Not quite there yet: Giants - Citizen Kabuto

The year is 2000. Planet Moon Studios published their first game, "Giants: Citizen Kabuto". It wasn't the first game for the developers. The reason they were allowed to make a game as a brand new studio for four years was that their previous project in 1997 had been "MDK", the visionary third person shooter. They came with a pedigree, is what I'm saying.

The game they came out with was visionary. It featured three distinct solo campaigns, connecting to an interwoven and epic storyline, in which the players took control of widly different factions. In the multiplayer mode, these factions could face off against each other in huge matches, including base-building.

 

The scope was breathtaking. The first faction, the Meccaryns, were humanoid Space Marines, flying around with jetpacks, wisecracking and shooting up stuff. You played a squad of five, and your high mobility and deadly weapons made up for your squishiness, as well as the fact that there were five of you.

 

In Singleplayer, four of these guys were played by the AI, and you had to find them on an alien world with lots of deadly inhabitants, friendly but simple natives you needed to protect and lots of other stuff. The Meccaryn campaign was a blast, containing lots of different missions, great characters and lots of fun.

 

You then switched play to your erstwhile nemesis, the Sea Reaper Delphi. This race of mermaids was bound to the ground, unable to fly, but equipped with powerful magic and a wideranging bow. In the story, you rebelled against your evil queen and made common cause with the Meccaryns.

 

Common cause was called for, since the last faction consisted of only one creature, but it was as big as godzilla and about as smart to boot. The titular Kabuto played like a romp, stomping around, eating the natives and growing in size and power. Not much was as satisfying as grabbing one of those pesky Meccaryns out of the sky and eating him.

 

That campaign of the Reapers wasn't quite as good as the Meccaryn one. The story as alright, but the gameplay was very repetitive. It leaned heavily into basebuilding, which was a very cool aspect of the game, but like with candy, there could be too much of a good thing.

 

Unfortunately, Kabuto's was even worse. Godzilla can't really have a character arc, and the designers clearly rushed this to the finish line. Every mission consisted of the same set of objectives: Go from A to B and smash C. This was so pervasive that in the final mission, where you had to reach a gate, the mission description (no dialogue anymore like in the previous campaigns, the designers just kind of gave up) actually read "Smash the gate (just kidding! walk through)". It's not a sign of quality if you parody your own writing.

 

Still, the game was a lot of fun. We also played a lot of multiplayer back in the day. All the flaws you could kind of ignore in the single player (largely empty maps, glitching errors, the works) came back with a vengeance here, and it was very difficult to actually employ the strength of the Meccaryns - teamplay - in a LAN party environment.

 

Trying to build and maintain a base with the AI available back in the day and the limits of a 3rd-person-perspective in 3D environments that from today's view look like someone vomitted on the screen also didn't help. But this game came closer to what it was trying to achieve with its hugely ambitious set of objectives than many others.

 

Asymmetrical gameplay between three distinct factions remains a goal often attempted and seldomly achieved. "Giants: Citizen Kabuto" came closer than most. That's to be commended and remembered.