange creatures. Other basics included in the game will be villagers and henchman to do the collecting of animals, vehicles, and range units. The single player game spans 17 missions in a single campaign, which will occur in different areas which will define the types of animals that can be collected. Also to be included is an editor and multiplayer availability. The engine for the game was developed in house, and from the screenshots you can see the beauty of the world created. The polygon count on the models cap at 10,000, so units will be highly detailed and are sure to look great. Being the creators of Homeworld, Relic is a developer that knows how to create original titles. While some of the features set for the game sound good it remains to be seen whether or not Relic will be able to make them intuitive. As a real time strategy game, Sigma will sink or swim based on it’s ability to allow users to create the units they want and on the predictability of the created units’ behavior. As long as the learning curve isn’t too steep and the creature creation is intuitive Sigma is sure to join the hall of fame for original games. - Mark Leung
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