The Breakthrough
1999 has been a resourceful year for real-time strategy fans. There has been a lot of hype surrounding the upcoming RTS monsters Command and Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun and Age of Empires 2. But as in most cases, the hype also brought over expectations and eventually signs of disappointment. Both Tiberian Sun and Age of Empires 2 took a conservative approach by preserving their original gameplay and preventing the genre to evolve. More importantly they both failed to draw me in, no matter how polished they were. On the other side, a small and modest recently born company called Relic, delivered their first game, one that has rightfully earned its place among the best real-time strategy games ever made. Homeworld is a real-time strategy like no other. The first thing you'll notice is that you're not limited by the Z-axis anymore, it's all in space where everything surrounds you.
The Destination
Homeworld's single player campaign is short but well refined. Your objective is - as the title suggests it - to reach your homeworld since a recent discovery has revealed its location. Every mission has a distinct objective, atmosphere and required style of play. Homeworld successfully detaches the genre from the general harvest - build - select - click - win formula. Although there's a great deal of variation involved and you are allowed to play either of the two factions, the campaign feels short and the two paths are identical if you ignore the differences between the two fleets. But most of the ships are identical in role and abilities despite their distinct look. The difficulty increases gradually and even the most experiences real-time strategy fans will find the last missions quite challenging. However, Homeworld allows you to carry the same fleet throughout your campaign. They do expect you do to have a reasonable amount of ships at the beginning of each level and in some cases some of these "requirements" reach extremely high proportions. For instance if you don't have at least twenty supported capital ships at the beginning of the last two missions, do not bother - always keep some extra save files.
The Art and the Sound
Homeworld replaces the regular cut scenes with hand-drawn slideshows unfolding the story in an original manner. However, most of the game's plot is revealed through in-game cut scenes also known as scripted events. The game's engine is remarkably beautiful supporting high resolutions in OpenGL and Direct3D. But as always, eye candy comes at a price and the game won't run properly on anything lower than a P2. Some of the visual effects can be turned off but what's the point in destroying a ship if the enormous explosion doesn't take place?
All the sounds are well refined from the sharp sound of an ion beam to the charging noise of a plasma gun mounted on a heavy corvette. Besides, the game's soundtrack blends smoothly with the game's atmosphere, supporting the game's theme of isolation and hostile surroundings.
The Economy
As in any other classical real-time strategy game, harvesting resources is your main source of income. There are three types of resources: asteroids, dust clouds and nebulas with asteroids being the most durable and nebulas being the most valuable.
Homeworld's resource system is simple and fair for all the competitors. If you start too far from resources don't worry about it, just build a Controller and tell it to escort your harvesters. Having a "mobile refinery" almost completely eliminates the starting position advantage that plagues the Command and Conquer series while maintaining the level of dynamist that the Crafts' resource system lacks. In short words, it works.
The Ships
Homeworld allows you to spend your income on various ships that complement each other in making a perfect fleet. There are three ship classes and a few subclasses.
The first class consists of lightly armored ships including scouts, interceptors, bombers and defenders. These ships generally trade armor for speed and maneuverability. In numbers their firepower can reach tremendous proportions and eradicate even the heaviest unescorted capital ships.
Corvettes form the second class of ships. They tend to be more specialized and somewhat less effective in the long run. This class includes salvage corvettes specialized in capturing enemy ships, multi-gun corvettes specialized in taking out multiple targets simultaneously, mine laying corvettes specialized in deploying mine barricades etc.
The most massive class is indeed the capital ship class that includes frigates and destroyers, the deadliest tools for total devastation. These ships usually represent the backbone of your army with unlimited destructive potential if used correctly. Ion beams and guided missiles are just a few examples of the toys they carry.
The final class is the special ship class. These vessels are not equipped with weapons but however, they are extremely vital to the survival of any major fleet. Some of the advantages they provide are cloaking, detection/sensoring, gravity wells etc.
The Verdict
Homeworld is not trying to simulate the most realistic space combat concepts. The result is an original atmosphere that doesn't fail to impress even the most rigid space combat fans.
Homeworld
