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September 13th, 2000
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Publisher: Sierra Studios Developer: Barking Dog Studios System tested on: P3-500mhz
------- Homeworld, Hiigara, Home. Fifteen years have passed since the Kushan people made landfall on their ancient homeworld. The Taidanii Empire is completely in shambles, in its place stands the new Taidanii Republic. Imperialist factions have been pushed out to the farthest reaches of Taidan space. Finally, the threat they represent slowly begins to diminish as the new republic erodes away their support base. The Kushan people prosper well on their new homeworld; the mothership has been made into an orbital drydock. The Somtaaw Kiithid (the group you play) petitioned and were granted access to the mothership. Once aboard they designed and built two large mining ships, each with almost mothership level construction facilities. Following their ancient mining occupation, the Somtaaw decided to begin mining the asteroids.. your part in the story begins there. Homeworld Cataclysm has been eagerly awaited title since its announcement shortly after the release of Homeworld. In Homeworld, the player takes the part of an exiled people. Who discover that they originally came from another planet, Hiigara. The player controls the Kushan fleets, commanding them through all sorts of ambushes, major fleet battles, and covert attacks. Graphics Like its predecessor, Catcylsm features extremely impressive graphics. Ships, weapon fire, asteroids and the background are all rendered in exquisite detail. For instance, one multiplayer map is played out above a 'tornado' in a gigantic dust cloud. Lightning jumps from cloud to clould all around you, with thunder crackling occasionally in the background. It really reminded me of the movie "Event Horizon", even the music was about right. The ships, ranging from the command ship to the smallest leech, all exhibit amazing special effects. For example, the carrier (very similar to the carrier in Homeworld) has doors that open and shut to let traffic in and out. The leech, when attached to an enemy ship, latches onto the hull and sits. When the "vent" special option is selected, the leech begins to bore through the hull using acid. It vents the melted material out of its' back in a plume of smoke and dust. In order to see exactly what I mean, you will have to give some of these screenshots a look see. Explosions are large and very vibrant in color. Battles become very intense, especially when a lot of your ships end up dissapearing into flashes of orange yellow light. One thing that I really liked about Cataclysm, is that now when your ships move, stars and debris turn into strips of light. This gives a good indication of speed that was not available before.
  Music and Sound Music was a major part of the Homeworld experience, it made you feel bad when Kharak was destroyed and very tense when an attack was impending. True to Homeworld, Cataclysm does not dissapoint very much in the music department. In Homeworld, the majority of the music tracks were very impressive to listen to. For the most part Cataclysm follows with the same mood inducing music. However, I was somewhat dissapointed by the lack of what I consider good music. I was eager for new songs with a choir as a backup, instead, what we got was a techno style music with occasional references to the Homeworld track. Don't get me wrong, the music is good, it just doesn't set the tone as well as Homeworld's music does. The radio chatter and pilot confirmation is about the same as it was in Homeworld. Another neat thing to note about the sound, if you assign your units to battle, the AI tells you how the battle is progressing and whether the outcome looks good or not. This is really useful if your attention is focused elsewhere, and you need to keep tabs on an engagement. Overally, the music is very good. But it is a letdown if you have played the original game.
  Ships and Tactics Just about everything has changed in starship technology since Homeworld. The Somtaaw have a completely new lineup of ships to choose from. However, the majority of them serve the same purpose as their counterparts in Homeworld. One of the newest ships to grace the Somtaaw fleet would be the multi-beam frigate. Basically it's a ion toting ship that works great for anti-fighter work. If you sink one of those babies into a huge dogfight, things get quiet really fast. Another sneeky, and really neat addition to the armada is the mimic. It is basically a big moving bomb. However, it has one extremely useful ability, it can "turn" into an object (asteroids, your ships, enemy ships) by projecting a holographic field all around it. It is definitely one nasty little ship. One neat trick is to cloak it as an asteroid, have it wait for workers and once they are within range, have it kamikaze into them. Recon ships now replace the scout, they basically serve the same purpose.. except their sensors are a little better. For the most part, the fleets are balanced much the same as they are in Homeworld. The tactics and formations from the original game have not changed one iota. This is a great thing, allowing users to set their units to divert power to the engines and lower the chances of getting hit. Or, switch to aggressive and divert all power to the weapons (increases chances of getting hit). The options for setting group formations have not changed at all. So, for those of you who really enjoyed the way formations in Homeworld worked, be happy. | ||
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