• Epic story about the legacyand destiny of the Higarans

• Totally new 3D engine that renders breathtaking graphics of outer space and ship detail

• Streamlined interface lets people control the whole game with a few mouse clicks

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!!!

17 of 18 found the following review helpful:


Missing that warm-fuzzy feeling  Feb 16, 2006 By Tsoick
(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.

19 of 21 found the following review helpful:


Better graphics, worse gameplay  Oct 23, 2003
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.

11 of 12 found the following review helpful:


Homeworld2: Evolution, not Revolution.  Sep 23, 2003 By Stormbeard
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.

17 of 20 found the following review helpful:


Just another game i WANT to like  Oct 18, 2003 By Rusty Roberts
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.

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