Customer Reviews

Homeworld Cataclysm

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you enjoyed Homeworld this sequel is an absolute must! If you haven't played Homeworld and enjoy real-time 3D strategy games you might want to check it out.

I've been playing games for a long time and have become somewhat jaded and difficult to impress. However the original Homeworld just blew me way! Stellar graphics, an immersive story, great music and a dream of an interface that smoothly integrated tactical and strategic control.

Homeworld Cataclysm builds upon this base very well. Rather than just reusing the original "Mothership" and it's fleet of craft, the developers have created an entirely new fleet and set of technologies for you to explore. Years have passed in the Homeworld Universe and many new technologies have been acquired beyond the original cloaking and gravity well generators. EMP vessels, holographic projections, covert drones and much more add an even greater level of sophistication to the gameplay.

Of course the 3D battles are staggering. Full visual effects, coordinated sound and a high frame rate brings space battles, I imagined as a kid, to life. It makes me wish I had a Video Out on my graphic card to tape to share the visuals.

The user interface has been polished to near perfection. The control of a large and complex fleet is a pleasure, as opposed to the pain, compared to many simulation games. The few areas of the original Homeworld interface that were weak, such as selecting a distant location in three dimensions, have been greatly improved.

The sound is still "realistic" and informative. The music is only "good" this time around. The haunting and highly emotive music of the original is missing.

This game is far less buggy than most simulations I've played. But I did come across a small number that didn't crash the game, but an end of mission condition wasn't recognized. This can be solved by a game restart an then reloading your last saved game of restarting the particular mission.

I've completed the single player game and am taking a brief break before I go on-line and play multiuser. With the game's new fleet technologies, great visuals and smooth interface I'll actually enjoy experiencing the new ways I'll get my butt kicked by kids half my age.

Okay, I've already written a review of Homeworld, which any of you considering playing this game should look at first. First off, Homeworld gives the background of this story, and allows you to get familiar with gameplay, which some people may find difficult if they try to hop right into this game. This game starts with you as Kiith Somtaaw, a relatively minor kiith (sort of like a clan) after your people made landfall. Without a large power base on your new home, your people return to the stars to make their living, and where you eventually encounter a new menace that threatens the world you fought so hard to gain. For me, hopping into the story midway is a little unfair. I think you should struggle a bit through Homeworld, both so you get used to the game, and so you feel some kinship with the people your kiith is now called upon to defend.

Having said that, and having spent the last couple days playing Cataclysm (i pre-ordered it back in May) I have to say that the leap forward from Homeworld to Cataclysm is about the same sort of leap as from WarCraft to Homeworld (that is to say, an enormous leap forward). Dear Lord! The gameplay is still just as good as the original, but commands have been clarified, and the interface has been enhanced. You can now issue commands from the Sensors Manager, allowing you to make move-and-attack decisions while viewing the entire playing sphere. The graphics are MUCH better, if that's possible, with gas clouds now flashing with lightning, and distant thunder rumbling through the nebulae. There are meteor storms through certain regions, maging the map of 3D space have a topography all of its own.

Another improvement is the added element of The Beast. In the original, the two races you could choose had a difference of exactly 2 ships; all others were more or less equivalent for each race. Now, Beast ships are radically different, and will require learning distinctly from the Hiigaran ships. There are new weapons to learn, and new strategies that must be employed. With cloaking abilities, and ramming frigates, and the fact that EVERY Hiigaran ship now has a special ability of some kind, the strategies required to REALLY play just became more complex.

To top it all off, you now have a limit on the size of your fleet. Each mothership can now only support a certain number of ships. If you built swarms of strike craft, you're going to have to retire them if you want to bring in the big guns. This also will add to the amount of actual THINKING required to play. The winner will now no longer be the one who builds the biggest fleet of Ion Beam Frigates.

So. Play Homeworld; it's a great game that should have gotten much more sales than it did. Play Cataclysm, because it's such an innovative game, and SO much better than anything else out there. Sure, StarCraft is good, but it's nothing compared to Homeworld. Much less compared to Cataclysm.

One final note: Cataclysm does not require Homeworld to play; it's a stand-alone sequel.

Since Homeworld is already one of the best (if not the best) real-time strategy games out there, it would have been easy to just cash-in on the success.

Lucky for us, Homeworld did not fall in that category. While the original Homeworld gave out a feel of an epic battle between legendary enemies and the survival of a world, Cataclysm gives a more "personal" approach.

Where Fleet Command in Homeworld was a woman lacking any form of emotion when she speaks (hooking yourself to a super-computer might just do that), the voice of command in this game actually has personality. He sometimes anger, sometimes panic, and sometimes is at awe at what is happening around his ship. You really feel closer to your troops. Also, most ship/fighter also comes with their own voices and expression (a worker ordered to harvest REALLY didn't sound very... motivated). You actually feel for them!

What also helps is an equally engaging story. Although very standard in the Science-Fiction genre content-wise, it is very well delivered. As Hitchcock once said: "It is not the cake that is important, but how it is delivered". And although player already knows the story just by scanning the cover box, that third mission really delivered the chills! I really wish game developers put as much effort in establishing a good story...

I must also point out the VERY improved interface. Where Homeworld stumbled with a lack of waypoints and user-unfriendly order issuing scheme (especially from the Sensor Manager), Cataclysm refined the game to near perfection.

Unit wise, we get a more dynamic fleet. Where in the original game, only research vessels could link together to form... a bigger research vessel, in Cataclysm, linking up two Acolytes (heavy-fighters) creates a slower, more powerful corvette. One can acknowledge the tactical advantage of this (speed toward the enemy, linking-up, pummel the enemy, unlink...). Also, the Command Ship actually "evolves" when you gradually turn it from a mining ship into a battleship through the missions.

There is also a ranking system (i.e. ships get better with experience), so there is (supposedly) less incentive of engaging in suicide missions. Personnally, I failed to noticed any difference in performance between a rookie and a wing leader.

A superb effort from the Barking Dog Studios for bringing to the Homeworld universe a worthy sequel!

I don't understand the complaints about this game. I played it first, before Homeworld and went back to play Homeworld later. Maybe it's the order in which I played the two games, but I found that the interface alone was enough to convince me that this game is better than the original.

The interface is more evolved as I would expect and a lot of the little annoying bits to Homeworld's interface are gone in this game. You can set waypoints as one of the other reviewers stated, but on top of that, you can do everything from the sensor manager that you could from the regular mode in Homeworld. Also, when in sensor mode, selecting ships doesn't automatically zoom in the way Homeworld did. You can also select a group of ships and attack a group of enemies all from the sensor manager - this is highly desireable, since you don't have to zoom in and lose track of ships in another part of space. I would say that the Homeworld interface is 4 star and this interface is 5 star, far superior.

Someone also mentioned that the graphics weren't as good as Homeworld. I find this unusual, since they use the same gaming engine and they look pretty much identical to me, and I've played them almost side by side and both are installed on my computer.

Also, I find the story line excellent, it might not be the Battlestar Galactica story of homeworld, but it is just as engrossing with the release of "The Beast", a bio organism that is intelligent and that threatens to take over the universe. It's your job to escape and try to destroy the beast. It's very cool.

What I love about both of these games is how most of the action is at the macro level, controlling fleets of ships and squadrons of fighters, but at any point, you can zoom in and watch the action in an "over the shoulder" view from any ship and see an individual fighter engage against a squadron of other fighters or even a large capital ship. I love watching destroyers firing their ion beams... it's so movie like that I feel like bringing the popcorn. Other feel that same and I can sometimes have an audience of 2 or 3 people over my shoulder sometimes.

In fact, the overall movie like quality is what made the game great for me. The way that you can direct the camera while letting everything proceed automatically (these 30 ships attack those 22 ships and let them go) is immersive. It really has a Star Wars feel when you see a space battle. This is especially fun when you have large numbers of capital ships on both sides with multiple fighter squadrons. In a situation that large though, you almost always have to direct some of the action, since some small battles finish and you have to re-deploy to other parts of the battle.

The challenge is in finding the balance of which ships to use against which enemies, as fighters are fast and hard to hit, but do less damage, whereas the larger frigates and super-capital ships do tons of damage but are vunerable to large groups of fighters.

All in all a completely superb game. It is 100% of what I wanted in a computer game and have never found elswhere, although there were a lot of these features in games like "Master of Orion", but that was really more concerned with administration aspects of running multiple colonies and space battles were 2D and cartoony. A great game, but not as neat as this.

What do you get when you combine flawless real-time strategy, gorgeous graphics, a wonderfully intuitive interface, perfect balances, and insanely addictive gameplay? Well, my friends- The answer is simple- Homeworld: Cataclysm. The strategical depth of this game is so intense, that the experience is far more than the sum of it's parts. 17 Single Player missions force you to use different tactics in every mission. You can't just waltz in and blow everything up. You MUST use the proper mix of ships to ensure victory. The Multiplayer is practically a game on it's own. I've spent many hours playing online day and night. I've even joined a clan to maximize my playing pleasure. :-)

Please, buy this game if your between the ages of -infinty to infinity. Trust me. You won't regret it.

The game starts 15 years after the original Homeworld war: the remnants of the Higaraans are divided into two kind of Kiiths(clans?), the ones that was not hybernated and so had to fight their way and later became the inner circles of power in the new homeworld, and the ones that was hybernated and missed the whole, bloody journey and woke up to find their original clan back home destroyed and end up as a less powerful clan. You get to play one of the latter clans called Kiith Somtaw, who mine minerals from asteroids in the near galaxy.

The game opens with the two major powers vying for the Higara: The good side: the Higaarans(your people), the new, democratic Taiidan Republic that is on good terms with Higaarans, the neutral Bentusis, and the bad: the remaining Taidanni imperialists and their pals, the Turanic raiders. The balance of power between these two are broken when the Somtaaw fleet finds an ancient emergency beacon that contains a powerful virus capable of eating up organic and inorganic matters. The virus soon turns out to have intelligence and devours anything and everything that comes in its way that includes the initial victim, the research deck of the Somtaaw's mothership that had to be discarded and latter becomes the Beast mothership, and the revengeful Taidanni imperialists literally signs a contract with the devil by joining forces with the creature now known as the Beast in hopes of overthrowing their long time foes...

As can be seen, the story is still intriguing, the graphics still superb, 3D functions are still awesome. Nevertheless, some of few downfalls are the lack of new 'enemy' fleet and (still) confusing manuals. Notice only the enemies, whereas the Sometaaw has their own new arsenal. In addition, the part of the manual that explains the past history was still vague(like the original), and that is the reason I wrote the above story line.

Overall, having believed what some people criticized 'Cataclysm' as un-original than the 'Homeworld' for a long time and not playing it, I regret that now: this is certainly an improved Homeworld or Homeworld version 1.5. Anyhow, this game is more than good: it is one of the best titles out there for the money right now, and because of this game, I really look forward to Homeworld 2. Grab this title before it becomes a jewel version with no manuals to help you at all. It was a joy to play this game, I applaud the Barking Dogs Studio for their great work, and I definetely give it an A+.

Forget Starcraft, Warcraft, Ground Control, Tiberian Sun, what have you. Once you play Homeworld, I assure you that you will never, EVER want to play those games. The reason is simple: after homeworld's immersiveness, flexibility, and strategy, everything else is too simple, too boring, just not fun. The 17 missions isn't a drawback, each will take you around an hour to beat. When you've beaten the game, play the multiplayer against the computer or fellow humans for much more excitement. The two playable races, Somtaaw and Beast, are opposites in playing style, so once you've mastered one, the other presents a challenge. The 3D enviroment lends a new breed of strategy, much more complex then other RTS's "Build a million units and do an all-out strike". In homeworld, a handful of properly used units can defeat a bluntly controlled deathfleet. Stop reading reviews and BUY THIS GAME!!!

I played the first Homeworld. It was pretty good. The plot wasn't very creative but very well done. The interface was easy to use (once you got the hang of it). There was only one problem with it. The early mission were way too easy and the later missions were way too hard. Cataclysm, which picks up where homeworld left off, does much better. The plot concept is kind of lame (brave crew of the Kuun-Lan mining vessel vs. the ancient "Beast" which is bent on galactic domination), but it was done so well that It doesn't matter. The mothership can move, which is a nice improvement. The graphics are at least a bit better. The plot moves faster. I actually liked the Support unit system. In the original, they stopped your fleet from getting too big by limiting the resources you could get, the problem with that being that if they manage to take out your fleet, you lose, whereas now you can build more ships (resources are definatly not a problem!). I liked cataclysm more then homeworld, and anyone who says that it "lacks the charm of the original" can pout.

I enjoyed this game but it is not homeworld. The story behind this game was terrific and would keep you playing for hours. As far as game play it was easy to gather hordes of resource and ships are cheap. Having a limit on my fleet through Source Units is a good idea but does take some getting used to, But I could not figure out why I never had to refuel any of my ships? Cataclysm is worth the money and I will keep playing it but I still have the first Homeworld within easy reach. By the way Cataclysm is XP compatible.

Homeworld Cataclysm is simply just a great game. This game will please both veterans of the original homeworld as well as the newbies. Barking Dog Studios added a lot of new features like being able to give orders from the sensor manager and added many new units, yet dispite some major changes to the game, the simple controls are all very familiar to the original. With all the new units and features, the game has a whole new feel to it. There is also is an extensive manual to help out some of the new players (and old). This game definitely deserves five stars. I'm not going to get much sleep for a while 'cause of this game.