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Excellent game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 104 / 117
Date: October 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Homeworld 2

General/Summary:

When Relic released the first Homeworld in 1999, I was amazed at the graphics, gameplay, and story that took the gaming world by storm. I said "WOW." It was a sensational game worthy of awards for innovation and game depth not seen before in a RTS game. It was such an ambitious title at the time, and they pulled it off with an incredible 3D engine taking RTS gamers into the depths of space. Homeworld 2 has some large shoes to fill as it tries to recapture the genre once again. It has been refined and improved in many ways over the predecessor, and most of the changes are welcome. Many gamers will criticize Homeworld 2 because it is not their beloved Homeworld 1, but game studios have to create new content to sell games. While the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" motto could apply, Relic made very positive changes in the interface and gameplay design.

Gameplay:

Homeworld 1 did not play much like a typical rock-paper-scissors RTS game. Players massed units like frigates and placed support ships on guard to heal them as they fight. Players made fighters, bombers, and other ships, but there was less of a need for variety. Homeworld 2 on the other hand requires gamers to have many types of ships due to a more strict rock-paper-scissors gameplay design. Also, larger ships now have subsystems, so bombers can target weapons or engines to take those ships out of action. There are more ways to attack in Homeworld 2 and it now resembles other games in the genre. I miss the formations from Homeworld since they played an important part in battle success. Also, watching fighters fly through space in X formation sure was cool. However, the gameplay changes make for a fantastic chess match as players move their different classes of ships around to win battles. I got used to the changes after several games online, and now I am starting to see the benefits. The multiplayer is vastly improved with the new system, and there are more options for offensive tactics.

Homeworld 1 had an incredible story for the single player component, where gamers were stuck in space trying to get home. Homeworld 2 has more of a save the world story, and I found it to be enjoyable. I am not a big fan of stories in RTS games, but Relic does a great job to heighten the experience. I felt like a general commanding my mothership through space on the quests presented to me throughout the game. The story is not Homeworld 1, but Relic presented a very stylish successor that gamers should be proud to own in their collection. Some gamers complain about the lack of a hyperjump button since the missions move quickly and it does not give the player time to absorb much. It does not bother me since the game gives you all the resources on the level automatically, and it saves each time you advance. My only complaint with the missions is that some were very hard, but tips from the Relic forums really helped me move through them quickly. It did not take me long to get through the 15 missions, and I expect that they will release more in an expansion.

There are many refinements in the interface that enhance gameplay. The one major change is the addition of the side scroll. It does not sound like much, but players can move the camera around by moving the pointer to the sides of the screen. All RTS games feature this behavior except Homeworld. This enables players to rely less on the sensor manager to look around, so they can keep their eyes on the main battle screen. Also, they now provide more information on the screen in a collapsible tool bar. Furthermore, the build and research screens now take up less than a third of the main window, so gamers can stay in the game and make purchases at the same time. Another change is the ability to send ships on the vertical axis by holding down the left mouse button. The shift key is still usable for that action, but not necessary since one hand can be faster. The interface has changed for the better, and it helps to control units in 3D space.

The refinements make Homeworld 2 a great game. It is similar enough to learn quickly, but tough to master. One new addition is a defense platform that allows players in online play to send these to things to resource patches ("platform rush"). Resource collectors have no chance against them, but they are easy to counter with Torpedo Frigates that shoot long range torpedoes. You need to defend your Torpedo Frigates with interceptors. I keep finding more and more strategies as I play it online, and the game balance seems impressive. Frigates are no longer big ships like in Homeworld 1, and they can die fast. The big boys now are the Battlecruisers.

Graphics:

The best way to describe the graphics is by saying "WOW." It has a beautiful 3D environment that places gamers in deep space fighting through stars, nebula, and debris. The battles are vivid as ships streak through space creating brilliant screen lighting explosions. Ships have excellent animations and space looks more detailed than the predecessor. The same wow factor is there with improved graphics, but it is not a huge leap from the original. You could really makes a statement about the original Homeworld's graphics being way ahead of it's time. There is no doubt that the graphics are the pinnacle of the Homeworld series, and this version does not hold back.

Sound:

The music is fantastic, just like the other two Homeworld titles. This year they have more of a haunting classical tune to rhythmic beats, and it really adds to the excitement of the game. I have never been disappointed by the music in any of the Homeworld titles. The rest of the sounds add to the overall experience. The explosions are big and make great use of a sub woofer, so crank it up. The music dancing, the ship engines humming, and the explosions create a wonderful space battle environment.

Visually stunning but shocking game play

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 108 / 143
Date: August 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In light of completing Homeworld 2 twice, the review is a brutal truth of what the game is---a game so challenging, so hard, it just simply isn't worth your bother. Ordinary gamers will derive no enjoyment from this. In a manner of words: this is a game with spectacular graphics, breathtaking naval fleet warfare, all hampered by arduous game play.

Fifteen missions long, the average player will find themselves struggling by just the fourth, if you finished the third by the skin of your teeth. Rapidly changing mid-mission objectives, wave after wave of enemy forces, you'd better be up to the challenge of preventing your shipyard from hostile takeover to graduate to the real fun.

Then mission 4 hits you, hard and heavy.

Players are simply not prepared so early in the game, after such breezy missions, for one of such difficulty. Continual enemy attacks never leave you alone, never giving you a breather, to collect resources, to replenish your ragtag fleet. Don't grin that smile yet, that massive frigate assault will wash it away. There's no time to get a feel for ship classes, what works best against which enemy unit, to experiment on new technologies. Took a stunning number of weeks to beat that mission alone. Just concentrate on bombers and pulsar corvettes and she'll be right mate. Homeworld 2, it seems, is one heavy mission after another, broken up by occasional missions so quiet you could sleep through them. Those restful missions would be ideal to build your fleet to full strength and maximum unit numbers.

A detrimental mistake!

An unbelievable attribute of the game---the stronger you are, the heavier the next mission's enemy forces will be. The astounding stupidity of this is simply shocking. Try full unit limits from the tenth mission onwards, when enemy forces are already considerable, you'll see. This isn't so bad, really, but it makes hill into mountain.

Homeworld 2 is a RTS game of its own, nothing like Starcraft-type games. Even the hardest Starcraft mission gave you time to rebuild a weakened army, fix your base up. You could explore the darkened map, tease the enemy from different sides. H2 won't let you do that. This game demands strict obedience to the mission objectives. You play to fulfil them, not your own agenda.

Even more absurd, whatever forces you have left you begin with next mission. Scrape a mission too finely, and what are your chances of survival, really, when come the enemy hordes, and come in numbers they will.

What H2 steals from you is enjoyment. This is for the determined player. Who doesn't want a challenge in a game? But it's not fun. Move! You can't sit idle at any time; you can't split your fleet up, to feint at an enemy base from different angles. You want to live, keep all eggs in one fleet.

The menu controls are shocking. Mouse scrolling doesn't work in H2. It takes valuable time to position and drag the tab down the page. You can't even press ENTER or ESCAPE keys, only mouse commands. Such is the Idiotic Intelligence of the developers, that you can't authorise commands with an ENTER tap. The screen panels where you click to load or save games are so slim you really have to position your mouse precisely over them.

The method of saving is a joke. Strict alphanumerical order, the starting letter or number determines its placement in the list. It's better to save games chronologically, like Starcraft and Jedi Outcast. In-game auto-saving works against you; replay a mission, and you might re-save over it.

Where in the game booklet does it say docked strike craft automatically repair? A tiny offhand mention in the Vaygr Battlecruiser. How would you think to dock your fighters when you need them active at all times?

Absurd to target warship subsystems (engines, weapons, etc) when destroying the ship takes just as long. Absurd to capture an enemy ship, not only from your strict unit numbers, but the ship will always target your marine frigate. Played game twice, still can't get cloaking technology.

Like viewing a sphere of blinking red and green dots all game long? You'll spend considerable time looking at your radar screen; it's the only way to see enemy units and positions, and easier to select targets.

Graphics are awesome, ship details commendable. Mouse-wheel scrolling permits easy panning and rotation of the camera angle. Fun to follow a bomber group on their attack runs, or zoom right in at besieged warships about to be missile volleyed. High comp system will avert the occasional slowdown when camera-close to a ship going nova; exploding capital ships are cool.

Mid- and inter-mission cutscenes are simple but satisfactory. Fleet Command voices sounds too similar; Makaan is chilling as the Vaygr warlord, smooth and polite.

Game music will become repetitive. Only two tracks stand out: the oriental Hindu-like music of the Keeper missions, and that brief heavy battle track in missions 9 and 12. Hammered by endless Vaygr fleets, your heart pounding as you brawl for survival, why the damn hell did they finish after two minutes? Superb and haunting, they rapidly faded back to that mundane battle music.

There is nothing special about mysterious Sajuuk, the one hope of your homeworld. Can't spoil you here, but the game designers are criminal fools to make the guy just that. And if that doesn't inspire your outrage, behold the short, simplistic final cutscene of the game.

This is Homeworld 2. Visually stunning, rigid game play design. You'd do well to think long and hard before sampling this farce of fun. All fine and fancy to spout rave reviews and the shine the five-star flag, but honest and informative feedback goes a long way to whisper the truth.

Let's be objective

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 19 / 22
Date: November 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I really can not believe the 5 star reviews for this game. I can only assume that it gets an extra 3 automatically for being the sequel to the "1999 Game of the Year" (as Sierra is so fond of advertising).

I'm a big fan of the Homeworld series and enjoyed the two previous installments greatly, so needless to say I was quite looking forward to cracking open HW2. The demo wasn't exactly inspiring, I wasn't really fond of some of the modifications that were made to the game's basic formula. Namely the inclusion of unit "squadrons" and a more emphasised "paper-rock-scissors" balance scheme. Even so, I managed to talk myself into shelling out 40 bucks for the game... d'oh!

Despite all the "its too hard!" comments floating around, I was undaunted, I don't mind a challenge. Unfortunately, the challenge in HW2 is afforded mostly by a test of how fast you can click your mouse and navigate around the (nicely updated) interface. A typical campaign mission in HW2 consists mostly of you constantly trying to repel a ceaseless barrage of enemy ships... while trying to complete both your mission goals, AND without sucking up every single resource unit on the map before you get there.

I'm giving it 3 stars, for the following things: Graphics, Sound, Design, and an at least moderately fun Skirmish mode. Everything else, in my humble opinion, is just nonexistant. I shudder to think how well a newcommer would fare in HW2, I consider myself a pretty decent RTS gamer and I still find it a frustrating experience. Not to mention, there is only a single campaign, rather than one for each faction... I hope this doesn't become the next RTS trend.

In short, HW2 has everything going for it except what matters - gameplay. I play games to relax and enjoy, not to be irritated and driven out of my mind. Very disappointed, I hope Relic lets Barking Dog Studios (who did HW: Cataclysm) handle the next installment of this series.

Just another game i WANT to like

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 17 / 21
Date: October 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game the day it came out i think, i played it for a while that day, and stopped playing it for about a month. Just today i started playing it again, and i remembered why i stopped playing.

I guess the biggest flaw is this game is HARD. For some reason it seems that pc games only have two settings these days: easy and impossibly hard. This game is definatly the latter.

The units in this game are evolved around the old silly theory that one unit is strong versus an other type of unit, but completly helpless against some other type. Which always seemed rather stupid to me. A .50 m2 machine gun was designed to be an anti-vehicle weapon. Does that mean it's completly useless against personnel? Uh no...it just happens that it's MORE effective against personnel, because of its obvious over-powerment.

So In the game you have to figure out what the enemy's strengths and weaknesses are, and exploit them with the appropriate unit. However...the enemy rarely has just one type of unit, in fact it usually has a pretty well rounded force. So you have to create a well rounded force yourself to deal with them. However the enemy is much faster than you, and can pick and chose your ships while you're trying to make sense of the battle. It amazes me every time how surgical the ai is when it comes to wiping out your force. You'll have a large, well rounded group one second, then notice the enemy is targeting solely one type of unit of yours. Once that unit type is gone, you're force is essentially crippled as it now has a large hole in it that can be easily exploited. It amazes me how the enemy can target those single unit types in a group of 50 other ships, when you can barely even SEE what types of units are in their groups.

Add this to the fact that the enemy also has unlimited recources and ships, and you have a rather frustrating puzzle.

Every mistake you make is cumulative as well. You cant just barely win a battle. As you'll go into the next battle with basically no units. You always have to find a way to win the battle without crippling your chances for the next battle.

The battle really does not give you much time to think either. You have a research capability to improve your units...but you're rarely given a single uneventfull minute to figure out what you want to research.

The graphics in this game are pretty stunning...i guess. I run a high end computer (2.6 p4, 1 gig ddr ram, geforce ti 4600 128 mb ddr ram) and the graphics are still EXTREMELY choppy in parts.

It's ok if you zoom all the way out, but if you zoom close into the ships everything becomes choppy and the game slows down significantly.

The story completly escapes me. I read the little overview of the story in the manual, and i still have no idea what the game is talking about. I never played the original homeworlds, so sue me.

Overall...it's just another game i have around that takes up space.

Better graphics, worse gameplay

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: October 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

After having finished HW1, I was more than eager to start HW2. At first I was stunned to find smoother textures, better graphics, and a better designed interface (yeah, I think it improved).

However, the gameplay itself changed, and that much to the worse.

In HW1 you could load a carrier with fighters - traverse the galaxy and have escort fighters protect against pockets of enemy aircraft - finally unload the carrier before the target destination to strike with bitter force (or fail). In HW1 you could also send out fighters for reconnaissance missions, and still hope for their return.

In HW2 this no longer is possible. With continous raides on your ships, and no time to think about "strategy" you get pounded on every damn free moment - ultimatley leading to only one form of strategy: PAUSE-command defence-UNPAUSE-see action-PAUSE-command repair, etc. No more surprise attacks on your side, the AI knows you're there (which makes sometimes no sense - like in mission 4). Gone are the times where you sent fighters out to explore, they'll most likely not return if you decide too. You're pretty much lucky if you only have one fighter group, and one corvette group attack your ships at any given time (yeah, this pattern never stops). Repetative? You bet!

And thats where I believe a game should be entertaining, not frustrating. It really frustrates, since they improved virtually everything else, but changed the gameplay for the worse. If you purchase this game in the belief its a good strategy game, reconsider. If you're more action oriented, with little strategy in mind, maybe this game is right for you.

I hope that someone from Relic/Sierra reads the comments posted around the web, a patch is greatly appreciated that stops this redundant game play (less attacks?). And no, I don't agree with the theory that the joy of completing this game is satisfaction. Like you torture yourself through the levels only to see the fireworks in the end? Shouldn't it be enjoyable throughout?

After HW1, this comes as a very big dissapointment. I'll stop playing, and am waiting for a patch. If no patch comes, I'll post it on Amazon's Marketplace for sale.

Missing that warm-fuzzy feeling

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: February 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

(This is for Homeworld 2 version 1.1... That's including the most recent patch.)

First, let me say that I've played and completed both Homeworld and Homeworld: Cataclysm, and I found the first extremely enjoyable and engrossing (though somewhat frustrating), and the second just mostly frustrating.

This game was somewhere inbetween.

I agree with reviewers that said that the storyline of this game was weak. It doesn't make much of sense, and it leads to many missions that are almost carbon copies of the original Homeworld (especially the first few missions!) I'm not sure it fits into the series storyline, either.

Also, the game felt extremely rushed. There's barely time to breathe between the objectives that the game gives you. You can't neglect the objectives, either, because if you do, you might find yourself on the wrong side of overwhemling force. After the last objective has been achieved, you automatically collect all remaining resources and hyperspace jump whether you want to or not, and you're on to the next mission. I know why the devs did this, because players in the original Homeworld (and I think Cataclysm as well) would spend hours collecting resources after each mission, but somehow having all that done for you just felt like it was moving the game *way too fast*. In addition, while you auto-collect all the resources in the area, meaning that you never have a shortage, you don't have time to rebuild or take stock. This means that, while you might win the current mission, you'll be horribly under-powered for the next mission, and also unprepared with your groupings, and since many missions start out very quickly this can be a BIG PROBLEM. You have to make sure and keep an eye on what you're building and what ships are damaged so that you can be at full, or close to full strength when the missions ends. There might be an option to turn off the auto-jump, but the game went by so fast on my first run through that I never had a chance to look!

Now, don't get me wrong, the rushing didn't make the game any more difficult. Quite on the contrary, I found Homeworld 2 to be a bit easier than the original. I completed it in about 8 hours of total play time, while the original took at least several days (and sleepless nights). But, that's also a problem, because it was over too fast!

Cut scenes also come at an annoying rate and interrupt you when you're trying to control the action, but you can't interrupt them because you might miss something important (like the location of an objective). In order to get around this sometimes I found myself just watching some cut-scenes, and then reloading to an autosave before the cut-scenes and skipping them. This was a problem in the original Homeworld as well, but somehow I didn't find it nearly as annoying as I did in Homeworld 2.

There were some things that I liked about Homeworld 2, at least in theory. I liked that you could upgrade your current ship designs. The only problem with this is that you never really see the results. Do all your ships auto-upgrade? Did it make a difference? Where do I see what benefit it had? Was it worth the research or extra resources or time spent?

I liked that fighters and corvettes had a natural place in the fighting. In the original, I found myself neglecting my fighters and corvettes (my corvettes especially, which seemed to be waste of resources). In this game, however, I found that their role was much more prominent. Bombers could effectively take out frigates, and were almost indestructable if the frigates weren't escorted by gun-ships or interceptors. Interceptors, on the other hand, were required to protect the bombers from other interceptors, and to draw gun-ship fire away. Corvettes (except for the mine layer corvette, which I managed never to have to build for any mission at all) I also found to be very powerful, and I would often use them as my preferred strike-craft defense when I sent in my own capital or super-capital ships.

However, frigates seemed to have their role deemphasized. Most of the time I found myself using frigates to draw fire as my capital and super-capital ships were coming around and my bombers and gun-ships (which were very effective at harassing enemy capital and super-capital ships) made their way to the battle. I'd almost always lose my entire line of frigates in the process (and I normally ran with frigate formations of between 14 and 18 ships).

Also, some frigates were almost completely useless except when they were worked into a mission. These were specifically marine frigates and defense frigates. Capturing ships was something I almost never had the time to do (the enemy ships either went down too quickly, or the marine frigates would just be canon fodder going in), and the defense field of the defense field frigate required that you turn it on every time you wanted to use it, and it only lasted a few seconds each time. That's way, way too much micromanagement for me. Plus, the speed at which missions progressed made it difficult to work these two special frigates into the tactical picture.

I liked some of aspects of the redesigned interface. The build and research screens still let you see the battle. Being able to click on an object to go there, or to quickly issue a move command to empty space was excellent. Having groups of fighters and strike craft rather than individual fighters and strike craft made it *much* easier for me to manage. Having the selected craft appear in the bottom command area thing was excellent as well, as it gave me an at-a-glance look at how they were doing damage-wise.

Some aspects weren't so great, though, for instance the large, iconic command buttons. Some of them made sense to me, some of them didn't. In the end the buttons didn't matter much, because I used hotkeys almost exclusively and had little time to even consider the buttons. This was the case for most of the interface options that I might not have liked. Sure, I might not have liked them, but I never really had the opportunity to find out since I never used them.

There were some things about the game that I found perplexing. For instance, in the tutorial they give you a carrier with a cloaking device... But in the single player mission line, you never encounter cloaking technology! The enemy might have been using it, in retrospec, but it made almost no difference at all. Why have cloaking technology in the game if it's going to make no difference? Also, you could, in theory, capture ships, but why would you want to? It was safer, easier, and more resource-effective to just pre-build replacement ships. Plus, not having to have a fleet of marine frigates on hand freed up slots for actual damage dealing ships. You couldn't "overload" your fleet population like you could in the original either (at least, I don't think you could, maybe I'm wrong here), and captured ships really didn't have any new and exciting capabilities to them (at least nothing that made a difference), so where's the incentive? I remember in the original I lived and died by what ships I could capture. I'd max out my frigate count and then capture ion arrays (which were awful ships, but then, you didn't feel so bad when you lost them) and multi-beam frigates (which were very powerful, if a bit dangerous to your own friendly ships). In this game, there's just no point in it. Also, you could attack sub-systems on enemy capital and super-capital ships, but, again, why? Sure, you could destroy the fighter production capability of a carrier, but they'd just rebuild that subsystem so quickly that you might as well have never bothered with the subsystem and just blown appart the vessel itself. I remember one mission where I was confronted with several carriers, and was trying to stop them from building additional strike craft, so I destroyed the production facility on the first carrier, and moved on to the second, and by the time the second carrier had it's production facility destroyed, the first had rebuilt its own and had already completed two squadrons of strike craft. DOH! Should have just destroyed the carrier, and after I reloaded, that's just what I did. Much easier.

In summary, this game was, in a few ways, an improvement on the original. I think that some aspects of the game-play are excellent. However, the thing that I took away from this game most was: "What, that's all there is?"

Now, it might be better for player vs. player, but I haven't tried that. For people looking for a good single-player experience, however, I recommend going with the original Homeworld, or with a different game entirely.

Excellent game, but too hard for most

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: December 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game was a must-buy for me since I also owned the original Homeworld. The story of HW2 is a lot less compelling than the story of the original Homeworld, but still not bad. The gameplay is however better.

If you are unfamiliar with the Homeworld series, it's based on fighting your way through levels, where you bring your resources and space fleet from the previous mission (level) to the next. They are all interconnected, and if you do poorly in one, chances are you'll be at a disadvantage in the next one.

You command the mighty mothership in your quest to save the galaxy by retrieving an old hyperspace gate. The mothership is able to build ships, including carriers that in turn can build most types of ships. You will be tasked with developing technology, building a viable fleet, mining for resources, completing mission objectives, and fending off the enemy - all in a nice concoction of organized chaos. The pace can be pretty high at times, and although the battlefields are nicely laid out and the navigation relatively simple, it's still a mess to get through some of the missions. Chances are you'll play each mission somewhere between 2 and 20 times before you succeed.

PROS:
* Excellent concept and gameplay
* Beautiful graphics and sound
* Hours and hours of fun and challenging gameplay
* Multiplayer option, and option to play against the computer
* Large fleet of different ships - friends, allies and foes
* A lot of improvement to make to your fleet through research
* Nice storyline to follow

CONS:
* Extremely hard - only one difficulty level. It's a good idea to either read online strategy guides and walkthroughs, or simply buy the official strategy guide.
* Hours and hours of challenging gameplay - It can get a bit tedious and frustrating to play the same mission over and over again.
* Not a game for relaxing in front of the computer.

I highly recommend this game, and it's sure to give you days and days, probably weeks and weeks of active gameplay. I was considered giving this game a 5, but since there's quite a bit of room for improvement, and the difficulty level is a bit on the high side, I give it a still very enjoyable 4 STARS!!!

Great game, a few glitches

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: December 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I loved homeworld, played it over and over for months. Homeworld 2 has not disappointed. I like the story. The graphics are awesome of course. The missions where balanced and interesting. It's great that the same voice actors are doing Sjet, the Bentusi, etc.

I see lots of talk of it being too hard. I don't agree. I'm not a really great player, but I found this one to be just slightly harder than HW1. If you find you are having problems, it is because you've been using the wrong strategies (or because you blew the last mission so bad, that you start the next mission without a fleet).

For instance, Mission 3 was really tough for me at frist. The enemy kept swarming me with gobs of units. I took a deep breath and thought. Where are all those units coming from? - the carriers! On my next attempt a launched all out strikes on the carriers instead of defending a key asset, and mopped up handily.

They don't call them Strategy Games for nothing.

All that said, there are some glitches with the game. Some of the routing AI needs a bit of work and there's a quite embarrassing bug where folks behind firewalls can't host multiplayer games (like anyone isn't behind a firewall these days). In one level, if you meet the objectives out of the usual order, the mission won't end. A patch is in the works. Rumored to be coming very soon, so hopefully these problems will disappear. Also the relic forums (google it) have tips to get by such problems.

Wonderful Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: November 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Before I start, I would suggest anyone who gets this game be sure to download the patch that has been made available. This balances out units a little better (not too much, but a little) and also decreases the difficulty of several of the missions (they are possible to beat without the patch, but they are hard).

This game builds wonderfully over the orrignal Homeworld. It has made several improvements in how things are handled and also polishes up things in general. In addition, unlike the orrignal Homeworld the different sides have very different strengths and weaknesses that are readily apparent when playing them.

Some nice additions:

You no longer build single fighters, but rather build fighters in wings. So long as a single fighter in the wing survives you can send the fighter group back to a carrier or mothership or shipyard and have the unit returned to full strength. This makes fighter units much more useful and practical then the frail things they were in Homeworld.

Resource collection at the end of missions has been automized. You will no longer have to sit around for hours after missions sending harvisters out to collect resources for you. Once all enemy units have been defeated all resources in the map are automatically collected and added to your resource pool.

Subsystems. You can now build subsystems that give your ships interesting capabilities as well as target enemy subsystems. Large ships (such as battle crusers, carriers, motherships) come with some standard subsystems that cannot be completely destroyed but can be dammaged to the point that they no longer function. This makes hit and run type attacks much more useful then they were previously since you can use them to dammage enemy capabilities or cripple enemy ships, while allowing access to some nice abilities should you chose to build some of the more unique subsystems.

The ability to capture any ship in the game has also been added. That is right, capture ANY ship in the game. Including motherships. In addition, the units which capture enemies are much less flimsy so while they do still need an escourt they can be counted on to not die immediately.

Fleet formations have also been added. While there are really only 3 choises for fleet formations, they really do make it easy to use ships of different classes together. When used properly these formations are extreamly powerful, however you need to learn when to use a formation and when to break it up.

There are a few things I am less than satisfied with however. It is for these reasons that I am only giving it a rating of 4 out of 5.

The first major thing I was disapointed with was the reduction on the number of formations. I remember that with the orrignal Homeworld there was a large number of fomrations to chose from. I kept wishing I had access to some of those, particularly the claw and the sphere. While it may be argued that the addition of fleet formations makes up for this change, I couldn't help but wish that I had access to many of the old formations.

The interface is something I am not 100% satisfied with as well. While I will agree that it is definately a step up from what was used with Homeworld, it does feel somehow cumbersome. I guess it is a function of too many menues when it comes to building units and researching. Even in this respect it isn't too bad though.

Also, the 3D nature of space has largely been ignored. This problem still existed in Homeworld, though it was a little less noticable there since they did fairly often launch surprise attacks from above or below. Homeworld 2 largely just uses the horozontal plane when it comes to combat. Units controled by the AI simply will not try coming from strange directions, but rather take a head on approach. Thankfully I was able to find a group of people to play with online who were not burdened with this problem.

My final real problem with Homeworld comes with the addition of a new unit: the shipyard. The reason for this has to do with multiplayer where its importaince overshadows even that of the mothership once it has been built. It has more subsystem slots than the mothership. It is the only unit which can build battlecruisers. It has all the capabilities that the mothership has and more. From a stand point of game ballance I can see why this may have happened (the game designers didn't want players skipping ahead in the research tree right to battlecruisers), however I cannot help but feel that if anything the shipyard should be more of a smaller mothership with more limited capabilities. Somewhere between a carrier and the mothership.

All that said, the game is still a wonderful game. It contains almost all of the orrignal Homeworld's good points, and gets rid of many of its bad ones with the introduction of few flaws. If you like the idea of controling an intergalatic battle fleet then I would definately suggest that you pick up this game. The campaign alone would be worth it, but multiplayer is where this game really shines since that is where you will see interesting tatics that can be used once the pesky notion of 2D is forgotten.

Homeworld2: Evolution, not Revolution.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: September 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The motto of the Developement team on Homeworld2, Evolution not Revolution, is evident in the final product. It is a very much improved version of Homeworld in almost everything.

Homeworld was the first 3D space RTS. In Homeworld you commanded a fleet of ships (centered around the Mothership) trying to get back to your Homeworld. The storyline and how it was presented in the singleplayer gave you a sense of emotional connection.

Homeworld2 is more easy to use than the Original. It uses an interface which is all about being optional and unintrusive. In Homeworld2, unlike the original you are never taken out of the action, you are always there.

In addition to the simple GUI improvements, Homeworld2 has (maybe unneccessarily) simplified the 3d; as well as the standard "Movecommand, target on disk, deviation into 3d" form of movement, there is a click on target form. What I like less in their changes is the "flattening" of the game into a more flat world, but maybe that is neccessary in the singleplayer. Another new feature I found very useful in the interface is the panning feature; in the original you had to be centered on an object (or where an object was when you chose to center there) while now you can pan the camera around the map in a similar fasion to many other RTSs.

However, the difference that I find most fulfilling is the change in actual play. Homeworld2 sport 2 *truly* different races, unlike Homeworld, where the 2 races were identical except for 2 ships. Homeworld2's Hiigaran and Vaygr races have totally different tactical possibilites; multipurpose formations vs. specialized swarms. Also there is the addition of Subsystems to large ships; targetable parts such as Engines, Hyperspace modules, or Fire Control Towers. These features seem similar to Homeworld: Cataclysm, so they aren't truly new, but they appear to be better implemented.

All in all, Homeworld2 is a major improvement on the original, but if you're looking for something completely new, look elsewhere.

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