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In today’s RTS world, the term “strategy” is synonymous with the terms “clicking” and “scrolling”. Many a would-be general has haggled over endless hours spent babysitting individual units and relaying orders to dense AI. Such disenchanting titles as Dune 2000 and Corsairs has bred a new spat of spoon-fed gamers who wouldn’t be allowed to command a latrine, let alone a platoon, in the event of a real war. But finally, the handholding has stopped. Strategy First, publishers of the acclaimed “Disciples” and “Clans” titles, has exposed the world to their daring futuristic RTS, Submarine Titans. And like a deadly bout of anthrax, the title has silenced the genre’s naysayers.

Submarine Titans is, in one word, a complex game. As a completely objective adjective, complex refers to the gameplay, the story, the execution, the interface, the strategy, the choices, everything. There is a wonderful amount of confusion that accompanies scrolling through extensive technology trees, one that conveys a quasi-faux sense of getting more than your money’s worth. The many overlapping menus each compete for your attention. And each unit’s AI options alone will boggle the brain.

Submarine Titans pedals a believable and currently relevant story of environmental preservation, political feud, and the end of the world. This backdrop isn’t merely a horribly asinine Jackie-Chan-movie-plotline yarn woven as a convenient excuse for conflict. This is the year 2047, when the Clark Comet has vaporised life on Earth like so many cool mints. Joining the ranks of “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”, Submarine Titans lunges the next step forward in proposing a realistic solution to such a catastrophe. And life under the ocean is reborn as mankind returns to the primordial soup that was his sloshing origin once more. But as the evolutionary dead-ends that we ought to be, our human nature hardly quelled by the lulling waves, we begin to bicker in the usual fashion. We separate into the bigoted White Sharks and the brainy Black Octopi. (Do I smell racism allusions here?) Then along comes a bunch of squiddies, who should have known better than to hitchhike on a comet, and voila, instant RTS.

The human factions in Submarine Titans, albeit differing in technologies and perks, each exhibit their own ideals. The brutish White Sharks rely on armour strength. Cold and ruthless, they are much like their namesake, nemesis of the avant-garde ecowarriors, the Black Octopi. The implementation of the shark-dolphin relationship in each individual faction is a clever touch. The Black Octopi, effective and resourceful technological geniuses, developed teleportation (stolen by the White Sharks) and cyber-dolphins, kamikaze cetaceans with powerful charges (that double as heat-seeking mines). Although it is questionable whether blowing dolphins up is consistent with the Black Octopi’s philosophy, the cyber-dolphin is a wonderful contrast to the Shark Control Centre of the White Sharks that attracts and controls up to 5 sharks for defence against the cyber-dolphins.