As a bit of a warmup to the full Gameplanet preview, check out some details and screens in part one of a series of five articles, designed to set the mouth a-salivating prior to the release of Impossible Creatures.

The game's main rethink of the RTS genre is the novel approach it takes to units. Your units are animals - which in itself is new - but you are not going to see anything like these animals down at your local zoo. Oh no, these animals are a little different. You see, what you do is choose the hind quarters from an animal you like (say, a rhino) and pair it up with the front quarters of an animal you like (say, a piranha (!)). What do you have now? A lumbering, powerful, do-not-mess-with-it beast of burden, which you can inflict on your enemy's spider-crocs or flying whales.

With literally thousands and thousands of possible combinations, this game cracks open the stoic "you have limited units, deal with it" building block upon which RTS games of old were built. How will it work? Only time will tell...

While you wait, check out these tasty screen shots...