Homeworld

"Beautifully innovative."

Published by Sierra and developed by Relic, Homeworld, a real-time-strategy game, received a good deal of hype surrounding its release, but unfortunately other popular strategy games at the time (for example, Starcraft, Age of Empires II) sucked away some of its fan base. In the end, Homeworld probably undersold and remains underrated, for it only takes a few minutes of playing this game to be captivated by the great visuals, nice story and atmosphere, and immersive gameplay. It doesn’t even matter if you’re not a strategy fan; Relic’s ambitious title transcends the traditional boundaries of what strategy games can do – should do – and presents a fresh and innovative take on the overworked genre.

Gameplay: 8+

The background of the game goes like this: your people have recently learnt of your Homeworld, from where your ancestors came. A huge mothership is then built, and a journey through space to the Homeworld planned. Unfortunately, something then goes wrong and you end up stranded in space – unfriendly space. Now, all you have in the world is your mothership and a fleet of spacecraft that must be developed and improved upon, so you can finally reach your home. But there may be trouble along the way.

Homeworld truly is a unique game. Sierra has left behind the standard earth-based, 2D concept and has instead introduced us to the vast, three-dimensional realm of space. Your mothership and its proud fleet are all situated in a vast oval of space several thousands of virtual kilometres in diameter. You can attack and move in any direction, creating an exhilarating sense of freedom. You can fly! Fittingly, Homeworld gives you plenty of time and opportunities to test out your nice 3D environment – either in real time or when paused, you’re able to freely rotate the camera, as well as zoom in and out, focussing on and tracking individual ships or a collective squadron. This is a real blessing, because occasional confusion caused by the three dimensional view can easily be remedied by a quick pause and change in camera angles. And in the meantime you can marvel at your units flying around in expansive space.

Your missions in Homeworld are a mixture of the usual resource gathering, exploring, and defending or attacking. Resource Units (RUs) are used to build new ships and repair or upgrade existing ones. You can also research technologies to open new skills and ships, but you’ll need to build a (surprise, surprise) specialised research ship to do so. Apart from the research ship there are also resource collectors, scouts, probes, assault frigates, smaller fighters like corsairs, and even salvage/repair ships. There aren’t a huge number of ships, but this is balanced by the fact that each ship has totally different specs, abilities and appearance. Scouts are weak but very fast and great for small-scale assaults, while assault frigates are large bulky ships with powerful weaponry, slowly making their intimidating way across your screen.

While controlling your fleet in Homeworld you’ll really feel like you’re in the vastness of space, and this sense of atmosphere is one of the best aspects of the game. Apart from the ambience of nice music and visual effects, the way in which your ships move, attack, and do their jobs in space is fascinating to watch. It’s almost like a dance of some sort, with your units moving around in nice synchronised motions. Planning attacks is easy, what with lots of formations to choose from and also aggression levels to set, and units attack and defend intelligently. With the one exception of commanding your ships to move to a specific spot (which can get a bit tricky due to the three dimensions involved), the commands and interface are silkily easy to understand and use.

Once you’ve given your orders there’ll be little micromanagement involved, since units collect and return resources, or attack and patrol, by themselves. Your fleet and resource units are carried over between missions, letting you develop your game over a longer period of time. Homeworld’s combination of relatively few units used (in comparison with other strategy games where hundreds of units will be on the screen at the same time), the enormousness of space, and the sparse micromanaging will mean that you sometimes lose track of your units and stare at the pretty effects in the background. Fortunately, you’re able to zoom out all the way to a three dimensional master map of the sector of space you’re in, letting you see all your units, enemy units, and resources clearly. Perfect for monitoring your little corner of the universe.

In this sense of strategy, Homeworld really is excellent. Each unit has – and knows – its role, and formations, aggression levels and tactics are all there for launching your three-dimensional assaults and defences. And yet, the game rarely feels overly complicated because of the nice pausing system, great camerawork, intelligent units and the sheer scope of things, that always lets you sit back and gape.

Graphics/Sound: 9

Beautiful. The gameplay would be nothing if the visuals and audio weren’t convincingly realistic and immersive – but never fear, the goods are here. While there are ample visual effects to make the bleakness of space a little warmer, the developers have wisely decided not to include too much flash to keep things realistic. You’ll see distant stars, closer suns, space dust, and perhaps a nebula here and there, but the emptiness of space covers most of the background. Closer in, there are small asteroid clouds (which serve as resource mines) and belts of dust, but not much more. Most of the graphical attention is placed on your fleet – and what a fleet it is.

Your units look fabulous. Every ship is immensely detailed, and focusing on a unit and rotating the camera around – just to admire the detail – is a real treat. You can see wing flaps, guns, boosters, various mechanisms for collecting or salvaging, and more. What’s more, each type of unit varies in size, shape, and surface colouring. Lots of attention has been put into the visuals - you can see reflective panels and decorative strips running in detailed patterns across each ship. The mothership takes the cake – a majestic, half-cylindrical ‘thing’ that serves as your moving base, and looks the part. Zoom in on this thing and you’ll really appreciate the work that the developers put in.

Other visual effects are also good. Each ship leaves a short jet trail as it moves along, and seeing a fleet of scouts moving in unison – jet trails showing their twists and turns – is pretty cool. Shooting effects are fairly good, and explosions look great with a shower of sparks flying outwards. You can zoom out for a large-scale view of the action, or focus on and track one specific unit to see its manoeuvring.

The music is just what you’d expect for a game like this: nice orchestral tracks which provide a good, surreal background. Of course, there are the usual dramatic variations and some weirder music, but for the most part the music is calm and ambient.

Sound effects are good, but not dominant. Sometimes there’ll be an extended period of silence, which will reinforce the largeness of space but which can also get a bit boring. Nonetheless, the steady sound of a ship travelling along, or the mechanical sounds of ships docking, collecting or salvaging are quite convincing. Units acknowledge orders or tell you of problems (i.e. low fuel or damage) with short bursts of dialogue. During battles the high-pitched sounds of weapons firing and explosions can be heard, but never will your ears be overloaded. Even during a battle, you can sense the order in which things are going on. Depending on your personality, you might love or hate this type of controlled gameplay, but it just adds to the unique style of the game.

Replay: 6+

It really depends on whether you want this game for its strategy and ‘feel’, or for its missions. If you like the three-dimensional, craftily paced nature of the game, then you can play it a good deal of times without getting bored. However, if you just want missions, then this game mightn’t last that long. The missions are well designed and suitably challenging, and the quest isn’t especially short; it’s just that, unlike other games, this game fails to include much variation in terms of different races or lots of deathmatch modes. Most of the game is centred on the single-player missions, with few extras. Still, there’s a handy multiplayer mode, and if you like the style you won’t get tired of it.

Overall: 8+

I was really impressed by this game. It’s not the sort of game you play for a ‘quick fix’, because this thing takes brainpower and dedication, and isn’t always inherently ‘fun’ in the broadest sense of the word. It’s also not the type of game you’d buy for the average American Joe, or for someone who isn’t into strategy games. If, however, you’re looking for a ‘different’ type of strategy game, with a good interface and nice control, great graphics and excellent atmosphere and style, you’ve got yourself a winner. An intellectually entertaining and visually impressive game, Homeworld is a great choice for the strategy fan or anyone who is interested in something different.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/16/01, Updated 07/25/03