Have You Played… Impossible Creatures?

I didn’t have the greatest understanding of how one is meant to play a real-time strategy game as a child. It wasn’t a neck-and-neck, ebb-and-flow struggle between two equal powers. Instead I played RTS games as though they were city-builders, with the added bonus of absolutely steamrolling through the AI ​​when I’d had enough fun.

This was true of basically every RTS I played back then. In Starcraft I’d amass an army of Protoss Carriers and launch them across the map. In Supreme Commander, I’d tech all the way up to the Experimental Weapons, and then send the colossal CZAR Mothership to Independence-Day the entire enemy base. But my favorite variation of this was in Impossible Creatures: a wonderful early noughties strategy game where you create your own units by stitching together parts from different animals.

Nothing quite beat the experience of seeing a gigantic Sperm Whale-Lobster hybrid waddling its way across the map, trampling everything in its path with ease. Chimpanzee Eels would bound up to zap the monstrous titan, and Porcupine Panthers would send waves of spines careening into the Lobster-Whale’s blubberous, chitinous sides. But the creature’s armor was too thick. It could not be stopped.

I spent more time designing creatures like this in Impossible Creatures than I spent actually playing the game. It was a wonderfully silly and interesting spin on the traditional RTS, and especially with the expansions installed, there was an impressive variety of base animals that you could Frankenstein together to create the most horrific units you could imagine. If I had to choose between the imminent danger of a group of Protoss Carriers, and the imminent danger of a horde of angry Hippopotamus-Lemmings bounding towards me, then you bet I’m picking the Carriers.