Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Windows version cover art
Developer(s)	Planet Moon Studios
Publisher(s)	Interplay Entertainment MacPlay (Mac OS X)
Director(s)	Tim Williams
Producer(s)	Jim Molitor Shawn Jacoby
Designer(s)	Nick Bruty Bob Stevenson Tim Williams
Programmer(s)	Andy Astor Dave Aufderheide Scott Guest
Artist(s)	Nick Bruty Ken Capelli Bob Stevenson
Writer(s)	Tim Williams
Composer(s)	Jeremy Soule Julian Soule Mark Morgan
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 2
Release	Windows NA: December 7, 2000[1] EU: December 22, 2000 Mac OS X NA: October 25, 2001 PlayStation 2 NA: December 21, 2001 EU: March 15, 2002
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter, real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer (Windows and Mac OS X only)

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 Mac OS X port was published by MacPlay in 2001, and the game was also ported to the PlayStation 2 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.