Overview

Developer: Rage Software
Publisher: Interplay
Antaeus Rising official page: http://www.antaeusrising.com

Something for Everyone

If you keep up with gaming you probably know that every game coming out is, "A fast-paced blend of Action, Role-Playing, Strategy, Simulation, Basket-Weaving, Shoe-Shining, and Chicken Soup." And you also know most games don't even come close to what the box says. I think publishers don't' know that choosing between door number one and door number two does not constitute "Role-Playing".

Skepticism was abound when I started playing Hostile Waters since it claims to be Action/Strategy. You get to control vehicles and order units around a map? You can order a wingman to cover you and harvest resources? There's yet to be a game that really pulls this off - kind of like a GameBoy Advance light that actually works.

The Money Shot

Lots of bugs

The Story

In the near future, actually, in the time it takes an average person to be born, grow up, and claw their way into middle-management humans will completely forgot the concept of war (Somehow this brings up memories of a bad Sly Stallone movie. --ed). So arcane is war that people have no devices of mass destruction, or even know the first thing about building weapons. Nanotechnology has also become a reality. On every street corner lie machines that pump out food and clothing for everyone free of charge. Basically, Earth is now a Utopia.

But this wouldn't be an interesting video game without conflict, would it? A group of leaders from the "Old World" form the Cabal to work together and overthrow the Utopia to return the world to a war-based economy. Off they go to the south pacific to build their war machine, and soon they begin to attack.

Nanobots	Borden, a dead soldier
POP	The Antaeus from the side

Without weapons to fight back with what is a pacifist to do? Luckily there is hope: at the bottom of the ocean lies the Antaeus, a nano-factory equipped cruiser with the ability to create an army by itself. Also salvaged from the ship are Soulcatcher chips - disks with copies of soldiers' personalities from the moment before their death. Here's where you step in, the first soldier re-created by the Antaeus to lead its army.