Buy it!
Discuss!
Comments or questions?

This game has some awesome graphics with a 3d shape. If you’ve played Homeworld before and you liked it, I KNOW you will love this game more. Kick back, crack open a brewsky and start reading...

Cataclysm begins 15 years after the end of Homeworld. While the Kushan have returned to their home on Hiigara, the Taiidan are losing a lot of their outlying planets and several of the former Taiidan allies are reforming into fragmented pirate groups. At the same time, the Kushan Kiiths are becoming more factionalized as well, with several new small space-bound Kiiths popping up around the galaxy. That's where you come in. You take the role of the captain of a mining and exploration ship for the Kiith Somataaw. The first battle in Cataclysm will see you at the helm of your mining vessel, the Kun-Laan, called to defend a Kushan fleet that's under pirate attack. It may seem odd to start a space combat RTS in mining ship, but that's the beauty of your new space-faring Kiith -- you can easily adapt to the environment as needed. Throughout the course of the game, you'll see your mining vessel transform into a formidable Mothership ready to take the battle to the front lines.

Unfortunately, the fragmentations of the Taiidan society and increased pirate attacks aren’t the only things you have to worry about. There's also a new enemy on the horizon -- The Beast. As I describe it, "The Beast is a techno-organic evil force that infects other ships to use as their own." Their fleets are compressed of a number of ships salvaged from their foals, and they resemble ominous biomechanical monstrosities of their former selves. We also learned that not only do members of The Beast integrate enemy craft into their fleets, but they also master advanced skills through these appropriations. While The Beast can learn about new technologies through regular research, to some degree they can climb through the research tree through capture enemy ships. All in all they sound very cool and very scary at the same time.

Of course, a big part of any the add-on pack will be the addition of new units, and Barking Dog Studios aren't going to let you down. Cataclysm is going to include 17 new craft for you to pilot and control. Some of them are:

·        The Acolyte
The Acolyte is a very fast ship, and when 2 Acolytes combine, they form an ACV or Acolyte Compliment Vehicle. The ACV is more powerful and better equipped. The ACV will also be able to fire an Electromagnetic Pulse that immobilizes enemy ships.

·        The Sentinel
Sentinels are pretty much gun towers, or pill boxes in other RTS games. They come equipped with massive guns but are very slow moving, so the are excellent for defense. But they can also be used in conjunction to shield your ships from enemy attack. By shooting protective beams to one another, several Sentinels can form a shield in front of or, if you have enough Sentinels, completely around your ships.

·        The Leech
Leeches are the more or less, spy ships. They are very, very stealthy and can only be found by Sentinels or other Recon units. But they can also attach themselves to enemy ships, causing them great damage by dispersing their resources into outer space.

In Cataclysm, your will be able to maintain more control over your fleet than you could in Homeworld. As a result, keeping your ships alive, allows them to gain experience points making them a very valuable asset. Also, all the ships in Cataclysm will upgradeable, so you can concentrate on 3 different ship design categories: weapons, armor or engineering. Also, your lowly old mining ship will be able to become a true Mothership through a series of upgrades as the game progresses.

Barking Dog Studios has also tweaked the AI of enemy ships immensely. They will now react accordingly to certain situations. For instance, if you attack a group of enemy ships that are set on ‘defensive,’ they won’t just hover there and let you shoot at them; they will defend themselves and attack back. But now, the AI knows when to retreat if they are outnumbered. This means gamers will be treated to a much more realistic experience. That’s just a drop in bucket when it comes it AI fixes.

But not only that, there is also an awesome and realistic fog-of-war feature, repair ships for your larger capital ships and a much more streamlined interface. You’ll notice that some of them screenshots show some new menus. We don’t really want to give any of them away so we’ll keep our lips shut…

You can also expect to see more jaw dropping graphics a la Homeworld. The biggest tweak is the addition of much larger explosions, a ‘first person’ view if you will (you can now enter the cockpit of any ship), a much better light flare, and lots of cool looking ships! Next to Quake III Arena, Cataclysm is second to none.

But those aren’t all the new features in Cataclysm. There will also be a new resource set in the game. Crystals, as they are called, will give several times the energy that asteroids give you. Your extraction ships will have to manually carry the crystals to the Mothership so they can be extracted and also, the crystals will explode if shot at. So, hauling a ship full of crystals right into an enemy Mothership will result in a lot of fireworks and lots of damage. Just watch out; the same tactic can be used on you.

On the multiplayer side of things, not much has changed. Sure, you can play as the Kiith, Somtaw or The Beast. Other than that, there’s not much. A few tweaks and the such but that’s as far as multiplayer goes. But if we know Barking Dog and the job they did with Homeworld, we’re bound to see some surprises.

Now, the ultimate debate: Is it an addon or a sequel? Well, near as we can tell, it'll be a sequel, since it's priced at 49.99$ and is a stand alone game; meaning the few people who did buy Homeworld won't need their discs to play the game. Oh jeez, no I'm going to get flamed....

As far as I can tell from my time playing Cataclysm (which amounts to several WEEKS in total), I must say that, we may have a ‘Game of the Year’ contender already. Watch out for this puppy sometime soon.

By Eric Jacques

Agree or disagree with what you just read? Hit the forums!