The meat on these bones though is, of course, the gameplay, and it’s absolutely top notch. “Action” and “Real Time Strategy” are two game types I never expected to write in the same sentence, but here I am doing just that thanks to Hostile Waters. You can assign tasks to all your units via the tactical map screen and let them go off and fight the enemy while you sit on Anteus with your feet up, but it’s far more entertaining to hop right into one of the aircraft and fight the enemy yourself. And while the AI pilots will tend to hit their targets more often than you would, they aren’t too good at dodging bullets so it’s worth your while to jump into one of your attacking vehicles during any battle. And besides, who could resist experiencing the superb vehicle physics by driving around rough terrain in a cloaked reconnaissance buggy. Of course, the boring task of collecting scrap metal with which to make new vehicles is best left to some poor Soul Catcher personality. To make things even more interesting you get the Pegasus, a heavy lifting chopper. While it’s often just used to move your ground units into or out of trouble quickly it can also be used to move oil tankers onto targets you have to demolish (yep, cue more lovely explosions), or even pick up scattered debris and move it nearer to Scarab for scavenging. Add all these varied gameplay elements together with superb mission design and copious amounts of polish and, well, you can already tell I like Hostile Waters very much can’t you?