13 years later, Relic's Impossible Creatures hits Steam
Splice to see you.
In 2002 Relic Entertainment - of Company of Heroes and Dawn of War fame - released a 3D real-time strategy game called Impossible Creatures for PC. It was unique in that the armies consisted of nine creatures, each one a combination of any two animals from a list of 76.
Eurogamer reviewed the game in 2003, giving it a 7.
"Ultimately, we were disappointed by the game's lack of depth, but we very much enjoyed playing it - and that, at the end of the day, is far more important than anything else," wrote reviewer Rob Fahey.
"It may indeed be a case of style over substance, but in this instance, there's just enough gaming substance there to justify the style."
Despite Valve using Impossible Creatures to showcase an early version of Steam to developers in early 2002, the game failed to launch on the then fledgling digital platform.
Now, nearly 13 years later, Impossible Creatures has launched on Steam, courtesy of publisher Nordic Games - and it comes with a few new bells and whistles.
The Steam Edition has been tweaked to work on modern systems, has multiplayer, Steam Friend and Steam cloud support, as well as the expansion Insect Invasion.
The news sparked a wave of nostalgia that crashed into the Eurogamer team this morning. Jon "Jonty" Hicks, who for a thousand years worked for video game magazines (remember them?), says: "I am ancient enough to remember that being on the cover of PC Format.
"Oh God.
"Disclosure it might have been PC Gamer. I think it was Format though."
Christian Donlan, who never played Impossible Creatures back in the day, says: "It looks amazing."