Hostile Waters (PC CD)

A strong story, revealed gradually as the game progresses and narrated by Tom Baker, provide the backdrop to this futuristic 3-d wargame. Strong in-game voices include Paul Darrow (Avon in Blake's 7) guiding you through the excellent tutorials and missions.

The essence of the game is to conquer a series of islands in an archipelago through the use of tanks, helicopters, turrets, buggies etc., all of which can be manually controlled or left to the computer. Add in a small amount of intelligent resource gathering, striking visuals and sound and hectic missions and you have a fiver very well spent.

The basic premise is that in 2012 there was the war to end all wars, after this the world prospered. 20 years later a shadowy cabal of players start terrorist activity against the people who have now forgotten how to fight. One of the old war machines (a ship with a nano engine capable of creating any type of object) is resurrected and you are in command. Using your ship you can create war machines and these can be either commanded by you directly (so you can fly helicopters and drive tanks if you want) or control can be handed over to your minions (the memories of highly trained soldiers stored in soul chips).

The game starts of very simply with the usual sort of training missions that you would expect, and the level of difficulty slowly increases as you go through the levels. I'm currently about half way through and I can cope quite easily with the skill of the enemies (but I do still need to load again sometimes). As the complete levels you get different types of vehicle added to your inventory and extra weapons can be discovered on your travels. As you get more soul chips you can also run with more vehicles as you progress...

This game is a gem, the graphics are still fine and I can play it in 1240*1024 resolution in true colour on my slightly aging PC with all the options on.

If you like RTS/combat games then this is a great buy - especially when you consider that you get change out of a fiver.

In fact, Hostile Waters is one of those classics whose relative obscurity is downright odd. The quality of production is exemplary. I can't recall a single bug, glitch, or irritating gameplay device. Even the plot and voice acting are first rate. The graphics, whilst no longer state-of-the-art, are still exciting and moody, enhanced by strong dynamic weather and time-of-day systems.

The AI offers just the right amount of challenge, without becoming impossible to defeat. The sheer scale of the game is boggling, with about 25 levels, some of them vast and complex. I was convinced I must be nearing the end of a good-value game after just a dozen, only to find it continued on for the same length again, only in even more depth. The missions are surprisingly varied and feel well tied-in to the overall plot. The interface is a joy, with an intuitive feel to both the strategic and action perspectives.

Reading the manual one gets a feel that this was a labour of love for the developers. It's an inexplicable tragedy that this game wasn't a bigger seller on release, especially as more recent RTS-style games appear to be heading in this direction, some 3 years after Hostile Waters broke the ice.

I really can't recommend this bargain title too strongly.