Home Expansion
Reviewer: Mark Birnbaum - Page 3
The gameplay remains, for the most part, unchanged from the original. All of the familiar elements make a return appearance, as well as a few new ones. For example, there is now a fog of war on the map screen, so unless you have ships in the vicinity of enemy vessels, you won't be able to see bogies unless they are in extremely close proximity. This adds a little twist to the game, as you sometimes don't really know exactly how large an enemy fleet may in fact be.
The Internet play has been drastically improved, and demonstrated a greater fun factor than before. It was extremely easy to get a game going, and once involved, there seemed to be little to no lag. This was a great relief as internet games lately have been unnecessarily worsened by laggy gameplay. The full tech tree lets players deviate from the very linear development of their fleet. For example, you can devote all of your research to weapons design, while leaving your shields and mining unattended. This brings more variation to the online play, as it never seems like the same battle again (a problem that occurred before).
In conclusion, Homeworld: Cataclysm is astounding in every way possible. Quite frankly, my only beef with the game was the somewhat linear missions, and they all start off very boring. However, this problem was rectified with the ability to manipulate time compression, and now mining resources couldn't be made easier. Even if you don't own the original, this game will please even the most nitpicky real time strategy buff. With all of these wonderful features crammed into a nice and tidy package, what more can you ask for?
Email This Page to a Friend
Like this article? Let people know. Fill their Email Address in to the above box and hit the 'Send' button. It is completely anonymous. Gamesmania doesn't store your address so you don't need to worry about spam at all. Just a cool feature for cool people.
|
