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WWhen you set out to do a real-time strategy game, the first thing you need to do is choose a setting. Futuristic planetary surface? It's been done to death. Futuristic space setting? You don't want to have to compete with Starcraft. You'll probably skip a fantasy setting, because for some reason most developers have been avoiding that lately. So what's left? How about a futuristic underwater setting? Then add standard real-time strategy gameplay and voila! You have Submarine Titans.

The premise is trite; indeed, it's basically been done, almost to the letter, in a couple of underwater action games. A comet hits the Earth, sending the surface into a new dark age and leaving the last two remaining factions of mankind—the militant White Sharks and the technocrat Black Octopi—to slug it out beneath the oceans. Things really start to heat up once they discover a mysterious new substance brought by the comet (no, it's not Tiberium) and the game's third race, the Silicons. All three factions play differently (especially the Silicons, who are quite different from either of the human factions), but none of them deviate too far from the mechanics pioneered by past games. If you've played a real-time strategy game, especially a three-sided one, you'll have no trouble here.

Some people who have seen Submarine Titans shrug it off, saying, "Eh, it looks like an underwater knockoff of Starcraft." While there may well be some influences from that killer title, one might also argue that Blizzard's strategy opus took some ideas (visual ones at least) from Submarine Titans. After all, developer Ellipse Studios had already developed a lot of the game's visual styling by the time it was first shown back at the 1996 Electronic Entertainment Expo; back when Starcraft still looked like Warcraft II in space, and when Ellipse was touting its use of this amazing new technology called MMX.

Ellipse has used the intervening four years to really tweak the look of the game, and for the most part they have successfully kept the game from looking like it's over four years old. The scenery is beautiful—the artists have really done a great job making the setting look like it's underwater. Likewise, the different sides are all aesthetically appealing, from the austere militant look of the Sharks to the colorful visuals of the Octopi to the "we've-seen-The Abyss-a-hundred-times" look of the Silicons. Add in the varied underwater vistas and all the sea life, and you've got quite a looker—were Submarine Titans a screensaver, it would blow all the other fish tank savers away. Animation is the one purely visual downer—the movement of the units and critters is too mechanical. Instead of turning smoothly and arcing up and down, they jerk to a particular diagonal.

This aesthetic appeal comes at a price, however, one that you may well frown upon. It makes the gamer harder to play. The Sharks' vessels can be almost impossible to pick out from some of the background terrain, every factions' vessels can be hard to pick out when they're floating in and above a base, and the buildings often have that "techno is neat" look that makes them hard to differentiate from one another. Even worse, if you put a mess of vessels together they look like just that—a mess. Strategizers, forget it—mass "sub rush" tactics rule in this game.

The game does use depth like other games might use altitude, except that here every mobile unit can change depth. Five depth levels could have made for neat tactics, especially since your depth affects the game mechanics (particularly weapons fire), but in practice it doesn't work so well. It's hard to tell at a glance what depth a vessel is at; vessels do cast shadows, but they don't change size at different depths, so you've got to look off the map to check the depth indicator. Another neat idea is the implementation of overhangs, caves, and underwater tunnels, but again the implementation fails. In some terrain types it's hard to differentiate these overhangs, and it can be almost impossible to see your own units under them (you're given a bare shadow outline), let alone enemies. The depth feature does work, but it could have worked better.

The game sports a very large tech tree—loads of fun here for those who like research, especially when it's mixed in with resource gathering. It can be hard to keep up with it, however, and the tree is rather complex. It's well documented in the manual and online, but the game really could've used a printed poster-sized chart ala Alpha Centauri.

Many of the standard real-time strategy conventions are supported, but there are some notable exceptions and a few other weaknesses. You can queue unit production, but not building production or research. You can set units to patrol, scout, guard, and so on, but there aren't any waypoints. You can put groups of units into formation, but in general the terrain is far too constricted to make this functionality useful (although that constriction leads to lots of fun ambush tactics, particularly when combined with overhanging terrain). You can pause the game and access the menus and help, but you can't issue any orders while paused.

The interface is nice looking, but it takes a while to get used to. At times it can be awkward—especially in construction and research, where you often have to drill down through several layers of menus to build what you want. The game defaults to a resolution and zoom level that's restrictive, but luckily you're given two other zoom levels and two higher resolutions (up to 1280x1024).

The AI is a pleasant surprise—it's actually not bad. Even on the easier levels it will search for weaknesses, sometimes sending raiding parties in behind your main forces. What's more, the game comes with an AI scripting language (and a 100+ page Word document describing it), so you can modify all sorts of things if you're so inclined. There's a full editor for building your own missions, and even a separate sound "editor" that lets you modify each sound in the game (a good thing, as some of the voice acting is awful).

Throw in a bunch of multiplayer options (including an area on the free online game meeting room service FSGS), individual scenario maps, random maps, team games (including teaming with the AI), and the potential for new missions and campaigns via the editors, and you've got a game that has a lot of leg, if rather familiar leg.

Taken as a whole, Submarine Titans neither floats to the top of real-time strategy gaming nor sinks to the bottom. It's pretty looking and fun enough for government work, but a bit awkward and not terribly original. Whether it's a keeper or should be tossed back into the pond really depends on how badly you want a wet RTS experience.

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