Let's Play Impossible Creatures part 0: INTRODUCTIONS
Elevator Pitch:
Mix and match different animals. Gather resources. Fight your opponent. Win.
Expanded Summary:
Impossible Creatures was created by Relic Entertainment back in 2002 and was published by Microsoft Game Studios. You may remember Relic from such memorable titles such as the Dawn Of War series, Company of Heroes, and Homeworld. In fact, the first Dawn Of War games actually ran on the Impossible Creatures engine.
Impossible Creatures takes place in 1937 and follows the adventures of disgraced war journalist Rex Chance as he searches for his father, Dr. Eric Chanikov, inventor of the mysterious Sigma Technology, a technology that allows any two living creatures two be combined into one.
Naturally, things do not go as planned as Rex crosses paths with the ruthless and cunning tycoon Upton Julius. Saved and accompanied by his father's assistant, Lucy Willing, Rex must outwit, outplay, and outmatch his opponent and find out what really happened to Dr. Chanikov.
To do this, Rex must use the Sigma Technology, gather samples of animal DNA, and create...Impossible Creatures.
Core Game Mechanics:
Impossible Creatures is your standard base-building RTS, but with a nice little twist: you actually get to create your own units to do battle with your opponent.
Using the creature combiner (accessed from either the main menu or in game via the army editor), you can mix any two animals into one creature, which can add a whole new level of strategy to the mix. Perhaps some early game harass is what you desire. Or maybe what you're looking for is some mid-game air power that can establish dominance quickly and decisively. Or, if you're more of a juggernaut type of player, some late game punch is just what you need to get some wins under your belt. There are 51 animals in the base game, with 10 bonus animals and another 15 in the expansion, Insect Invasion, which brings us to a grand total of 76 animals that can be combined.
You advance up the tech tree at your lab, which, by the way, is a fucking VTOL train. That is cool. Anyway, there are five tech levels, the highest being level five. Each tech level unlocks the creatures you designed in the army editor. At level two, you unlock the ability to create purely naval/amphibious creatures, and at level three you unlock the capability to make flying ones.
Availability:
Being an old game, Impossible Creatures might seem impossible to find. Never fear, however. There are still copies floating about.
Amazon is pretty much going to be your best bet if you wanna be sure to get a copy. Check to see if the seller you're looking at ships worldwide or, better yet, locally (and by locally I mean within 100+ miles) to your home. You might save a few bucks.
eBay is also good choice, but again, check to see if the seller ships internationally or if you live close by (around 100+ miles). Also, be warned, this is eBay, which means you'll have to bid, which means you'll probably be either sniped at the last minute or wind up overpaying by a large margin.
Steam and GOG don't seem to have this game in either of their libraries, which is a shame because this is a game that I really enjoyed playing as a kid. Oh well.
When all else fails, check your local games store under the PC section or the bargain bin. Who knows, maybe you'll also find another gem...
Now, without further ado, Let's Play Impossible Creatures!
This was THE game that got me into RTS. I didn't even start playing BW until after I played the shit out of it. Impossible Creatures is definitely top 3 games of all time in my book. O_O
Campaign Intro video (240p, sorry! All I could find on such short notice; also, it's not subtitled, which may be a bugbear for some people who are a bit hard of hearing)
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We start out on the run from Julius, in our fucking hover train. Eat it, Julie!
Oh yeah. Riding in style~~ Bet Julius is cursing himself out right now that he didn't plan on us getting out of that jam in the coolest way possible.
Sup. Now, can this thing go into space? Because that would just be the cherry for me. The delicious, awesome cherry.
Dammit Rex, play along! I like the fact that you really care about your dad, but c'mon, you're sucking out all the fun of being on a fucking hover train!
Game, don't you do this to me. You will not take away my hover train. I won't allow it. :<
(Sorry for the bad shot; was a bit quick on the trigger with this one)
FUCK YOU GAME. It's been a good run, you guys, but sadly it must come to an--
Wait, we can still save it! C'mon, Lucy! You can do it! Just a little more on the...er, how do you pilot this thing anyway?
Hey, man. Any one you can walk away from is a good landing. Don't snark the lady. She didn't have to save you, y'know. She could've just let you be eaten by Julie's pets. Also, I'm not bitter that we lost our hover train. At all.
Rex, I'm glad that you have some priorities in all of this, but just take a step back. You came to the island chain in search of your mad scientist of a father. You were then attacked by half-breeds, accosted by a sleazeball of a human being, saved by the woman you see before you in her fucking hover train, and then crash-landed said hover train.
"Totally boned" doesn't even begin to describe how deep in it you are, my friend.
Hey, you'll get through this. Trust me. I know what I'm doing. + Show Spoiler +
Actually I kinda don't because it's been what, a couple years since I last played this? So yeah, you're both going to die freezing, hungry, and alone.
Pfft. As if you'll do all the work. Watch and learn, young grasshopper. Watch and learn.
And now we finally get to the game proper WOOOO! Our current game-plan is to establish a base of operations, get some animal DNA, and start the crossbreeding! Also, get in contact with the village to the north of us because they also hate Julius. Dunno the 'why' of it, but more friends are better than none. Plus, if they can spare some resources, that would be great.
Naturally, Rex takes offense to the 'mix and match critters' part. He's afraid, methinks, that we'd fall into the same trap that Julie has.
Now, I think, is a good time to explain what you guys are looking at. Which is the game screen.
The blue number up in the top left hand corner is our Coal Supply. Coal is the 'basic' resource and is gathered from Coal Piles around the map. Coal piles, to my knowledge, do not naturally regenerate, so you have to be careful about how much you mine out. Think of coal as you would of minerals.
The red-orange number is our Electrical Supply. Electricity is the 'advanced' resource gathered from building either Lighting Rods or Geothermal Generators. Geothermal generators can only be built on Geothermal vents, but can have up to four Add-Ons that put out additional power. You can only have four Lighting Rods.
The green number is our Population Cap, which takes into account both creatures and worker units (which we will meet later on). We cannot increase our pop cap.
In the top right hand corner is our Game Time. It tracks how long we're taking to play the current game.
The little green box that looks like it just popped up on the left side of the screen? That tells us our objectives have been updated. We need to do these. Sometimes, there will be Bonus Objectives that we don't have to complete, but will let us eke out an edge against our opponents.
Down near the bottom of the screen is the Minimap. Surrounding it are our Assigned Hot-Groups. The flashing yellow ping tells us that an objective is nearby.
Those green dots (which are hard to see, I understand, but please bear with me!) we currently see on our minimap are our units. For reference, any red dots we see on the minimap are enemies, and thus must be destroyed with the fury of one million suns.
I'm gonna split this update into two parts so that I don't take up too much space.
(HERP DERP I'MMA DUMBASS; forgot to select "large thumbnails" from imgur; also I apologize for this being as late as it is)
Part 1b:
Looks like Rex is still sorta iffy on the whole "let's-swap-random-parts-on-animals-and-see-what-happens" department. Personally, this is my favorite quote in the entire game.
Anyway, there are two (very important) things to note on this screen:
Rex's special ability is that he can use his dart gun to collect samples of DNA from "wild" creatures. It has a ridiculously low cooldown of about <1 second. It can later be upgraded to neurotoxin darts which damage enemy creatures.
Second things is the little blurb of information that tells us about the animal we collected (in this case the Mountain Lion). It gives some useful information about how to best combine these, as well as the general combat abilities that they bring to the table. In this case, the Mountain Lion has a high defense rating for a mid-range creature and has a leap attack, granting it a sort of "first-strike" bonus.
I'll show these little info blurbs at the end of each mission, if you guys are interested.
Lucy mentions that animals show up as grey/gray dots on the minimap. This is true. Grey/Gray dots also denote "neutral" locations (such as geysers to build geo-thermal generators on) and units (such as villagers).
After running around collecting animal DNA for our cause, Rex takes this chance (heh) to go northward and check on the locals.
Who, admittedly, are not happy with our presence. Alright, Rex, time for that Chanikov charm to go to work!
...Still salvageable, Rex! You can do this!
...This is still able to be--
...goddammit, Rex. From now on, you are no longer allowed to be our first point of contact with the natives. Ever.
Welp, at least this guy knows what's going on--wait, did this guy just say that his village is now in the crossfire between Lucy and her pursuers (one of them presumably Julius)?
Where's Ricky Ricardo when ya need him? Because this is a golden opportunity for the best joke ever and I am ashamed that I have to pass it up because I don't have the appropriate soundbite on hand. Foresight, ladies and gents!
Also, the village has built a bunch of fires to keep the beasts at bay. It's a short-term fix, however, and they're starting to run low on wood.
There's also this somebitch:
You see that polar bear-looking thing? That's not just a polar bear. That's a polar bear...crossed with a musk ox, which has a special ability called Herding. Herding lets any 4+ creatures of the same "species" gain a defensive bonus when in close proximity to each other.
We don't have to worry about that. But this little fella is still gonna cause some trouble for us. Because holy shit that thing has high health this early on in the game!
I think defending an innocent village in exchange for information is a fair trade, yeah.
So does the villager. But, as he mentions, we gotta hustle before those fires die out!
...y'know, I don't think Rex has any idea about how to defend this village other than "punch those things in the jaw and hope to god they stay down."
...Nope, still can't make the joke.
...well, that's something.
What you're now looking at is a Waypoint/Move Command Order. Really, nothing too special.
The million dollar question here, folks! Let's see Lucy's answer!
...Huh. So you don't know either. Well, that's pretty ominous.
Rex has more immediate concerns, such as his previous plan of "punch shit until it dies" isn't exactly the best one.
And guess how we do it?
I love it that Lucy's embracing her inner mad scientist. Makes her even more sexy.
I'm gonna cut it here before it gets too picture heavy, but that'd be a bit of a cop out, so instead, to build some goodwill with all of you...
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Bonus Update #1: Creature Combination
Here's an explanation on the how we're gonna wreck Upton's shit, gathered waaaaaay back before I started the campaign!
This is the creature combination screen accessed via the army manager button from the main menu. This is where most of the magic will be happening.
As you can see, it is empty. We're gonna fix that soon enough, but in order to do so...
We need to choose a sort of "base" animal. As you can see just by looking at the scroll bar, there are a lot of critters to select from. 76 in total, which includes the base game's 51, the bonus 10, and Insect Invasion's 15.
Each creature has the following, starting from the left, ignoring the portrait and name:
A Base Coal cost
A Base Electric cost
A Minimum Tech Level Requirement (higher levels "take priority" over lower ones, meaning that if a level I and a level II animal are combined, the result will be a level II specimen)
A sort of "Quick Look" at their stats, showing (from the left) how much base health, defense, land/air/water speed, build time, size, melee and ranged damage they have
Near the bottom of the screen is a more detailed breakdown of the animal selected.
On the left is the Damage Breakdown. This is where you can see what the damage output that the animal "brings in" to the combiner for the final creature.
In the center is the Creature Stats. These are simply a more detailed look than the "quick look" stats, and included are the creature's movement typing and building requirements. In this example, any creature that uses the Alligator Gar requires that a Water Chamber be built before it can be spawned in. (We haven't seen the Water Chamber yet, but we will soon enough!)
On the right is the Abilities Breakdown. This shows what abilities the creature has and where the ability comes from. Here, we can see that the Alligator Gar has the ability High Endurance and it's located in the Gar's Torso, which means that the final creature will have a higher Endurance than normal, provided they take the Gar's torso.
Land-based creatures have five (insects have six) body part locations, and those are:
Head
Front Legs
Pincers (insects only)
Torso/Thorax
Rear Legs
Tail
Fish have:
Head
Torso
Tail
And air-based (birds and winged insects) creatures have:
Head
Front legs (insects only)
Torso/Thorax
Wings
Talons/Rear Legs
Tail
Each part of the first animal can be "swapped" with the corresponding part of the second, so you can swap a head for another head, or a tail for another tail. Special parts such as Pincers and Wings can be swapped freely, but if the final resulting creature has wings, they will require an Air Chamber to be built before they can be spawned in. (We'll also see the Air Chamber soon, but not for a bit...)
This is what the combiner looks like now that we've selected our animals! Cute lil' thing, ain't he? D'aaaaaw, lookit!
Who's daddy's little abomination~~~? You are! :3
In the center of the shot you can see the creature as set up. Slightly to the left and right are the red-orange buttons that specify which parts can be "swapped in."
Below the creature is its Name. Keep in mind that this will be the name all future members of the creature's species, so you'll wanna pick one that sticks if you're playing this yourself.
I will be working off of a back catalog, so there won't be any fancy names from me. But you will have a chance to force me to do terrible things in the name of SCIENCE(!!!) submit names and combinations for me! Just stay tuned for a bit.
Anyway, further down you'll see the Detailed Breakdown of the creature's stats. This was already discussed, so the explanation is further up the post if you scroll up a bit to the beginning of the bonus update.
You see that black box? That's the creature's Portrait. The little green lock means that we haven't taken one yet. When we take one using the Camera Button, the lock will turn red.
A little bonus easter egg! If you hold down the Camera Button, you can actually get a little movie playing in the portrait box, which is pretty neat! I don't know how to show it off since I cannot into .gif making, but it's there!
The green and red numbers dotting the bottom are the Modifiers. On the left, green means a positive modifier has been applied. Red means a negative one is applied.
In the center, however, that isn't the case for the two big things you should consider, those being the Coal Cost and Electrical Cost. Instead, red means positive, which is bad. Green means negative, which is good. This line of thinking is also applied to the Tech Level.
Below those, however, it switches back to green being positive and red being negative.
In general, green numbers are good modifiers that you wanna see. Red numbers are ones that you don't.
...And that's all there is to know about the creature combiner! Now, for the reader participation!
How To Participate In The Making Of Horrible Monsters In The Name Of SCIENCE(!!!)!
It's simple, really!
Just pick two critters from the 51 offered from this list! (Ignore the bonus ones and the ones from Insect Invasion!) Also, keep in mind that the animals that we haven't seen yet will not be immediately available to me.
Once you do, you can tell me how you want me to make the creature you want! Just tell me which Head, Front Legs, Torso, Rear Legs, and Tail to use, as well as any special parts (those being Pincers and Wings)!
For reference, the following creatures have pincers: Lobster, Scorpion, and Praying Mantis
Think of a godawful cheesypainfully ironic witty name (optional, but strongly encouraged!)
Once you've done that, post your desired combination (or send me a PM if you'd prefer!) and I will do my best to make sure that it gets made!
And that's pretty much it!
Now, because I love you guys so much, I'm gonna give you guys some ideas by posting...
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