Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Giants is another of those games I bought knowing next to nothing about and upon completing it (though I had a very hard time getting it to run) I can say I am pleased with the experience. There are two things that stand out in the game. First being a wonderful sense of humor. Not for once Giants takes itself seriously, combining ironic British humour, black comedy and slapstick to the point that you want to rewatch the cutscenes a few times in order to laugh again and again. The second thing of course is that the game mixes various genres and to a great surprise it works. At first you play Giants as a quirky third person shooter, but soon you encounter missions that include RTS elements and eventually you even compete in racing games. The single player campaign consists of three distinct stories: Meccs', Delphi's, and Kabuto's. The stories each have their own playing style an provide many hours of fun. The game even looks great: lush vistas of the Island, its plateaus, forests and hills look eye-pleasingly even after eleven years. If i have one problem with Giants is that if Meccs' and Delphi's stories are very varied with lots of different objectives, then Kabuto's story quickly degenerates into the same pattern: eat-grow-smash things-kill things-smash the door to the next level. I'm not saying that playing a King Kong wannabe is not fun at first but it grows tedious very fast. However the ending is fulfilling enough and I have to say I had lots of fun playing this game.

This was a game I played when I was young. I remember my dad coming home and bringing the game and we played it together; what I got was a treat in both the humour and the gameplay. The story isn't by no means a classic but the writing definitely is. The jokes hit hard and fast and had me laughing in between every chapter. The shooting is fast paced and is expertly interwoven with the base building and strategy elements. The campaign is told from 3 perspectives, the British Accented Meccs, the Native Sea Reaper Mage Delphi and the Bone Crushing, person eating Kabuto. All 3 of these campaigns offer different gameplay styles with many other elements such as jet ski racing, base building and standard third person/ first person gunplay. However, the third campaign definitely is the weakest but the story carries it as the game reaches it's climax. To conclude, the game is a sleeper hit worthy of classic status. It has great british humour, a brilliant campaign and a weighty multiplayer mode. Oh, did I forget to mention the multiplayer? The multiplayer can consist of different races duking it out, building bases or just all uniting together to take out the big kabuto. It is as fast paced as the campaign and I'm sure if enough GOGers but the game; some multiplayer matches could be arranged. To conclude, I say buy it, it's about the cost of two pints of a lager and a packet of crisps and definetly offers much more entertainment than the price it is currently offered at.

I can't find where anyone mentions the first time they saw Kabuto lay an egg. I mean literally lay an egg. My first and still best laugh out loud at a game moment. Genius.

The wonderfull good old times. Thankfull to gog, I can get it for free! Really, try it and you would know why the old games are everytime better!

Only saves after missions, however building missions remember your building state (this was not obvious to me at first). Super fun, but don't be afraid to seek out on-line help if you get stuck. The save the smarties, for example, is very difficult.