Homeworld: Cataclysm

"Some people say this game is unbalanced... I say it's great."

Picture this:

You've commander of some space fighter fleet. You tune into the battle chatter frequency, and you hear all these messages, like ''Workers under attack!'' or ''Flight wing gaining supremacy over enemy fleet.'' Imagine incredibly detailed weapons: ion beams lashing out, missiles homing in on enemy strike craft, mass drivers and energy cannons punching holes in ships' hulls. And it's all in space, truly 3d and alive.

You have all that and more in this game.

Storyline: Not exactly the most original, but the story's not used enough to make you whine about originality. Some spacefaring people find this little pod. They open it, and some techno-organic virus takes over the bottom half of the ship. It's ejected from the main part, a replacement built, and the craft sent to study it is also 'infected.' This virus then proceeds to gather all sorts of ships and become a galactic threat. You're assigned to hunt it down. Sorta like the borg from star trek...
Storyline: 8/10

Audio/Visual: All right, do NOT, I repeat, NOT use software rendering on the graphics, you'll be missing out on one of the best parts of the game. The explosions are VERY detailed, you'll find yourself oohing and aahing if you haven't played this before. Weapon impacts are detailed. There's lens flares, even an option my comp can't support to blacken parts of hulls that are under heavy fire. All in all, very realistic. As for the sound, each weapon has it's own firing sound. Ion beams have this sorta high-energy charged liquid sound, missiles sound like missiles, mass drivers sound like some hammer is hitting a solid hull. When a gun moves, a whirring sound shows if you're zoomed in enough, the music (especially on the first mission-it ROCKS) is riveting and you'll turn the volume up. Engines have a soft humming sound, it's all very detailed.
Audio/Visual: 10/10

Gameplay: Here's where I disagree with other people. Half the people say ''This game needs a patch, it's unbalanced.'' The other half just don't care. I'm in the other half. There's two races, the good spacefarers and the virus mentioned earlier, you play with them in multiplayer online. People are saying that the game is unbalanced-which is sorta true, the virus (beast) loses to the good guys (Somtaaw) more often then not. But it's still fun to play as underdog and still win, right? And besides, if it's only got '1 race practically,' well so does the original, only a couple ships' difference over there. I don't see any complaints about IT. As for single-player, yes, the storyline's good, but it's too easy. You harvest these asteroids for raw materials to build ships. And after the first 6 missions, you don't need to harvest anymore for the last 10 or so, you've already got this huge 60k stash and you can build replacements from then on. Lacking, all right. Also, it's annoying to spend all this time killing your opponent then having to hunt their last command-capable ship down in 3d space to kill them off... it takes longer and it's more annoying then you think. Still, some effects were slightly degraded from the original for game space.
Gameplay: 7/10

Control: OK, I'll say it right now, this is NOT a game you can just pick up and play. There's all sorts of camera controls, hotkey actions, etc. Still, it comes to you easy once you take the tutorial (which reminds me-how come I can't play the tutorial anymore after downloading the patch? Take the tutorial before you download the patch, K?) and the controls are self-evident once you know them. Space bar gets you to sensors manager, b to build manager, r to research, s to systems... m to move. Rotate and twist the mouse in various ways while holding various buttons to rotate and zoom in. Still, the controls are very fluid once you learn them and will serve you well. And, since that means no autocamera to jerk around, you don't have to worry about the camera restricting your movements, just hold down the right mouse button and twist it around.
Control: 9/10

Replay value: Depends. Single-player, it's fun the first couple times, but it doesn't have nearly the depth the original had. I have a blast with multiplayer though, you'll want to get on there. But not before learning a few tricks playing Skirmish vs. CPU, or you'll be called a nOOb (newbie) countless times. 2 tips: If you're playing somtaaw, don't build all your modules at once, and build 12-14 workers if you're taaw and 16-20 workers if beast. Other then that, read up at the sierra and relic forums for strats, although neither receive that many visitors.
Replay value: 9/10

Overall rating: I think this game is very good, there are a few pessimists lurking around who think that just because multiplayer is unbalanced you can't have any fun with it, but I think otherwise. I recommend you get it, it's a year old by the time of writing and shouldn't cost more then 20-30 dollars (can't convert into pounds or Euros-sorry). Or at least get the demo off Sierra's site, and see if you like it.

Overall rating: 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/10/01, Updated 09/10/01