Platform: PC
Category: 3D Real-Time Strategy
Maker: Relic
Reviewed by: ANT Caustic

Many of you have probably read my rant about RTS games and how much I dislike the majority of them. Many of you probably disagreed with me. Some of you might have even felt the same way. But regardless of whether you agree with me or not, there is now reason to rejoice. And that reason is Homeworld. Relic has created an RTS game that breaks out of the mold and actually adds something new to the real-time strategy genre.

Listening, Westwood? It can be done!

The storyline of Homeworld is pretty cool, and Relic put a lot of work into creating a meaningful and rich background for the game. Almost half of the rather large rulebook is filled with the history of your race and the events leading up to the game. It's pretty nifty and definitely gives you a sense of purpose while playing.

Here's the storyline in a nutshell: your people have inhabited the desert world of Kharak for as long as they can remember. Recent advances in the sciences have, however, brought to light the fact that the genetic makeup of your species is vastly different from the other indigenous life on Kharak. When a ruined spaceship is found in the middle of one of your people's abandoned cities, the truth becomes clear: Kharak is not your home. Deep within the ruined city itself, the Guidestone is found -- an ancient stone that depicts a map of the galaxy, with the location of Kharak clearly marked. A line leads from Kharak to a star near the galactic center. The star is marked with only one word: home.

Your people unify and become focussed on only one goal: to take to the stars and return to your homeworld. To accomplish this task, the Mothership is constructed. It takes more than 60 years to complete. It is completely self-sufficient, and contains enough room and resources to allow it to construct and harbor its own armada of smaller combat vessels, as well as the cryogenic trays which harbor six million people, frozen into cryogenic sleep. At long last, the Mothership is complete, and the first hyperspace jump goes off without a hitch.

Except that, when the Mothership arrives at the test jump site, the ship that was supposed to meet it has been destroyed, and a fleet of strange ships is waiting to give it a very rude welcome. After fending them off, the Mothership jumps back to Kharak, only to find that the entire world has been destroyed by another fleet of alien ships. With nowhere left to go, Mothership command decides to set out for the homeworld.

Kind of makes you hope the whole Guidestone thing wasn't some archaeological prank, or an ancient movie prop, doesn't it?

You command the military arm of the Mothership project. Your job is to oversee ship building and resource harvesting, as well as command the fleet during battles, which are fought in real-time. Sound like your average run-of-the-mill RTS game so far? Not quite! Homeworld's major feature are that the battles are fought in complete 3D! This really adds a new dimension to the gameplay -- literally! Ha ha, I kill me! Ok... ok... I'll admit... it was bad... sorry...

At the beginning of the game you have only a token defense fleet: a few Scouts and a Resource Harvester. I mean, come on -- you're still in the Kharak system! What could possibly go wrong there? Of course, everything goes wrong, so you'll have to quickly build a larger force to handle the rapidly growing size of the enemy fleets you will face. One very nice thing about Homeworld is that your fleet "rolls over" from mission to mission. If you have a large force left at the end of a battle, you'll still have it at the beginning of the next one. In fact, many of the later missions assume that you start with a large fleet, and give you practically no time to build up before attacking you.

The interface is quite elegant and easy to get used to. Moving about in 3D is a bit of a pain at first, but after you do it a few times it becomes (almost) second nature. You can order your ships to fly in several different formations, which not only make them easier to keep track of, but will maximize (or minimize if you're not careful) the amount of damage they do. You can also set the tactics your ships will employ, which will affect their performance in battle. My only problem with the interface is that the 3D view sometimes makes it difficult to select only the ships that you want to select and no others. This is a minor gripe, however, and doesn't have a huge effect on gameplay.

The way the different classes of ships interact with one another in battle is impressive as well. Smaller Interceptors zip about and are good for quick, surgical strikes against undefended targets, while the slower capital ships are better for a sustained assault against a large enemy force. A good mix of each class is necessary for victory.

My only real complaint with the single player game is that you can't choose to play the bad guys. Sure, you may THINK that you can -- after all, the game gives you a choice between playing as the good guys or the bad guys when you start, right? WRONG. You're always the good guys, and the missions are always the same. The only difference is what your ships look like. This cuts the replay value of the single player game down quite a bit. It's also pretty annoying to start the game expecting a brand new set of missions, only to find that you'll be playing the same old missions with a new look. Blech.

Multiplayer is available over a LAN or on WON.net on the Internet. WON.net was easy to set up and play, but the games were not always stable. Sometimes all the players in a game would get dropped for no apparent reason. The games I played were fun but a bit short; I finished a 5-player skirmish in less than an hour.

The graphics in Homeworld are excellent. Each ship is rendered in complete 3D and is very detailed -- just zoom in on one as close as you can to see what I mean. The starfields in the background are nice as well, especially in the nebula mission. The sound effects are good, and the music is really excellent -- especially the choral pieces. It's worth playing the game just to hear those. The voice acting is passable, although the other members of Mothership command sound a bit like Vulcans. It seems to me that when you're reporting that the world you've known as home for your entire life has been wasted, you should have at least a trace of noticeable emotion in your voice. Maybe I'm just overemotional, though.

Overall, Homeworld is an excellent game with only a few flaws. If you're looking for something new in the RTS genre, then this just may be the game for you. If you normally don't like RTS games, then Homeworld may still warrant a look -- it's very different from the RTS dreck you're used to seeing. As always, download the demo before buying, but I feel safe recommending this one to most gamers.

Over and out!

-- ANT Caustic

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