Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising

by Interplay

Product Features

• Twenty years have passed since the population of Earth did a fine job of destroying nearly everything in one final struggle for power by the politicians and military leaders. Twenty years have been spent building a near Utopia, a society where currency and finance are irrelevant, a planet without hunger or poverty. But hidden away in an island chicane in the Pacific Ocean, a cabal of old world financiers, politicians, and despots, are planning a return to the greed fuelled, hate filled past.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000059L4N
• Item Weight: 5 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: June 15, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,911 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising is a real-time strategy-action game hybrid that takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, but, to developer Rage's credit, it manages to be refreshing and fun. Part of the reason is because it borrows under-appreciated innovations such as Battlezone's and Uprising's 3-D perspective and Urban Assault's ability to take command of individual vehicles in the heat of 3-D combat--and it uses them to great effect.

Antaeus Rising features a story written by Warren Ellis, best known for his comic book work (Planetary, Transmetropolitan, and The Authority). He spins a tale concerning junk salvage, a chain of islands, and the struggle to control them. On the side of good we have the massive Antaeus, an advanced battleship/aircraft carrier/factory that bears a resemblance to Robotech's SDF-1. The Antaeus's factories build war machines piloted by long-dead soldiers who have had their skills and personalities encoded into computer chips. These soldiers mouth off during battle (the expletives shouted by one soldier when he is about to die--again--help earn this game an M rating), and their comments make the game livelier than other strategy titles. On the side of evil we have a motley collection of bad guys, who may or may not be aided by aliens.

Throughout the mission-based campaign you'll be creating defenses and attack units (tanks, helicopters, boats, etc.,) and sending them into battle. Using a joystick or a mouse you can jump into the cockpit of any unit to personally take care of difficult objectives. This helps a great deal in the later, harder missions.

The graphics are clean, the game is stable, and the strategy is as thrilling as the action. The only thing really wrong with Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising is its lack of multiplayer options of any kind. That means, once you've finished the campaign, the game is over. Still, it's a good, long ride while it lasts. --Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• Great graphics
• Thrilling and unique plot, told well
• Refreshing twist on both real-time strategy and action gaming

Cons:

• No multiplayer
• No real replay value

Product Description

With the world finally at peace in the year 2032, it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. When the bombings start again, the people of the world must find a way to come together and stop the bloodshed. You'll create military units and command them through each level of combat against the evil Old World Cabal. Using a great combination of action and strategy, this update to HOSTILE WATERS has you making tactical decisions, then hopping into battle to help your troops carry out your plans.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best RTS ever, bar none, Awesome!!!!!, October 23, 2001

By 

John Alderson "icemoose" (Central Maine, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising (CD-ROM)

Antaeus Rising is an EXCELLENT game. I give it a 5 of 5. Undoubtably the BEST Real Time Strategy (RTS) game I have ever played. Better than Starcraft or Total Annihilation. It has very addictive and fun gameplay. This game came with very little "hype" because it doesn't need any. The entire scene is beautiful, except in bad weather and dark nights, which do not last the entire mission. The rain and lightning is strikingly realistic. All the units are easy and fun to control. You can switch to "War room" to give units orders with the game paused. The Artificial Intellegence (AI) is excellent, the best that I have seen, and being also an "action" genre gamer I have seen alot. There are dozens of missions giving around 100 hours of initial gameplay. There was however 1 mission I did NOT like: a one-on-one mission with a hovercraft (me) and an "alien" "cargo loader" which was very difficult and I did not understand what I was supposed to do. I used a cheat which I found on the internet ... to skip the mission. The game frame rate is good at 1024X768 with 16 bit color (I have a PIII 500 W/384MB no win98 swap file (no "Virtual memory"), Riva TNT (1st) AGP, 7200RPM HD). The game is as good as Deus Ex (which is action/adventure/RPG genre). It has replayability, I am replaying it a second time now. I am looking forward to a sequel.

Details: Mission objectives often change during the mission to reflect newly acquired info. Mission objectives are NOT just the standard "Destroy", "rescue", and "gather resources". It has a strong story line ... explained well with very good sound with GOOD voice acting (Brittish accent) and are NOT cheesy. The only part not narrated with audio is the mission debriefings, which can be ignored if you like. Speaking of sound, the game sound is awesome (I have a "Soundblaster live! X-Gamer 5.1" and "Altec Lansing ADA-880" speakers with subwoofer). The explosions shake the house, the unit sounds are realistic, and the stereo surround effect is excellent and the pitch of other units (other than the current one) changes with location to reflect hills, canyons, and distance. There is a night vision toggle which allows a green-and-white view of everything, and it is NOT unrealistically clear. If it is used during daytime, it is very hard to see anything. The AI does have a few glitches, but is still the best I have seen. The glitches are limited to getting stuck in a few places where the land becomes too steep (perhaps this is realistic?), and when ground units move they tend to move in only one of the four basic directions at a time instead of diagonal. Also attacking cloakable units will not cloak between firing rounds, they will only cloak when specifically ordered to, and cannot fire without decloaking. Everything is beautifully rendered, including clouds and explosions: unit or ordinance. The missiles have smoke trails which quickly fade away. The snow looks real, and vehicles make tracks on it (which quickly fade away). Weapon damage causes black spots on the target, which fade away also. Attacking helocopters do not just sit still and fire, they perform evasive maneuvers while firing. Units can be given up to ten (I think) orders to perform in sucession, and includes a good waypoint system which works well. Some of the cinematics between the missions are a bit wierd, but not cheesy. The only other thing I did not like about the game was the inability to read pilot proficiences and background. This is very briefly outlined in a screen which only shows when the between-mission cinematic are loading, and my computer is very fast, so I only have about five seconds to read several sentences (insufficient time). Other than that, the pilots do speak their minds (actually verbally spoken) when assigned to a unit, which gives you an idea of what they might be good at. Some people (me) might prefer to turn off the swearing (an option is provided, defaults to on), they do use the ... word.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best game since Deus Ex..., May 1, 2001

By 

John Wheeler (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising (CD-ROM)

This might just be one of the best games I've ever played (and I've been playing since the Atari 2600). It has quite a steep learning curve but once you get into it, it is just plain awesome. You play the captain of a battleship type craft and you are given different objectives to complete as you make your way along a stretch of islands. The story is kind of an afterthought (something about the world being in total peace and then a group of CEO's start a war against an unsuspecting planet that has forgotten how to fight?) Anyway, the most enjoyable part of the game for me was assigning my crew. Each person under your command has his or her own personality and strengths. The people aren't just throwaway clones. You really get attached to each character. During the battles you get constant updates from them and you have to decide what their next move will be. It's just a very complex game and once you master it, it becomes quite a satisfying experience. Defiantly pick this game up if you haven't already... This game might be a sleeper but it's tons of fun.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A memorable game which is almost a classic, September 16, 2001

By 

David Lim "space_hamster" (Hobart, Tasmania) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising (CD-ROM)

There have been quite a few "first-person strategy" games over the last three years or so. The whole genre started with Battlezone and Uprising, and continued in 2000 with Dark Reign 2 and Ground Control. And now, we have Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising.

If you've played any of the previously mentioned games, you'll feel right at home with this one. So what exactly sets this one apart from the rest of the pack? The biggest difference is the moderately well-written storyline. Obviously, Warren Ellis put some thought into it, because instead of setting his storyline in an apocalyptic post-nuclear world, he sets his story in a post-21st century utopia. Which is a pleasant surprise...and much needed considering recent tragic events.

The interface is also very well thought out, but does require a bit of time to master. The result however, is probably the best (and easy to use) interface for a first-person-strategy game to date. A few quick keystrokes, and you can command other pilots to act as your wingmen, or command them to attack a target of your choice.

Most of the missions are of the bog-standard "kill everything that moves" variety. That's fine by me, as I never excel very well at defence or espionage missions.

You get some pretty neat units and weapons in the latter half of the game. Some examples include the Rhino and Behemoth tanks, which can be outfitted with devastating artillery cannons. An EMP cannon, which can be used to quickly disable enemy turrets. And a super-flamethrower, which can be used to, quite literally, burn down buildings.

The hardware requirements for this game are quite steep. I played this game on my old Pentium III 550MHz and had to use low details on the final missions. However, I've also played this game on my new Athlon 2000+ XP, and I can play it on the highest detail levels without even slowing down. So anyone with a PC faster than 1GHz won't have a problem running this game.

I've owned this game for almost two years now, and I'm delighted to say that I'm still having fun playing it. It's unfortunate that Hostile Waters wasn't more popular when it was first released, because this game from Rage Software is a definite classic.