Impossible Creatures (formerly known as "Sigma") is genetically enhanced 3D real-time strategy game developed by past masters Relic (makers of Homeworld) and published by Microsoft. In the year 1937, young journalist Rex Chance receives a letter from his long lost father, asking him to come to a remote chain of mysterious islands in the pacific where he has been working. Apparently his father worked on a secret program (Sigma Technology) which involved creating new life forms by mixing animal DNA, thus creating hybrids. The game begins with you as Rex Chance flying to reunite with your father. However, instead of finding your dear old dad, you instead stumble on a mean individual and an army of evil genetic hybrids - amphibious gorillas, flying rhinos and huge scorpions with wolf like features. They are trying to kill you. You must make impossible creatures of your own and battle the evil forces of Upton Julius (the bad guy in this game, who worked for your dad).

The gameplay is basically the same as any real time strategy game, you collect resources (though the only resource that you really have to worry about going out to get is coal), build armies, research technology, and eliminate the enemy. Anyone who has ever played an real-time strategy title in the past will be familiar with the overall game concept, plus everything is a simple mouse point and click. The revolutionary aspect of Impossible Creatures is the ability to create your own units. To be able create your own beasts you need to collect DNA samples from wild animals that roam the environment. In your objectives, you'll see a list of the DNA available to you in a level. When an animal's DNA is collected, you'd be able to create your own unique army by combining over 50 real-world animals (elephants, dragonflies, killer whales, panthers, spitting cobras, grizzly bears, snowy owls, piranhas, eels...) into thousands of creatures, offering many hours of fun as you explore these "impossible creatures". There are land, sea, and air units, although the air units are not quite as effective as the others, as they seem to lack speed during combat and are vulnerable to anti-air towers and ranged attacks. The army building is pretty simple. You go into the Army building screens, and use the combiner. Now you pick two critters and put them together! Sadly, the actual combat isn't very satisfying. There's no formation, just swarm as many creatures as you can and hope you outnumber them.There aren't any real tactical options in commanding your forces.

Impossible Creatures offers multiplayer (up to six players) with TCP/IP over both LAN and the Internet. There are three available modes: Destroy Enemy Lab, Destroy Enemy Base, and Hunt Rex. In these game modes you are not required to hunt down the DNA of animals rather you are given access to every animal straight away.

Overall, Impossible Creatures takes us back to standard RTS gameplay which is still good fun, but I expected way more from this title. Honestly, there's nothing revolutionary except the genetic manipulation. That's why I rated the game "only" 78%. But if you enjoy a good real-time strategy games or you are looking for something a bit different in this genre, buy this game. The creativity and original design of this game makes its well worth the buy. Download playable demo (285MB).

Minimum system requirements: 500 MHz processor, 128 MB RAM, 16 MB / 3D video card, 1.5 GB hard disk space, for online play: 56.6 kbps modem or LAN