October 05, 2026

Giants: Citizen Kabuto: The Weirdest Third-Person Shooter You Never Played

A wild mix of shooting, strategy, and giant monsters from the team behind MDK.

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Giants: Citizen Kabuto dropped in 2000, just as 3D shooters were finding their stride. It dropped players onto a bizarre alien island where three factions fought for control.

📋 About the Game

Release: 2000
Developer: Planet Moon Studios
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
Platform: Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 2
Genre: Third-person shooter with real-time strategy elements

ℹ️Planet Moon Studios was founded by ex-Shiny Entertainment staff who worked on MDK. The game spent four years in development — a long time for the era — and Kabuto was originally a minor character but became the star during development.

🎮 The Experience

This game feels like a fever dream. You control a smart-mouthed soldier, a spell-casting wizard, or a giant monster named Kabuto. The world is colorful, weird, and full of British humor.

The pacing shifts from frantic gunfights to slow base-building to rampaging as a towering beast.

🕹️ How It Plays

You switch between three very different playable characters:

✅ The soldier runs and guns with a jetpack.
✅ The wizard builds bases and summons troops.
✅ Kabuto just eats everything.

Missions mix shooting, resource gathering, and monster brawls. The controls are clunky by today's standards, but the variety keeps things fresh.

🌟 What Makes It Special

Three playable factions with completely different gameplay styles — no reskins here.
You can play as a giant monster that literally eats enemies and grows stronger.
Real-time strategy elements like base-building mixed into a third-person shooter.
British comedy writing with absurd characters and cutscenes that still land.

This game feels like a fever dream... The pacing shifts from frantic gunfights to slow base-building to rampaging as a towering beast.

🎨 The Retro Charm

Giants is pure early 3D: blocky models, low-resolution textures, and a camera that fights you. The interface is a mess of menus and icons.

But the bright, cartoony art style gives it a charm that aged better than most shooters from 2000.

💡The bright art style keeps the game readable even today, despite dated graphics.

🔊 Sound & Atmosphere

The music is a bouncy, orchestral score that matches the game's goofy tone. Voice acting is over-the-top and memorable, especially Kabuto's grunts and the narrator's dry wit.

Sound effects are punchy but nothing special — the audio does its job without stealing the show.

⏳ Then vs. Now

The three-faction system still feels fresh and ambitious.
Controls and camera are frustrating — expect to fight the interface.
Graphics are dated but the art style keeps it readable.
Humour and writing hold up better than most games from the era.

🤔 Why Remember It?

Giants: Citizen Kabuto is a weird, ambitious experiment that tried to mix genres before anyone else. It is worth remembering for anyone who likes offbeat shooters or wants to see where the team behind MDK went next.

It is a strange, wonderful mess.

📖 Sources

Giants: Citizen Kabuto Wikipedia

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