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This game doesn't raise the bar, it completely blows it away

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: November 07, 1999
Author: Amazon User

What could be better then playing Command and Conquer in full 3D? Playing Homeworld! Homeworld is everything C&C is only better. The true 3D gameplay completely enthralled me. The graphics are top notch and very custimisable. The music is better than most sci-fi movie soundtracks. Most of all the game made me think, more so than any other stradegy game out there. Five stars, easily!

One of the best real-time strategy games ever...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 19
Date: November 10, 1999
Author: Amazon User

"Homeworld" - Relic Entertainment - Sierra Studios - PC - Grade:A+

Every year for the past few years, someone has released a game that has taken an established genre of computer gaming and turned it from something stale and bland into something fresh and exciting again.

These are the games other companies imitate, because the developers of these particular games innovated.

In 1997, Blizzard's "Diablo" took the term RPG and game it a strong dose of action and spawned dozens of imitators. Last year, Valve Software's "Half-Life" took the nearly lifeless first-person shooter market and made it viable again by adding something simple - story.

"Homeworld" is this year's innovator and the lesser companies are already scrambling to copy the lessons taught by it.

I offer this word of warning, though - take care, as this could become crack for any one of us. I already suspect that "Homeworld" will be one of those titles that always just seems to take "just ten more minutes" of time. You've been warned. It's incredible, and addictive. Damn timesinks.

Much, much more than just another "Starcraft" knockoff, Relic Entertainment's first project "Homeworld" is a drastic reinterpretation of the real-time strategy game. In a field once ruled by two-dimensional games, "Homeworld" has made the drastic jump - into 3-D.

For perhaps the first time ever, players can rotate around in the vast reaches of space, commanding large armadas of fights, corvettes and capital class starships in epic battles that would make George Lucas proud.

The best way to describe what it feels like to be playing "Homeworld" is to envision yourself as the commander of the Rebel Fleet in the end sequence of "Return of the Jedi," confronting a large armada of imperial ships bent on your destruction. First and most importantly, the interface is incredibly intuitive and easy use. This said, go through the tutorial. You still have to learn how the camera system works before you'll have the intricacies down pat. They have to teach you how to look before you walk, then fly.

The camera system is half of the joy of "Homeworld." You can watch battles from the far distant lofty perch above, or you can zoom in close and follow the path of one of your ships as it zips and zooms in its combat with your opponent.

All the time, every ship is clean and well-designed. The graphics are crisp and showy without being distracting, although there have been moments where I've felt like Nero watching Rome burn - the battle was just too beautiful for me to do anything.

Ships are divided into four classes: fighters, which are small ships designed for ship-to-ship combat (think X-Wing); corvettes, which are made for heavier combat but not as much (think Corellian Blockade runners - i.e. Leia's ship at the very beginning of "Star Wars") and capital class, which are designed to have heavy firepower but low, low speed (think Star Destroyers).

In addition to these four classes, you also have your Mothership. The Mothership is your central base of command. If it blows up, you lose. Guard it with your life.

Misplacing the Mothership will be tough, too, considering the thing is friggin' huge compared to your tiny little scout ships. This sense of scale was exactly what the game needed to make players feel like they were there.

Moving ships is incredibly easy, as simple as point-and-click. You can also set your units into various combat formations, as well as tell them to assume a defensive or offensive stance.

It sounds like a lot to learn, but you pick it up quick once you get going. Learning the keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys is another thing that will help you keep your ships flying.

From the opening of the game, however, it's clear that "Homeworld" is gearing for a slightly older audience. Those of us think of "Alien" and "Blade Runner" with fond memories, we fit right at home. The basic storyline is that the race of people you belong to finds the remains of a crashed spaceship on your planet. Within a few dozen years, you've figured out your people did not originate on this planet. With the discovery of a map, the construction of the Mothership begins as you and your people prepare to journey to your Homeworld. "Homeworld" is also filled with one of those big, epic, sweeping scores that put the feeling of the vastness of space into you from the getgo and never loosens up.

While the single player mode is a bit short (only 15 missions), the multiplayer mode more than makes up for it, letting up to eight players duke it out in the vastness of space. If you've ever wanted to see a truly epic battle on your computer, right now, it doesn't get any better than this.

Homeworld isn't perfect, with a few features that would have been nice to have not making it into the final version, but the merits of the game so far supersede these petty little complaints so as to rub them out.

Remember that Homeworld is a first-generation title that's the first release from a team, and you better this bodes well for Relic.

"Homeworld" doesn't just chip away at the old RTS mold, it shatters it with a massive sledgehammer and keeps on pounding until all that remains is dust.

A new watermark has been set.

If you've ever been vaguely interested in real-time strategy, space combat or even science-fiction computer games at all, do yourself a favor and buy "Homeworld."

Homeworld is a top-notch 3D strategy game in 3D space.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: November 10, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Pros:

1. Graphics are breathtaking, some of the finestI've seen, especially while viewing a battle up close.

2.Excellent sense of 3D space... because it is! Go anywhere! Attack from above and below.

3. Great interactive tutorial teaches you the common actions in the game.

4. Highly integrated network multiplayer and skirmish (vs. CPU) modes really keep you playing.

5. Sound tracks and voices are also top notch; not overpowering or distracting to game play.

6. I love the fact that your fleet in single player missions carries over from mission to mission and whatever you have ending a mission is what you have starting the next mission; it really gives you a sense of survival.

Cons:

1. There are no "health gauges" shown for your enemy. Your only feedback are varying degrees of "smoke and flames" emitting from your opponent's ship.

2. Although I experienced no video problems, you've got to have the "latest and greatest" video drivers to get this game to work.

3. There are limits to the number of ships you can have in space at any given time. At least the limit is per-ship type and once you go under that limit you can build another one of those ships again. This is more of an issue with network play that the single missions.

4. The 2, single player races are visually different, but are otherwise almost identical in terms of ship capabilities. I would have expected great differences in ships beyond appearance.

5. Game play bogs down if you are viewing on average about 25 - 35 ships in heavy battle (of course this varies with system configuration).

6. I can't stop playing this game!

Nothing short of amazing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 10, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I've been waiting on a game like this for years. In a nutshell, what you've got here is a chance to re-create your own Battle of Endor. The single player campaign (only 16 missions) could have been longer, but the multi-player portion of the game is astounding. I have had battles with over 200-300 fighters buzzing around and dozens of capitol ships blasting away at each other.

BELIEVE THE HYPE! The graphics are incredible and the computer AI is better than most games in this genre. The only thing that would make this game better is if someone would find a way to merge it and Master of Orion II into one game.

The best graphics I have ever seen

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: November 11, 1999
Author: Amazon User

When I saw the screenshots I thought they were from an intro movie, but they were not. The game actually plays like you are sitting in space with a camera and can move around at will. The ability to zoom in on any of your spaceships at any level or direction is simply jaw-dropping. It looks so good it is hard to remember you are playing a game and not watching a movie. Graphics don't make a game and there are definite instances where the game looks good and plays bad. This isn't the case. The storyline is compelling and easy to follow. Very well scripted. The scenarios are challenging and the only drawback is you have to carry over the ships you use from previous scenarios to the next, and if you don't build enough or the right kind it could catch up to you two or three scenarios down the road. However the concept is realistic and makes the game extremely fluid. Most people are going to have to take some steps back though as they play the game. Also, make sure you have enough computer to run this game. I am running on a PIII 500 with a Voodoo3 and 128 MB of RAM. It wants a 233 processor. I initially ran it on a 200 just to see how it would perform and it did not perform well at all. If you don't have a solid video card and I would say at least a 350 with 64 MB of RAM your performance is likely to suffer.

An excellent game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 11, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Being a fan of strategy games, I was impressed with Homeworld. The true 3d environment, superbly detailed ships, and well done story and music all combined to round out a very addictive game. However, with only 16 missions and one race to work with left me with a "thats the end?" feeling. Hopefully there will be a add-on or mission pack. Not taking away at all from the sheer beauty of the game, but maybe with different races (ala starcraft) or more diverse missions (I completed three of them in under 2 minutes), Homeworld truly would have been a star. In all, a very enjoyable, playable game worth your money.

Game of the Year!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: November 11, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Homeworld was a groundbreaking game in almost every aspect; it shatters the 2D limits that we have placed in RTS games(real time strategy). The graphics are amazing but I would recommend a powerful system if you want to get the full impact. Not many games can capture the true feeling of 3D combat as Homeworld can. Granted, the control system is not top-notch but this game sparkles everywhere else. The music is impressive and the storyline unfolds like a good sci-fi should. I'll guarantee that this game will be the Game of the Year!

The AI bites!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: November 15, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Awesome Graphics: Just look at the images.

Adequate Controls: considering it is completly 3D, but it could've been better.

Decent Storyline: It has a pretty well thought out plot to this game... not great, but better than most RTS games.

Game Play: It was fun at first, but I got bored with it after one week after playing 2 hours a day with it.

MultiPlayer: It's pretty cool, if there aren't too many players (anything more than 4). And I can't comment much more on this, since everytime I tried to play a MultiPlayer game, I get disconnected, or one of the other players get disconnected. All I can say is that this game was not designed for a telephone modem bandwidth.

AI: Well... ummm... boy does this AI suck! I had ships colliding into other ships and in effect destroying themselves! And no I didn't tell them to use Kamikazee on any ships. I had to restart many missions because of this... ( I don't like to lose all my capital ships, because they don't know how to stay clear of the enemy's mother ship and then end up colliding with it and getting destroyed in the process! ) The only way I could avoid this, was to focus all of my attention on these attacking ships and then manually move all the ships out of the way of the mothership; which is really tedious, considering the controls and the fully emerged 3D environment.

Overall: This is a decent game, except for the poor computer AI, and that I don't have a better connection other than a 56K modem =(. It might actually be fun finishing a multiplayer game.

Incredible Graphics and Epic Space Battles

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 42 / 43
Date: November 18, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I'm not usually one to play strategy games, but the graphics of homeworld looked so impressive that I couldn't resist the temptation of picking up a copy. After playing it for a few evenings, I've come to the conclusion that this game is simply stunning.

Homeworld immerses you in a full 3D battlefield and makes it easy to zoom, pan and rotate your view to different perspectives. You can choose to watch battles unfold from afar, or select any visible ship and instantly shift your focus to their view and follow them through combat.

Large scale battles are incredible to watch from either perspective. They're so detailed and so well rendered that they remind me of some of the space battle scenes from the Return of the Jedi (ok, the resolution isn't as good, and the game isn't as smooth as CGI, but it's pretty incredible nonetheless-- large battles are definately "wow" material).

The gameplay is well balanced, and to date, I've found the different missions/battles to be quite challenging. Unlike most strategic war games I've played, the storyline for homeworld is quite interesting. It unfolds gradually, and does a great job in building up the drama behind your mission.

The main difference behind homeworld and other strategic wargames is the 3D nature of the battlefield. Space is definately harder to fight in than land.

Definately five stars, definately a must have...

Ever cried during a movie?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 26
Date: November 23, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I cried the first time I lost in Homeworld. The music, the immersive feeling, the stress of saving 600,000 inhabitants, must have all got to me, because when my last tray of 100,000 inhabitants exploded, I just curled up in a ball and tears started coming to me eyes. Just like waking up from a bad dream, or at the end of a sad movie: you know it's not real, but you cry anyways. Homeworld can give you such an experience. I'm a 26 year old male, married with 2 children. Computer programmer. Don't know any other game that can do this to me. I'm still learning about strategy, so I can get past mission 4. (Hard core gamers, don't laugh) Anyway, it's a great introduction to Real Time Strategy for newbies to the genre like me, who thought 3D graphics was only good for 1st person shooters and sims.

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