Giants: Citizen Kabuto Preview

Browsing our actiontrip.com content I realized that this is the first article we are doing on Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Most of you probably know a lot about the game already, but this being our first piece on it, I feel I should give you a little run-down of the basic info. If some of you reading this are unfamiliar with Planet Moons' work (Giants is their virgin title) it may help to know that the guys are in fact a renegade group of Shiny programmers working in a small village in sunny California, largely responsible for such hits as Earthworm Jim, and MDK. Are you interested now? You damn well should be after you see some of the fantastic high-res images of Delphi we have lined up for you...

Shoot 'em up!

Shoot 'em up; part 2!

The Three Races of Giants

Giants: Citizen Kabuto is predominately an action title. That is to say, it is an action title with some RTS elements thrown in for good measure. If you're thinking, "boring", "seen it already" - think again. The resource management and base building elements are different to say the least, and they perfectly blend with the game's main premise. I'll come to that a bit later though; right now, let's concentrate on the protagonists --- imagine having a combination of King Kong and a T-Rex, a colony of large, tech-advanced ants and a couple of sea creatures equipped with magic stranded on a deserted island. Imagine all of them being pissed off, and extremely territorial, and you'll get a clearer picture of the game's three races --- Kabuto, The Meccaryns, and The Sea Reapers. All of them inhabit an island that is a massive fragment of a shattered planet. The fact that they are so different from each other represents the main reason for all the death and destruction resulting from their cohabitance. Here's how the Planet Moon gang explains the races:

The Meccaryns

Five cockney space aliens: Baz, Tel, Reg, Gordon, and Bennett (otherwise known as the Meccaryns) leave their home planet for their annual "lads holiday" at the one and only, Planet Majorca. Almost immediately, they are attacked and swallowed by the notorious Giant "Gibbon" Fish. Having given up their holiday for the ignominious distinction of being digested for two months, this five-some is finally "discharged" in their battered ship within limping reach of the island, where they stop for repairs. Traveling in packs using military formations, they possess enough technological might to devastate this new world. However, for the time being they need to live on it, so just clearing out the current residents will do.

The Sea Reapers - Delphi

The Sea Reapers are ethereal females who are forced into the seas after Kabuto drives them from the island. They begin to evolve devastating elemental powers and lightning fast attacks with their magical bows. Delphi is the youngest and most innocent of the group. She doesn't always agree with the other Reaper's evil practices, but isn't aware of any alternative. As the game begins, she is just growing into her ability to foresee attacks and whip-up destructive sword-wielding tornadoes.

Kabuto

Kabuto, a giant ferocious beast created by the Sea Reapers to defend them. Simply too brutal to exist with anyone else, he turns on them. Standing well over 10 times the height of any other character Kabuto can swallow opponents whole.

He, he... you can almost feel the nipples!

Hi there gorgeous!

There is a forth and even a fifth race in the game, if you will --- The Smarties, and Vimps, a sheep-like food source. If you keep the Smarties happy by protecting and feeding them (with Vimps) they will start creating presents for you. These little guys may seem to have no value at first, but the more Smarties you find, the larger and more sophisticated the presents become. The fun thing about the Giants' resource management concept is that no race will use the resource-creatures in the same fashion. The Meccaryns harvest Vimps and feed them to the Smarties. The Smarties then use the energy from the Vimps to build weapons, buildings, and items for the Meccs. Kabuto, on the other hand, uses Smarties in an entirely different way. If Kabuto eats a Smartie, he becomes impregnated with a vicious, dino-like creature that hatches from an egg Kabuto... err... hatched? The Sea Reapers' steal the life force from opponents or Vimps to gain more magic spells. So, you see, not only is the action aspect of the game unique in its diversity, but the strategy elements are very different depending on the race as well; which brings us (after this rather lengthy introduction) to the focal point of the article --- the kick-ass Giants multiplayer experience.

The Kick-Ass Giants Multiplayer Experience...

There are many games out there that feature excellent multiplayer gameplay. People have been known to battle over nuances of Quake III and Unreal Tournament, talking about weapons balancing, and the "feel of the game". Then there are games/mods like Tribes, Action Quake, and Team Fortress that introduced some new ideas, going beyond the simple death matching and capture the flag concepts, but no game (except Team Fortress maybe) has managed to make such a distinctive, (in terms of characters and their relationship) multiplayer experience like Planet Moon Studios' Giants. Everything about the three main races is different. Their size, the fantastic scale of the giant compared to the other races, their design, main weapons, and even the way they use collected resources. All of that translates into a truly exceptional multiplayer experience that has that extra edge over the sea of titles relying on the same setup. Planet Moon's skillful artists have once again managed to create a bizarre and eccentric world of creatures that we used to love so much in MDK, adding even more charisma to an already innovative gameplay idea.

The Meccaryns will rely on their ability to produce powerful weapons, being rather small, but packing a mighty punch. Kabuto's advantages are obvious, with his sheer, brute force, and awesome strength, while The Sea Reapers have in their powers truly devastating magical spells. If you are thinking of going straight for the Giant as the obvious choice, hold on for a sec, and reconsider. I got the chance to play the game in multiplayer for about 60 minutes, and since I was the "last one at the table", I got the "unlikely honor" of playing as The Meccaryn. Some other guy was the mighty giant, stomping the ground and causing small earthquakes every time he moved across the island. I though to myself - boy am I in for a nice one, but then I suddenly realized the advantages of my miniscule size and powerful weapons. I could easily see the giant roaming the land, and he didn't have a clue as to where I was located. Even when I started blasting away with something resembling a rocket launcher Kabuto just kept turning around pointlessly, looking for my sorry-little body. By applying good tactics, I managed to hurt the mighty foe, and the battle suddenly turned in the favor of David rather than the mighty Goliath. I was doing pretty well in fact, hurting Kabuto plenty, until this crucial moment (all right, the other guy peaked at my screen), when the Giant actually managed to spot my ass. My opponent swiftly dispatched (hatched) a pack of dinosaurs that proved to be too much for my warned out and low-on-ammo arsenal of weapons, and I ended up being somebody's lunch for the day. The moral of the story though is that I was more than able to defeat the giant with what I had at my disposal, so there is absolutely no talk of one-sided gameplay.

What turned out to be an incredibly entertaining multiplayer experience was determined by a number of factors, the predominant reason being that our races were (I say this again) so different. That alone led to us naturally assuming completely distinctive strategies that in turn led to some seriously addictive and balanced gameplay. Playing Giants in multiplayer was one of the most refreshing gameplay experiences I had with an upcoming "under the spotlight" title thus far. The programmers are totally reworking the old Voodoo 1 based engine code, and the game is looking better by the day. They are also ironing out some subtle gameplay issues, and promising to release the title sometimes at the end of this year. Apart from Black and White, and Sacrifice, Giants is one of the rare games I'll be anxiously looking forward to play as soon as some material is handed to us gaming press guys...

PS. As I have found out on our parent site, IGNPC (http://pc.ign.com), one of the ways the team is going about making Kabuto a little more vunerable is the addition of an "Achilles' belly button" as it were. "When you have these little Meccs against this huge giant, the natural instinct is going to be to stay really far away and act as a sniper," Bob explained. "But we're encouraging people to get close to Kabuto by adding a weak spot in his belly that opens when you get close to him. Plus if you hit Kabuto in this weak spot, it will do a lot of damage, so it's worth it to get up close to him."