Submarine Titans Review

Its surprising that so much time has lapsed, and that RTS have excelled to a certain level, but nobody came up with the idea to use the deep sea as the setting for battle. And the deep blue has so much potential for an armed conflict... The ideal strategy, in my humble opinion would be one with sea, air, and land units; but in such a way that there are underground and of course submersible units. How many times did you feel frustrated because your submarine can't dive and shoot torpedoes at enemy vessels, but instead floats around like a second hand boat? As if they read the thoughts I had for years, the guys over at Strategy First released Submarine Titans --- an RTS that for the first time covers underwater battle. From the relatively anonymous software company Ellipse Studios comes a couple of inventive ideas packed in a underwater strategy full of violence and carnage (what's next, teddy bears with machine guns? Wait, somebody is making such a game, right?). Sea stories were, in the past used for submarine and battle ship simulations, but never before as a basic storyline for a strategy. Although the story is based on post-apocalyptic clichés that were used so many times in the games market, it is relatively well-fitted in this game.

Reading the manual, you can learn all there is to know about the world you will wage war in. All important events are sorted in chronological order, starting with the year 2047 up until 2115, in which year the player joins the game. During the year 2047, our beloved Earth was hit by Clark's Comet and turned most of the land into a heap of inhospitable rubble. The face of Earth was destroyed, while some survived the deadly impact hiding deep under the ground in large shelters (I wonder how happy they where?). The next years were horrid, since the macro climate of the planet rapidly changed. The next ten years were constant winters, to be followed by the heating of the oceans, which resulted in the melting of Polar caps. The estimated rise of the seas was 60 ft. The survivors were forced to seek new habitat, so they chose the sub aqua world. Under the water, the conditions for life weren't so bad, since the ocean floor was not damaged by the collision, and the flora and fauna were not affected by diverse climate changes. But the prime reason was that the water provided shelter from the terrible weather conditions on land, so, the sea bottom was colonized. After a while, two colonists fractions were formed: White Sharks and Black Octopi. White Sharks are more bent on dominating what's left of the world, while Black Octopi are looking for a balance with nature and are prepared to defend their way of life by all means given. Both sides became very powerful with the discovery of a new chemical element, Corium 276, which found its use as a source of energy under water. Before Clark's Comet struck, this element was unknown. A trade commenced with those that inhabited the surface, and both sides used technology and knowledge to dominate a certain region of the semi-destroyed planet. The rivalry was enormous and both sides were soon in a massive conflict. While the Black Octopi were busy exploring the crater made by a part of a comet that fell into the sea, the White Sharks dispatched their enormous fleet on their adversaries. To their surprise, Black Octopi were more than prepared for battle, but they weren't preparing for their fellow members of the race, but for aliens that they stumbled across while exploring the humongous crater. Both fractions commenced with development of military technology not knowing what to expect, but both determined to hold their ground. The aliens usually attack with their high-tech weapons anyone that comes near their part of the ocean floor and are even considering to expand their territory. The aliens are called The Sillicons, and resemble the creatures seen in the movie The Abyss, but are a lot less pacifistic. They are on this planet because a smaller population of them was attached to the comet, so now they are cut off from their own species. Their prime goal is to build a beacon and attract the attention of the next expedition which would hopefully pick them up.

After such a detailed historical background, no player will stay impartial. The story simply gives charge and energy to the rest of the game. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the in-mission briefings which are to say the least, weird. In order to understand what is required in the mission, the player has to load it up, check who's the enemy and what kind of a mission it is, and then go back to the briefing again. It's a pathetic method of adding to the game's replayability. The game consists of several solo modes (campaign, battles, add-ons and tutorials) and the multiplayer mode through all conventional types of nets. In any of the modes you can choose between the three sides: White Sharks, Black Octopi and The Silicons. Each has its strengths and weaknesses, which reflects on the balance of the game and a wide variety of strategies. In the Campaign mode, the player can choose from the three stories, respective of the fractions. The campaign for each fraction consists of ten scenarios. The story unfolds through briefings and cut-scene animations between missions. The missions are pretty linear and the tasks are simplified. A lot of it boils down to simple missions like: transport resources from one place to the other, seek and destroy object, escort of a ship or mobile technology. Some missions have a time frame, and others have additional tasks that are revealed when the mission has begun. The battle mode has some 30 scenarios --- historical battles that take place on a given terrain. Through add-in menu, customized campaigns can be played, since the disc has a level editor, and tools for determining AI of all objects/elements. Recently, a trend can be noticed among the RTS developers to highlight their editors (Earth C for Earth 2150 from Top Ware has become available), so the Ellipse Studios move to include editors is nothing more but a trend.

For the base to function properly, and the units to be made, you need resources. There are six different resources in the game: Corium, Metal, Gold, Air, Silicon and Energy. Each is collected in a standard RTS manner. As expected, you need to erect a specific object for the resource extraction After that, the transport subs carry the material to the storage facilities. With some resources you can trade, so it's a good idea to develop new technology & weapons as well as improving your base and keeping the flow of necessary resources steady-more money, more firepower, more dead bodies... Er, sunk subs.

Human fractions use four resources: Metal (for building units and objects), Gold (for research of new technology), Corium (for supplying power to all subs and objects) and Oxygen (to keep the settlers alive on the sea bottom, what else...). The alien race uses only three resources: Corium (as energy charge for their weapons), Silicone (to build units and objects), and Energy (to regenerate their frail bodies).

The control interface somewhat complex, but after you initially get used to the controls its very functional. Needles to say, RTS fans will be thrilled with the a la Starcraft design, while the newbie's need not bother with the complicated interface, and instead buy the excellent strategy called "Barbie's Riding Club" - full of blood and brutal carnage. There are several different interface elements displayed onscreen: Structure Order Panel, Diplomacy Settings, a Sonar mini-map, Resource Supply Indicator, Submarine Order Panel, number of units indicator and a selected sub depth indicator. There are options for unit formations, but they are of little help because any formation looses its sense with the fight-to-the-death tactics. The interface also has six screens which enable fast selection and tracking of the units. Sonar map shows all friend/foe units and resource locations.

The problem with getting used to the controls and the interface will be presented to all those who have the feeling that they are "not of this planet", like our EIC, Uros, but don't tell him that, (I saw this you little rodent, you're fired - Ed) since the command interface for the alien Silicon species is designed totally different than the one for the humans, and its generally unusual.