Impossible Creatures

nfo from http://www.microsoft.com/games/impossiblecreatures/

A real-time strategy game of combat and discovery, where
imagination and experimentation are your biggest allies in a
struggle against evil.

Make the most of your armies! Check out the new Strategy Guide. It
has all the tricks you'll need to kick recombinant butt.

The year is 1937 and you are Rex Chance, renowned world adventurer
and war correspondent. You have spent your life exploring the
wilds of Africa, the ice shelves of Antarctica, and the sultry
jungles of the Amazon. You've seen every beast on earth. or so you
thought. You've just received word from your long lost father,
scientist Dr. Eric Chanikov, who disappeared many years before.
Suddenly, he now begs to see you. So you fly to the Isla Variatas
in the South Pacific where he works in the employ of wealthy
industrialist Upton Julius. But what begins as an innocent reunion
quickly turns sour as you come face-to-face with the Sigma
Technology.

What is the Sigma Technology? Imagine possessing the ability to
combine any two animals into a single creature. Flying elephants,
giant ants, amphibious sharks...anything you can conceive. The
possibilities boggle the mind! What benefits might it bring? What
evil might be wrought?

Story

It's 1937. The world has been through a devastating depression and
sits on the brink of the greatest war humanity has ever known.
Meanwhile, on a small chain of islands in the South Pacific a
great scientist toils over his discovery: technology 30- years in
the making known only as Sigma Technology. Dr. Erik Chanikov has
discovered a method to combine two normal animals (animals that
you would find in nature) into completely new creatures which have
the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither.

This is only the first step towards Dr. Chanikov's final goal:
combining genetic material at the molecular level to overcome the
inherent genetic flaws that makes humanity vulnerable to age,
suffering, and disease. However, Dr. Chanikov does not yet realize
that the very people that claim to be his allies will instead
attempt to circumvent his work.

Upton Julius, a wealthy American industrialist, has been the sole
backer of Dr. Chanikov's work, as well as his friend through the
long years it has taken to develop the Sigma Technology. Being a
great believer in philanthropy, Upton has always been a source of
support and friendship for Dr. Chanikov.

However, in recent years Upton's goals have changed and his once
kind and benevolent manner has faded. For reasons known only to
his most trusted allies, Upton has begun to look at Sigma not as
an opportunity to better humanity, but as a tool for increasing
his power.

Obsessed with his scientific pursuits, Dr. Chanikov failed to
notice this change in Upton's personal agenda. All the while,
Upton began collecting a motley crew to help enforce his will:
the brutish whaler, Whitey Hooten, the sinister ornithologist,
Velika La Pette, and the deranged veterinarian, Dr. Otis Ganglion.

Together, they are formulating a plan to use Sigma to take over
the world, but they are still missing one key element.

Upton's misdealing has not gone completely unnoticed, however. Dr.
Lucy Willing, Chanikov's assistant (and brilliant scientist in her
own right) has seen the clues and suspects Upton's treachery. Not
knowing the full scope of Upton's plans, she prepares a mobile
laboratory capable of hiding out almost anywhere within the vast
island chain where their experiments have been taking place. She
only intends to use this as a last resort. If the worst should
happen, both she and Dr. Chanikov will have a safe hiding place.
Until then, though, she plans on covertly monitoring Upton's
operation and learning everything she can about his plans.

Every bomb has a fuse, which in this case is one Rex Chance,
freelance war correspondent and adventurer down on his luck.  A
desperate letter and a call from the past will drop him smack into
the middle of the struggle over the Sigma Technology, setting in
motion events that could lead to the end of the world as we know
it.

Will Upton find the key to unlocking the power of the Sigma
Technology? Not if Rex Chance has any say about it!

Features

Impossible Creatures has more than 50 animals that can be combined
to create a vast number of mutant creatures, the results of which
are limited only by players' creativity.

By building these creatures into powerful and effective armies,
players can define their strategy and how they want to tackle
their opponents.

The highly detailed, fully 3-D dynamic world allows players to
battle in four richly detailed environments, each with special
flora and fauna.

Players command dozens of creatures, and henchmen in 15 missions
across 14 distinct islands.

Impossible Creatures offers boundless creature combinations,
armies, and strategies as well as online play and an easy-to-use
mission editor that provides limitless play options.

Multiple players can engage in unprecedented, intense gameplay.
Fast and ferocious multiplayer games bring a fresh RTS experience
by focusing on furious, combat-driven action.

Downloads

If you're itching to create the most unique armies ever found in a
real-time strategy (RTS) game then download the Impossible
Creatures trial version and play through three single-player
missions, a tutorial and two "player vs. CPU" maps. The Sigma
Combiner is also included, enabling you to create your own army of
fearsome creatures that are generated by mixing and matching the
various parts of two different animals. Fourteen animals are
included in the trial version, while 50 different animals will be
available in the retail product.

We have two Impossible Creatures Fan Site Kits (FSK) available for
download. The small FSK includes the new Impossible Creatures logo
(layered), new box art, screenshots, a movie, creature art, and
more. The larger FSK includes everything in the "small" version
plus more movies, concept art, and radio interviews from the
game's characters.

Download the size of your choice and start building your
Impossible Creatures fan site today!

Creatures

In Impossible Creatures, you'll amass armies of hybrid creatures
to protect your lab and combat enemy beasts. Each creature has its
own unique abilities, some of which include poison, regeneration,
ranged attack, leap attack, camouflage, digging, electrical burst
and many more.  Most of an animal's abilities are linked to seven
specific parts of its anatomy: head, torso, front legs, back legs,
tail, wings, and pincers. You'll want to pay special attention to
what parts of each animal you want to include when you start
creating creatures in the Combiner

On that same subject, when using the Combiner, you'll be able to
mix and match all of these unique abilities and come up with your
own recipe for how you want to approach a battle. You can create
amphibious units that can attack on land or sea, close combat
creatures, artillery units, air, water and ranged units, keen
sense units to reveal camouflaged or digging creatures, and so on
and so forth. The only limitation is your own imagination. If you
do things right, your opponent will never know what hit him.

The Combiner is the heart of the Sigma Technology. It performs the
recombination of two stock animals to create the blueprint of a
hybrid creature. Use the Combiner to choose abilities you want to
include in your hybrid.

But how does it really work? To help better understand how a
creature is combined and why, let's look at a sample creature and
why its abilities might be useful.

The scenario? We want to attack a nearby encampment enclosed by
bramble fences and protected by slow moving creatures.

What we need? The creature should be quick and have the ability to
destroy brambles with immunity to thorns.

What did we choose? In our scenario, the scorpion and the cheetah
were combined into a creature called a Cheetion. We chose the
scorpion for its tail and claws so our creature would have a
stinger and pincers. We chose the cheetah for its front and back
legs so our creature would possess high speed and the leap
ability.

Strengths? The pincers give our creature the ability to destroy
fences, as well as immunity to the effects of brambles. The
stinger can be used to debilitate enemy units in close combat.
The creature's ability to run fast helps it get out of the way of
an attack quickly, and, if needed, can use its leap ability to
strike first in close combat. The Cheetion would be good for
hit-and- run attacks.

Weaknesses? Neither the cheetah nor the scorpion is a very big
animal, lessening its ability to sustain an attack. Neither has
good sight radius nor is able to see long distances. Therefore,
the Cheetion would not be a good scout. It would be at risk to
ranged units that could quickly take it out from distance before
it could react. It lacks the power or toughness to make a front-on
assault.

Combat

Impossible Creatures is a game that takes solid RTS gameplay, set
in an imaginative and vibrant world, and allows players to design
their own units. Combat is unique because strategy is personalized
by the player, different every game and can be pre-determined or
defined on the fly.

















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