Hostile Waters fully 3D environment is gorgeous, fluid, and amazing to watch.
Details such as time of day lighting, ground personnel, buildings, and terrain
features all add to the game's great look without slowing down any of the
action. Even the static war room map is a full 3D model of the mission's
terrain that can be zoomed and rotated to help give the player a good look at
the tactical situation.
Hostile Waters excels in the sound and music category as well. The
orchestral soundtrack is of the highest quality and expertly adds to the game's
dramatic tension. The voice acting is also top-notch, from the
personality- rich Soulcatcher chips to the game's cutscenes and narrations.
One of the game's great features is the radio chatter heard during the missions;
units report enemy contacts, congratulate and taunt each other - you can even
hear intercepted enemy transmissions reporting on the damage you've done.
This contributes wonderfully to the game's rich atmosphere and adds to the
in-mission excitement.
Hostile Waters is one of those rare games that add several innovative new
concepts to the genre and pull them off masterfully. It is not too
uncommon to see all of the effort in a game go into a novel feature while the
rest of the game is mired in mediocrity - not so with Hostile Waters. The
missions flow nicely within a compelling storyline driven by high quality
cutscenes. They are also challenging and provide some great gameplay.
While providing challenge to more experienced players, this could prove a little
frustrating to the casual gamer.
This game has some of the best unit AI ever seen in a strategy game.
Place a good chopper pilot chip in an attack helicopter and watch it hug the
terrain, pop-up behind obstacles to release a salvo at a target, maneuver around
a gun to take it out from behind, and more tactics typically only used by human
players. Even though Hostile Waters gives the player the option to jump in
and take control of a unit, you'll find the AI to be so good that you can
concentrate on directing the team's overall strategy without having to control
the units yourself.
If there is a downside to Hostile Waters it is that the game can only be
played in campaign mode. There are no skirmish levels and there is no
multiplayer support. The 21 missions are challenging enough to keep the
game from feeling short, but once the campaign is complete you might find
yourself still hungry for more.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 94%.
A skirmish mode, multiplayer option, or mission editor - anything to prolong the
wonderful experience of playing this game - would make the game rate even higher.
System Requirements: 266 MHz Pentium CPU; 48 MB RAM;
8 MB Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM; 340 MB Hard Drive Space; Mouse.
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