It's rare than any developer remakes a game as a port that is truly as good as the original. It's hard, and usually, another developer does the porting work. Giants: Citizen Kabuto falls into this familiar chasm of console ports. Because the PC and the PS2 are such different systems in the way they're programmed for, the in-house team at Interplay went through an inordinate amount of work to port the code from Giants: Citizen Kabuto to the PS2, and the result, luckily, is that it's still as wacky, fun, and enjoyable as it was on the PC. On the other hand, the game has definitely lost its graphic sheen and luster in the process, and the once drooled-over PC graphics are very ordinary on the PS2 at year's end 2001. The missing multiplayer aspects and occasional AI hiccups don't help much either.
But ever if you had played the PC version, Giants on the PS2 might still bring a surprise. The remapped controls work exceptionally well on the PS2's Dual Shock controller, all three races are a breeze to manipulate and move, the core essence of the game is still very much in tact, and despite its rather empty environments, the creatures and characters all retain respectable textures, high poly counts, and are nice to look at. In short, Giants may have gained a little tarnish during its transformation, but it's still a very good game, and in the end, very much worth your hard-earned cash.
Gameplay
Let's start by NOT comparing Giants to its PC brethren for a moment. Giants is designed by a team of folks who split from Shiny Entertainment about three-plus years ago, and despite the long time in development, and retooling on the PS2, it's a fantastic, fast-action game that's entirely original in every aspect. OK, technically, there are game aspects in this I have encountered in other games, but the premise, feel, presentation, character and creature design, control, variety of lead characters, and the entire overall package is remarkable likeable.
Seen from the third-person perspective, Giants is an action game through and through, with various additional gameplay elements constantly appearing for your amusement. Spread over a huge span of large landscapes, Giants enables players to get to grips with three races, with a relatively interesting plot.
The Meccaryns (Meccs for short) are technophile partiers always looking for a good fight. They land on an Island as a temporary measure to repair their spacecraft. These five cockney space aliens on holiday get sucked into helping the indigenous and relatively peaceful race of Smarties from the tyrannical Queen Sappho and her evil army of Sea Reapers.
Later on, our heroes learn that Sappho's daughter, Delphi, a bluish, skimpily clad magical sea reaper rising against her mother's oppression, who is also opposed to her mother's practices, and together they try to reclaim the Island from the evil reapers. The third character is a "giant" 100-foot monster called Kabuto, who grows and shrinks in size, and who performs slow, but powerful wrestling moves on his captives, before chewing them into bits.
Giants offers gamers a generous variety of shooter-style levels. In many levels of play, including the first two-thirds, players must save Smarties from hanging ledges and retrieve them to a nearby base, rescue them from attack, and constantly help them from attack, sacrifice, and slaughter. Later on, players get the chance to play a few action-based realtime strategy mini-games. They're some of the longer and bigger levels in the game, and they're very fun, albeit light RTS fun, but nonetheless good stuff. As Delphi, you're more of a spell-casting warrior, with great summons, such as Lighting, Firewall, Transport, and Tornado. Your levels also include RTS missions, but they also involve jetski levels, too. You ride a Reaperski, and it's very easy stuff. Later on as Kabuto, you enjoy a decent variety of missions, too.
The level variety of isn't the only thing that makes Giants so special. These characters are created with care and genuine talent. The five Meccas are basically a bunch of beer drinking good 'ol boys, who like chicks and a little bit of action. They're funny on their own, but the constantly interfacing with the Smarties, who are funny all on their own, creates an atmosphere for big laughs. The Smarties are the indigenous, small, and very ugly looking creatures that once resided peacefully on "The Island." They have bulging eyeballs, giant, snail-shell shaped heads, and tiny little chalk-white bodies. They're talkative and smart-alecks, and they act like first-rate knuckleheads, which is their charm. What the game does extremely well is involve the player the Smarties' plight, and endears you to them, the Meccas, and even Kabuto himself. All of the missions are presented through cutscenes, as is the story, which is often simply an excuse for humorous asides, and funny talk.
What has been eliminated from PC version is small, but depending on which systems you own (i.e., a PC), you may not be impressed. First and foremost, the controls have changed. But like I said, they work just fine on the PS2 Dual Shock, with easy to access weapons to scroll through on the Dpad, fire and cast mapped onto the X and Circle buttons, jetpack and charge on L1, and cast spells on R2. They're easy to get to grips with, but due to a lot of items, spells, and weapons to use, players will need a few levels to adjust.
One major adjustment to the PS2 version is the new ability to save at any point in the game. Yep, one of the biggest complaints the PC version drew was its minimal save points. In the PS2 version, players can save at any point, they can view the last cutscene, or just save wherever. It's a nice addition. Also, the range of weapons, spells, and moves are large. The Meccas get to grips with eight weapons, upgrades for backpacks, and nine other various items. Delphi enables players to use six different bows, a sword, and 14 spells! Kabuto has 11 different moves, many of them wrestling moving, and can manipulate his offspring (by laying an egg) for protecting or attacking.
The game delivers a great sense of control, for all three creatures. With all characters, players have four perspectives: third-person, and three first-person views, two being zoom shots, which are extremely cool when firing long range at automatic flak guns and sniper-toting Reaper. Playing as the Meccas and as Delphi, players get a wonderful sense of floating/flying by the use of the jetpacks, and Delphi's flying/charging ability. As a Mecca, you also can upgrade your pack for faster re-charges and for longer flights, which help to create great tension and fun into the game.
Aside from the less than stellar looks, which I'll get to later, the PS2 version apparently retained a number of small AI problems, some basic presentation/dilemmas, and some weird little gaffs in the PS2 version. Enemies often run into solid objects and stay there for minutes, or hours, depending on the situation. In some missions, the Sea Reaper guars steal the lead Smartie, but get stuck on an object in the Smartie base for well, technically, forever.
In both of the RTS levels, setting the final Pop-Up bomb in the exact location was unclear and totally annoying. In the Mecca level, I kept placing it in the exact spot as the blinking dot, but to no avail (unlike the PC version, it's supposed to be placed right underneath the entry way arch). In the Delphi level, you're supposed to summon a Tornado, but that took four tries for me get the Tornado to actually hit the enemy barracks. And then your Mana is all spent, so you have to fly around looking for something to kill, but you're slaughtered all of the Reapers in order to get to the barracks (you're supposed to walk behind the barracks to launch the Tornado).
Oftentimes, I watched as the Rippers peeked through solid objects, or worse, occasionally shot through solid objects. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. And in some cases, the Guard Reapers animations were extra slow in the face of pending death, as in a head-to-head match. Also, the game has been somewhat simplified, with a little less strategy involved in the overall scheme of things. And, while I enjoyed the game as a single-player title, the multiplayer aspects were entirely deleted from the PS2 version.
Split into relatively three major sections, the Mecca, Delphi, and Kabuto levels, Giants delivers about 17-20 hours of play altogether, and its huge landscapes, hilarious cutscenes, and endearing characters are sure to snare most folks into the game's dozens of levels.
Graphics
The biggest shortcoming for Giants is that it took what seemed like three years to develop, and when it came out for the PC in the year 2000, it looked great. Now, at the end of 2001, with lower resolution, less texture usage, and relatively plain environments, Giants kind of sinks to a lower level of visual flair. It's quite average looking now, and nobody would see it as a shining success of PS2 graphic power. The lighting and textures just aren't the same, and the game's luster and sheen are all but lost.
What makes Giants a good-looking game nonetheless is that its overall level size, on average, is fantastic. These levels take some time to navigate, and they show a remarkable level of polygonal mass. Better than that, however, is the creature design, which has made it through the porting process relatively unharmed. Every creature looks great because they don't look like any creature you've seen in any other game. The Meccas are animate and quirky, the Smarties are purposely ugly as sin, and Kabuto himself is wonderfully detailed and conceived. This game is worth playing all the way to end just to play as Kabuto, who looks almost as fabulous as he did in the PC version.
Luckily, there is nary a drop in the framerate, and so the action rarely lets down, even if the animation, which is funny and hilarious to see, isn't always as smooth as it should be. You'll also see a healthy level of clipping problems throughout the game, and often in the RTS levels, when you get to the enemy barracks.
Overall, Giants' creature design and general visual originality exceed its many weaknesses.
Sound
Giants is another case in which the voice-acting was carefully considered and exceptionally well done, and the dialogue was also top-notch, combining for an overall audio bonanza. These characters will have you chuckling, and when they don't you'll be listening to see what exactly you need to hear for the next mission.
As for the music, well, I don't remember a single lick of music. OK, I do, but the point is the music is sheer filler for this game. It's all about the dialogue.
As Interplay wanes and sputters with its own set of business problems, Giants for the PS2 never received the kind of marketing hype or attention it needed. In fact, just weeks before it was re-confirmed for a December 2001 release, we were nearly positive it would be pushed back to 2002. The point being, few people will think of Giants when they go to make a purchase in this exceptionally crowded game market, but they should.
Despite not getting the hype, and generally being a better PC game, Giants for the PS2 is a better than average port, and it's not suffered more than small smidgeon of problems that the PC version didn't already have.
As a fast-action game on the PS2 it stands apart from the crowd because its original in design and concept, blending shooting levels with racing and RTS missions, and players have the rare ability to play as three main characters, all of who look and feel superb in their own right. The Meccas are a blast to play for sheer shooing, Delphi is a cool spell casting warrior-princess, and Kabuto is an awesome monster to control, complete with breeding abilities and sporting a healthy dose of wrestling moves.
In short, if you want a good action game for the PS2, Giants won't let you down. If you want a rare, genuine, and hilarious game to suck up about 20 hours of your time, this game has your name all over it.
