Giants: Citizen Kabuto is a third-person shooter video game with real-time strategy elements. It was the first project for Planet Moon Studios, which consisted of former Shiny Entertainment employees who had worked on the game MDK in 1997. Giants went through four years of development before Interplay Entertainment published it on December 7, 2000, for Microsoft Windows; a port was published by MacPlay in 2001, and the game was also ported to the later that year.
In the game, players take control of a single character from one of three humanoid races to either complete the story in single-player mode or to challenge other players in online multiplayer matches. They can select heavily armed Meccaryns equipped with jet packs, or amphibious spell-casting Sea Reapers; the game's subtitle, "Citizen Kabuto", refers to the last selectable race, a thundering behemoth who can execute earthshaking wrestling attacks to pulverize its enemies. The single-player mode is framed as a sequential story, putting the player through a series of missions, several of which test the player's reflexes in action-game-like puzzles.
Game critics praised Giants for its state-of-the-art graphics on Windows computers, a humorous story, and successfully blending different genres. Criticisms focused on crippling software bugs and the lack of an in-game save feature. The console version rectified some of the flaws found in the PC versions, at the cost of removing several features. The game initially sold poorly for Windows and PlayStation 2, but it sold well afterwards, and gained a cult following.
Gameplay In Giants: Citizen Kabuto, players take on the roles of three humanoid races: gun-toting Meccaryns, magic-wielding Sea Reapers, and the gigantic Kabuto. Each player is assigned direct control of a single character. The game's developers, Planet Moon Studios, created this design to encourage players to focus on the action and not to be burdened with micromanagement. Players can customize the controls, which are largely the same for each race, with slight differences for abilities.
The single-player mode consists of a sequence of missions set as an overarching story. Each mission requires the completion of certain objectives to progress to the next mission. The objectives are usually the elimination of enemies or a certain structure, but several of them test the player's eye–hand coordination or require the player to rescue and protect certain units. Players control their characters from a default third person perspective; a first person view is optional. Each race has its own offensive style, and a special mode of fast movement. Killing a creature releases a power-up, which heals or awards weapons to its collector.
The real-time strategy elements of Giants consist of base building and resource gathering, wherein the resources are small humanoids called Smarties. There are a limited number of Smarties in a mission, and players must rush to gather them, or kidnap them from each other to gain an advantage. Players also gather sustenance for the Smarties to make them work; Meccaryn and Reaper players hunt the cattle-like Vimps for meat and souls respectively. The options in building a base are limited; players can neither choose the locations for the structures nor manage their workforce in detail. Players in control of Kabuto need not build a base; instead, the character gains strength and produces subordinate characters by hunting for food. Kabuto consumes Smarties to increase his size and power; at maximum size, he can produce smaller Tyrannosaurus-like units as subordinates. To restore his health, Kabuto eats Vimps and other units (player- and computer-controlled).
Multiplayer mode allows a maximum of five Meccaryn, three Sea Reaper, and one Kabuto player(s) to play in each session. Due to the lack of a game server browser, players connect through online services MPlayer or GameSpy Arcade for the Windows version, and GameRanger for the Mac OS X version. Besides the standard "destroy all enemy bases and units" missions, the multiplayer mode includes deathmatches and "Capture the Smartie (flag)"-type games. Players are permitted either to start with a full base or to build one from foundations.
Plot The game world of Giants is set on a fictional "Island" traveling through space. Its surface comprises grasslands, deserts, and forests, surrounded by azure seas. Players have an unobstructed view of the game world to its horizon, whereas distant objects are slightly blurred to convey a sense of distance. Missions for Meccaryns provide cover to hide behind, large spaces of water for Reapers, and creatures for Kabuto to eat.
Characters Planet Moon Studios intended for the player characters to provide a varied gameplay experience, laying down requirements to make the characters distinct with unique advantages and disadvantages.
Meccaryns use high technology and attack as a pack led by the player. Meccaryn players sport guns, explosives, and backpacks that provide special abilities: jet packs allow players to fly over obstacles and outmaneuver opponents, and the "Bush"-pack camouflages the character as a shrub. In single-player mode, players assume the role of Baz, leader of a group of Meccaryns comprising Gordon, Bennett, Tel, and Reg. Several scenarios in the game shows the responsible Baz frustrated with the laxity of Gordon and Bennett, and the inquisitive Tel and Reg. Sea Reapers are amphibious, humanoid swimmers. Therefore, they regain health in contact with water, and the game's Piranhas do not attack them. To travel fast over land, players can "turbo boost" their Reapers to targeted areas. The Reapers can use swords, bows, and spells, such as summoning firestorms or tornadoes, in combat. Planet Moon Studios initially conceived the Sea Reaper single-player character, Delphi, as evil, but later gave her a conscience. Kabuto is the title creature of the game, and the only one of his race. In his back-story, the Reapers created him as their guardian, but found him beyond control. Creative director Tim Williams gave the "Citizen" title to Kabuto for its allusion to the character's wish for a sense of belonging to the Island. The game developer modeled Kabuto's attacks after those of giant monsters in classic monster movies, allowing him to use professional wrestling attacks and aerial techniques such as elbow drops, foot stomps, and the "butt flop" described as "like the body slam, but with less dignity". To balance his strength, a weak point at his waist inflicts heavy damage when struck. Players playing the giant monster can assume a perspective through his mouth to target prey.
For non-playable races, the team designed Smarties to have oversized heads, bulging eyes, and idiotic personalities for comedic effect. Players labor for the Smarties while witnessing their hedonistic indulgences, but the payoff is a "giant gun". Standard enemies include Reaper Guards (male Reapers with no magical ability, who serve as common soldiers), as well as fauna such as the insectoid Rippers, beast-of-burden Sonaks, and bat-like Verms.
Story Originally featuring each race in its own distinct story, the single-player mode now depicts a single sequential story wherein the player begins as Baz and must complete a sequence of missions before assuming the role of Delphi. On completion of Delphi's story, the player takes control of a Kabuto character. Williams used cut scenes to introduce and conclude each mission.
As Baz, the player searches for Reg and Tel. Timmy, a Smartie rescued in the first mission, functions as a guide for the player, introducing other Smartie characters and providing exposition of the scenario. The plot portrays the Smarties as suffering under the reign of the Sea Reapers and their Queen Sappho. Alluding to the film The Magnificent Seven, Baz gathers the separated Meccaryns and takes on a quest to solve the Smarties' predicaments. In a climactic cut scene, Sappho sacrifices Timmy to Kabuto, and the young Smartie's grandfather, Borjoyzee, becomes the player's guide. Baz leads an escape from the area and sets up a base to lead a counterattack. Thereafter Delphi becomes the player's character. Yan, the Samurai Smartie, serves as the guide for this story segment, giving instructions on Delphi's abilities. After completing the training missions under Yan, Delphi attacks Sappho's base and the Reapers, eventually confronting the queen in a boss fight. When defeated, Sappho summons Kabuto to destroy the Smarties, but Kabuto eats her instead.
In the final story, Delphi has transformed herself into a Kabuto-like creature to challenge the original. The player wanders around the islands as the Delphi-Kabuto character, searching for prey to increase her size. After Delphi-Kabuto achieves her maximum size, she proceeds to a boss fight with the original Kabuto. Despite her victory, Kabuto revives in a triggered cut scene and restores her Reaper form, whereupon the player takes the role of Baz against the revived monster. After defeating Kabuto, Baz is shown in the final cut scene, flying off to Planet Majorca with Delphi, Borjoyzee, and his fellow Meccaryns.
Development When five members of Shiny Entertainment's MDK development team broke off to set up Planet Moon Studios in 1997 with software engineer, Scott Guest, they decided to make their first project fun and original, a game with graphics and gameplay unseen at that time. Nick Bruty, Bob Stevenson, and Tim Williams initially conceived the idea of pitting players as spacemen, pirates, and giants against each other and having fun. Initially projected for release in late 1999, the game suffered delays to its development largely due to the illness of their chief programmer, Andy Astor, who was suffering from stage IV mantle cell lymphoma in late 1999. The team realized they needed more resources and by 2000, they had hired two more programmers and an artist. Producing a next-generation game required them to keep up with 1998–2000's rapid advancement of technology, which resulted in further delays. The team upsized the graphic textures as they changed the graphical software to support NVIDIA graphics cards. Planet Moon deemed game engines available during development too restrictive and inappropriate for their requirements, and built their own. Called Amityville, it could support Glide, OpenGL, and Direct3D. The team used it to create the required "lush and vibrant" outdoor environments, and terrain deformation effects.
Planet Moon designed the structure of the single-player mode to be a gradual learning process for the players; the game would introduce new command sets to the players as they progress, and encourage them to repeat using the new commands for that mission. From the start of the project, the team intended the controls to be simple, and mapped commonly used commands to a few keys. Focus groups consisting more than 25 testers went through this design to verify its ease. Planet Moon aimed for a complex artificial intelligence (AI); computer-controlled characters would evade shots and take cover. The enemy AI would plot its actions according to long-term goals. The development team consulted Mark Frohnmayer, lead programmer of the multiplayer game Tribes 2, for advice on implementing the multiplayer portion. To balance the characters in combat, Planet Moon focused on characteristics that could affect the fighting capabilities, instead of tweaking the damage output. The team faced a tight schedule, and abandoned several features initially in the game. Early designs allowed players to change the landscape; they could gorge out water channels and isolate segments of the land by playing as Reapers. The Kabuto character initially could bake mud into "mud shepherd" units and use them to defend its herd of food.