Review of Impossible Creatures...
Posted: 2003-05-04 09:04pm
A while ago I mentioned that I had started reviewing games for the university magazine. Here's the first cab off the rank.
This might well be the most offensive and least politically correct game ever released. Its got it all: sexism, class and gender stereotyping, cloning, genetic manipulation, despoiling of the environment and endless amounts of cruelty to animals. But to counter this, its all done with such a wonderful quantity of cheese that its hard to take the subject matter seriously at all. It has an Indiana Jones-esque hero, his lovely side-kick and love interest, henchmen, mad scientists, evil millionaires! It has everything! But above all, it has critters and that’s what Impossible Creatures is all about: the critters - and what fine critters they are, need a half-baboon half-praying mantis? No problem. Gorilla crossed with a killer whale? I think we have one in stock. It's all very fun, only marginally creepy, and the creatures that you create are absolutely spectacular. Indeed, all the graphics in this game are quite beautiful, which unfortunately means that the system required, for it to look better than a WWF wrestler, is quite hefty. The sound too is similarly impressive with great pseudo-jazzy-swing tracks providing a backdrop for the game. Unfortunately it’s the game itself that is somewhat lacking. As once you get past the initial novelty of generating the freakiest beings that you can, you realise that this is just another generic real-time strategy game. In fact, with the exception of the critters this is just like every other real-time strategy game since time began. And it won't be long before you realise that though you can create as many critters as you want, only a few will ever be useful; and you'll find yourself using the same nine creations for the entire game. Overall however this game is highly amusing and lots of fun, but don't expect a revolution, just a kind of weird and a little scary evolution.
This might well be the most offensive and least politically correct game ever released. Its got it all: sexism, class and gender stereotyping, cloning, genetic manipulation, despoiling of the environment and endless amounts of cruelty to animals. But to counter this, its all done with such a wonderful quantity of cheese that its hard to take the subject matter seriously at all. It has an Indiana Jones-esque hero, his lovely side-kick and love interest, henchmen, mad scientists, evil millionaires! It has everything! But above all, it has critters and that’s what Impossible Creatures is all about: the critters - and what fine critters they are, need a half-baboon half-praying mantis? No problem. Gorilla crossed with a killer whale? I think we have one in stock. It's all very fun, only marginally creepy, and the creatures that you create are absolutely spectacular. Indeed, all the graphics in this game are quite beautiful, which unfortunately means that the system required, for it to look better than a WWF wrestler, is quite hefty. The sound too is similarly impressive with great pseudo-jazzy-swing tracks providing a backdrop for the game. Unfortunately it’s the game itself that is somewhat lacking. As once you get past the initial novelty of generating the freakiest beings that you can, you realise that this is just another generic real-time strategy game. In fact, with the exception of the critters this is just like every other real-time strategy game since time began. And it won't be long before you realise that though you can create as many critters as you want, only a few will ever be useful; and you'll find yourself using the same nine creations for the entire game. Overall however this game is highly amusing and lots of fun, but don't expect a revolution, just a kind of weird and a little scary evolution.
