Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising Preview

One of the benefits of being a developer in the gaming industry is that if a product doesn't meet widespread success or doesn't fall in line with a team's initial plans, it's always possible to go back to the planning stages to find out what went wrong and then improve upon future releases. It seems as though British developer Rage Software took such an opportunity with Incoming--an arcadelike shooter in which you control different vehicles--by dissecting it and finding the game's weaknesses, what worked, and what could be added to make a better game. Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising is obviously the result of that work, and while Incoming has its shortcomings, Hostile Waters improves upon its predecessor with a stronger story, deeper gameplay, and more detailed visuals.

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The year is 2032, and the world is finally at peace, but not everyone is pleased with the current state of affairs. A group composed of old-world leaders--those who benefit most from war and are located in a group of islands--hoard its remaining resources to launch an attack and break the peace, thus throwing the world back into a state of war. The only way the new world can fight back against this organization, called the Old World Cabal, is to resurrect a relic of the old world--an ancient machine equipped with a nanofactory capable of producing weapons and vehicles from a few scraps of metal. Your main objective is to infiltrate the islands that are inhabited by the Old World Cabal and to systematically destroy each island that leads up to the group's headquarters. Of course, such a task is much easier said than done, especially since some of the later missions require a significant amount of planning and strategy to successfully complete objectives.

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The new world has been forced to not only raise the Antaeus from its resting place at the bottom of the ocean, but to also call upon soldiers that have been dead for a number of years. During the last real war, soldiers were implanted with a device called the soulcatcher chips. The primary function of these chips was to essentially store the individual characteristics and personalities of the solider so that they could be used at a later time to control military vehicles on their own. The new world uses these soulcatcher chips in the vehicles built by the Antaeus, but you must choose wisely, because there are only 10 soulcatcher chips available at a time--the rest of your vehicles must be controlled manually, which can be rather difficult to deal with in the heat of battle. Your soulcatcher chip pilots continuously talk during battle, and this gives you vital information, such as the people who need assistance and the location of enemy weapons and units.

Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising's story progresses as you travel through the 21 islands controlled by the Old World Cabal, but there are a number of different subplots that stem from the soulcatcher pilots. For example, you get to know each of the pilots through a series of real-time cinemas that show how the pilots met their demise, what their specialty was, and what kind of personality they had. In addition, during battle, the soldiers have conversations that reveal new information about the story or, more specifically, the Old World Cabal.