Rating: 
Summary: A Great Return to the Homeworld Universe
Review: If you enjoyed Homeworld this sequel is an absolute must! If you haven't played Homeworld and enjoy real-time 3D strategy games you might want to check it out.I've been playing games for a long time and have become somewhat jaded and difficult to impress. However the original Homeworld just blew me way! Stellar graphics, an immersive story, great music and a dream of an interface that smoothly integrated tactical and strategic control. Homeworld Cataclysm builds upon this base very well. Rather than just reusing the original "Mothership" and it's fleet of craft, the developers have created an entirely new fleet and set of technologies for you to explore. Years have passed in the Homeworld Universe and many new technologies have been acquired beyond the original cloaking and gravity well generators. EMP vessels, holographic projections, covert drones and much more add an even greater level of sophistication to the gameplay. Of course the 3D battles are staggering. Full visual effects, coordinated sound and a high frame rate brings space battles, I imagined as a kid, to life. It makes me wish I had a Video Out on my graphic card to tape to share the visuals. The user interface has been polished to near perfection. The control of a large and complex fleet is a pleasure, as opposed to the pain, compared to many simulation games. The few areas of the original Homeworld interface that were weak, such as selecting a distant location in three dimensions, have been greatly improved. The sound is still "realistic" and informative. The music is only "good" this time around. The haunting and highly emotive music of the original is missing. This game is far less buggy than most simulations I've played. But I did come across a small number that didn't crash the game, but an end of mission condition wasn't recognized. This can be solved by a game restart an then reloading your last saved game of restarting the particular mission. I've completed the single player game and am taking a brief break before I go on-line and play multiuser. With the game's new fleet technologies, great visuals and smooth interface I'll actually enjoy experiencing the new ways I'll get my butt kicked by kids half my age.
Rating:
Summary: Mother of God
Review: Okay, I've already written a review of Homeworld, which any of you considering playing this game should look at first. First off, Homeworld gives the background of this story, and allows you to get familiar with gameplay, which some people may find difficult if they try to hop right into this game. This game starts with you as Kiith Somtaaw, a relatively minor kiith (sort of like a clan) after your people made landfall. Without a large power base on your new home, your people return to the stars to make their living, and where you eventually encounter a new menace that threatens the world you fought so hard to gain. For me, hopping into the story midway is a little unfair. I think you should struggle a bit through Homeworld, both so you get used to the game, and so you feel some kinship with the people your kiith is now called upon to defend. Having said that, and having spent the last couple days playing Cataclysm (i pre-ordered it back in May) I have to say that the leap forward from Homeworld to Cataclysm is about the same sort of leap as from WarCraft to Homeworld (that is to say, an enormous leap forward). Dear Lord! The gameplay is still just as good as the original, but commands have been clarified, and the interface has been enhanced. You can now issue commands from the Sensors Manager, allowing you to make move-and-attack decisions while viewing the entire playing sphere. The graphics are MUCH better, if that's possible, with gas clouds now flashing with lightning, and distant thunder rumbling through the nebulae. There are meteor storms through certain regions, maging the map of 3D space have a topography all of its own. Another improvement is the added element of The Beast. In the original, the two races you could choose had a difference of exactly 2 ships; all others were more or less equivalent for each race. Now, Beast ships are radically different, and will require learning distinctly from the Hiigaran ships. There are new weapons to learn, and new strategies that must be employed. With cloaking abilities, and ramming frigates, and the fact that EVERY Hiigaran ship now has a special ability of some kind, the strategies required to REALLY play just became more complex. To top it all off, you now have a limit on the size of your fleet. Each mothership can now only support a certain number of ships. If you built swarms of strike craft, you're going to have to retire them if you want to bring in the big guns. This also will add to the amount of actual THINKING required to play. The winner will now no longer be the one who builds the biggest fleet of Ion Beam Frigates. So. Play Homeworld; it's a great game that should have gotten much more sales than it did. Play Cataclysm, because it's such an innovative game, and SO much better than anything else out there. Sure, StarCraft is good, but it's nothing compared to Homeworld. Much less compared to Cataclysm. One final note: Cataclysm does not require Homeworld to play; it's a stand-alone sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Upgrade to Game of the Year
Review: Excellent enhancements have been added since the original Homeworld. The soundtrack has much more life to it this time around, not to put down the old score at all. Time compression has been added to speed up final resource gathering at the end of single player missions, or to shorten journeys across the map. There's a slew of new craft and new weapons, and control has improved drastically. Notible enhancements include waypoints, the ability to select a group from within a group list, naturally occuring slipgates which produce a beautiful effect on the screen, armor and sensor enhancements, mothership upgrades, and plenty more. The game feels the same, with the same sensor map and the same controls with some minor changes, like now you can dock your craft to your carrier or mothership with a right-click rather than a double-left-click which had a hard time registering due to latency in a heated battle. It's still a system hog with cranked detail, but I found just lowering the texture detail gave you decent frame rates and allowed you to view all of the nice effects like weapon glow and explosions, even with multiple players on a LAN. You can get better frame rates and more detail in a single player game of course. If you liked Homeworld, you'll appreciate the enhancements because it makes the game interesting again, as well as easier to to what you want to do without being restricted by the interface. I seriously can't find anything wrong and I'm not held back one bit. I was under the impression, however, that the multiplayer section of the old game was going to be included for free which would have been great since I damaged my original CD and will no longer install. That's ok though, because you won't even want to go back to the original game after taking advantage of the new features. The internet support has had some minor crashes but I have been able to get through a whole game. It seems it'll only crash within the first minute or not at all which could suggest a variable of the host's machine. Upgrading to cable or DSL will fix this of course and latency is hardly an issue. I'm sure a patch will follow soon, however the single player campaign is flawless under Direct3D with NVidia drivers, however OpenGL crashes. During the brief moment OpenGL worked, I saw no difference compared to Direct3D. Finally, something worth spending the hard earned bucks on.
Rating:
Summary: Ever Found a Perfect Game? Here's your Chance!
Review: This is perhaps the most incredible game I've ever played. Taking off of the original Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm (or HW:C) improves on the original in many ways. The best new feature is completely different sides -- unlike Homeworld, HW:C has two utterly different races, with different strategies, units, and more. Others include leeches (my favorite) -- small ships that "leech" the enemy ship's hull, infection beams, and more. If you liked Homeworld, or any other strategy game, you'll LOVE HW:C. Look forwards to seeing you online!
Rating:
Summary: a great follow up
Review: Homeworld Cataclysm is simply just a great game. This game will please both veterans of the original homeworld as well as the newbies. Barking Dog Studios added a lot of new features like being able to give orders from the sensor manager and added many new units, yet dispite some major changes to the game, the simple controls are all very familiar to the original. With all the new units and features, the game has a whole new feel to it. There is also is an extensive manual to help out some of the new players (and old). This game definitely deserves five stars. I'm not going to get much sleep for a while 'cause of this game.
Rating:
Summary: No-Brainer
Review: Am i shopping for another game right now? nope... I am passing time by writing a review over THIS game, waiting patiently for its long-awaited arrival. Have seen MANY good things about this game, buy it now, or you can always just wait on the game of the year edition :) The sooner u get it, the more likely u can be on the court docket when we all sue them for selling us an entirely too addictive product. Cya there...
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: (...)P>As with its predecessors, H2 is a three dimensional real time space stragegy game. It is not of the Descent or Tie Fighter genre, where the question is how fast you can shoot: it also includes elements of a simulation (such as Sim City) and the battles involve stragety rather than how fast you can point and shoot. You get to be the General, rather than the pilot! The game graphics in Homeworld 2 are similar to Holmeworld and Cataclysm, but substantially improved with much more detail and much less visible color gradation in the backgrounds. But, beyond the similarities in structure and format, Homeworld 2 is not nearly as addictive or enjoyable as Homeworld 1 or Cataclysm. The story is not very clear, the levels are not nearly as challenging as in Homeworld 1 or Cataclysm, and I was able to power my way through the entire game in a couple of part time evenings, rather than having to work at it for several weeks. Unlike the earlier Homeworld games, you don't have the ability to individually control the smaller "fighter class" ships -- you can control only squadrons. In addition, less strategy is involved, and, there is too much "artificial intelligence" operating everything. Only 3 or 4 of the 15 levels were really challenging. I spent a year playing one-on-one against the computer with Cataclysm, and was never bored. I got through Homeworld 2 simply to get through, and I will now remove it from my 'puter -- I may play it from the beginningagain, but only just to try and understand the story better.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for amatures, great for hardcore and modders
Review: Hey all you who play HW or HW2 its Hiigaran|SF. First, a clarification: Homeworld 2 is NOT Homeworld with better graphics and another story line; it is a completely new game. It has many similar concepts and basic designs from Homeworld, and it integrates the same history, but it is 100 years in the future (reletive to Homeworld) so don't expect it to be the same. I'll start with the firing-back-at-insults section. Many people claim HW2 sucks, so I'll run you over the truth of things: Number one insult: "In Homeworld I can control my fighters, in Homeworld 2 I can't"
This is BS. In Homeworld 2 you have a squadron system, grouping your fighters into different size squadrons, depending on the type of fighter. These squads generally range from 9 to 3 fighters in size, the more powerful fighters and corvettes having lower group sizes (but all a similar cost, around 400-700 RU). These squads fight together in formation in battle, providing much more effective firepower and organization.
Now some facts: When will you need a single fighter, ever? What good is a single interceptor or bomber? organizing into units means that I never lose one of my fighters somewhere in a battle. This can all add up to tip the balance on a very small map, especially if all the fighters break up and scatter across the map. So, organizing into squadrons allows you to keep track of them. They do often scatter when opposing area-effect weaponry (like flak turrets) but then they regroup. Number 2 insult: "Homeworld 2 has no strategy!"
If you say this you deserve to be SHOT. HW2 has many more features which involve strategy, including shipyards, subsystems, more dynamic maps, better and more complex environments... you get the idea. In Homeworld, you often have to worry "how can I move my ships around so they dont get picked off" in Homeworld 2 you worry about "Here are my options, how will they effect the future of the game, will it work? What are the pros and cons?" It's more strategy in Homeworld 2. You can use much more tactics. In Homeworld, you use several basic strategies which I can name right now: swarming, capital ship rush, or a mush of both. Battle tactics: not very sophisticated, just click on a ship and boom its dead.
Homeworld 2: you can surgically strike a ship in battle. Lets say you have barely enough resources to win. You get a few bombers, and go and take out the enemy carrier's resource drop-off point. Kill the collectors. Then get a Marine Frigate in there to capture the carrier. By the time you've captured it, the resource drop-off is repaired, and you probably have enough defense there to ward off attackers. Then you get your own collectors in there to collect using the enemies pocket; there you go. In Homeworld, you just choose which pocket is yours and collect there all game, no attacks on it, its pure fleet-to-fleet. In Homeworld 2, you can get it ALL. You also have an improved diplomacy system, like transferring ships now modding: modding and mapping for Homeworld is INCREDIBLY easy. Mabye not on the same scale as other games, but its pretty damned easy to do. mapping is REALLY good with its LuaC capabilities, programming a map instead of telling it (in 3D coordinate system) where to place each little pebble. id go on but i gotta sleep. btw JOIN TEH SOBAN FORCE (SF) CLAN IT RULEZ
join at: http://soban-force.fragism.com/recruit.html
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Game
Review: I thought the first Homeworld was great, then i played the second one and was totally blown away. Improvements all across the board. I would not hesitate to recomend this game to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Let's be objective
Review: I really can not believe the 5 star reviews for this game. I can only assume that it gets an extra 3 automatically for being the sequel to the "1999 Game of the Year" (as Sierra is so fond of advertising). I'm a big fan of the Homeworld series and enjoyed the two previous installments greatly, so needless to say I was quite looking forward to cracking open HW2. The demo wasn't exactly inspiring, I wasn't really fond of some of the modifications that were made to the game's basic formula. Namely the inclusion of unit "squadrons" and a more emphasised "paper-rock-scissors" balance scheme. Even so, I managed to talk myself into shelling out 40 bucks for the game... d'oh! Despite all the "its too hard!" comments floating around, I was undaunted, I don't mind a challenge. Unfortunately, the challenge in HW2 is afforded mostly by a test of how fast you can click your mouse and navigate around the (nicely updated) interface. A typical campaign mission in HW2 consists mostly of you constantly trying to repel a ceaseless barrage of enemy ships... while trying to complete both your mission goals, AND without sucking up every single resource unit on the map before you get there. I'm giving it 3 stars, for the following things: Graphics, Sound, Design, and an at least moderately fun Skirmish mode. Everything else, in my humble opinion, is just nonexistant. I shudder to think how well a newcommer would fare in HW2, I consider myself a pretty decent RTS gamer and I still find it a frustrating experience. Not to mention, there is only a single campaign, rather than one for each faction... I hope this doesn't become the next RTS trend. In short, HW2 has everything going for it except what matters - gameplay. I play games to relax and enjoy, not to be irritated and driven out of my mind. Very disappointed, I hope Relic lets Barking Dog Studios (who did HW: Cataclysm) handle the next installment of this series.
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