Homeworld 2

Rating:
Summary: This game proved a lot of things
Review: I found that this game proved 3 things

1. "Sequal" does not nessicarily mean better game
2. Better graphics are often used as an excuse to cover up the exact same story
3. Never pay full price for a computer game

First and foremost I love both Homeworld and Homeworld 2. That being said I have to say that if I had paid full price for this game I would be incredably mad. Its the exact same basic story they just improved the graphics(with eye popping clairty I might add). I still love the game and the missions are quite challanging but if you are expecting something revolutionary you are not going get it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Rating:
Summary: Fun?
Review: Look, I've been a Homeworld fan ever since I bought it when it FIRST came out, it was beautiful, the graphics were just delightful, and the stradegy was complex to a portion where I can sit in a room, for 20 hours of non-stop harvesting and planning of an attack with a lil' math and algebra on the side.

When I started to play Homeworld 2, I was hyped, and ready to complete the saga in my world of stradegy gaming other than StarCraft, WarCraft, Age of Empires, and all those other fun stuff.

I began by downloading the Demo from Sierra, and I was full blown by the new graphics it had, though my video card was really acting kinda messy since it was the summer time. (Yeah seasonal changes make items work slower or faster.) Anyways, when I started to play the demo, I used the mechanism of the keyboard and controls of what Homeworld 1 had, lemmie tell you this, TOTALLY DIFFERENT! I can't believe my eyes of what I felt and seen! Everything; the whole concept has changed, the keys and etc. Then I saw that the stradegies have changed, and there were only 3 formation patterns I could only choose for my fithers, I'm like, WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE THEY THINKING!? I really wanted to bust a few chops with my strategic mind... so then I thought to myself, eh, not bad, lemmie get the whole game and see what it's really worth...

Bought it, it's totally the same concept, doesn't relate to Homeworld 1, doesn't relate to ANYTHING LIKE HOMEWORLD AT ALL! I thought that they would stick to their story, but the whole thing changed... I was really mad about it.

The game-play suddenly became boring, just traveling with no real dog-fight, "Some destiny this is..." ok, maybe a few dog-fights, but the game just gets harder and harder *like any other game* But I'm looking at it, I swear to you, I would've beaten all these fools if I had all those formation patterns. This game has less stradegy in mind, and the shipmaking, is just build in bulk, something that a gamer would NEVER LIKE. Listen, usually, it's always great to build ONE AT A TIME... WHY!? BECAUSE HAVING THAT FEELING TO SIT ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT WAITING FOR THAT SPECIAL OBJECT TO BE BUILT REALLY SHOWS THAT IT'S A GREAT GAME. This however, was truly dissappointing... No wonder it was 20 bux. Not many people like it! For God's sake even Diablo 2 is 20 times better than this and the graphics can be as horrible as they want, but their game play is just completely mind blowing as well as the story line.

For all kids that love graphics, I suggest this game as a STARTER, but for gaming stradegy and story lines, I suggest that you should TURN BACK, THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE BUT A GAME THAT TAKES 20 HOURS OF YOUR LIFE JUST SITTING AND WAITING FOR NOTHING, BUT RUNNING AWAY FROM YOUR ENEMIES.

Even Homeworld Cataclysm is better than this. I wouldn't call this game trash though, but would've worth a lot of money if they knew how to bring back the story line as what they were before, but spiced up, with more allies and enemies, and probably if Sierra was lucky, deception.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Game
Review: Before I start, I would suggest anyone who gets this game be sure to download the patch that has been made available. This balances out units a little better (not too much, but a little) and also decreases the difficulty of several of the missions (they are possible to beat without the patch, but they are hard).

This game builds wonderfully over the orrignal Homeworld. It has made several improvements in how things are handled and also polishes up things in general. In addition, unlike the orrignal Homeworld the different sides have very different strengths and weaknesses that are readily apparent when playing them.

Some nice additions:

You no longer build single fighters, but rather build fighters in wings. So long as a single fighter in the wing survives you can send the fighter group back to a carrier or mothership or shipyard and have the unit returned to full strength. This makes fighter units much more useful and practical then the frail things they were in Homeworld.

Resource collection at the end of missions has been automized. You will no longer have to sit around for hours after missions sending harvisters out to collect resources for you. Once all enemy units have been defeated all resources in the map are automatically collected and added to your resource pool.

Subsystems. You can now build subsystems that give your ships interesting capabilities as well as target enemy subsystems. Large ships (such as battle crusers, carriers, motherships) come with some standard subsystems that cannot be completely destroyed but can be dammaged to the point that they no longer function. This makes hit and run type attacks much more useful then they were previously since you can use them to dammage enemy capabilities or cripple enemy ships, while allowing access to some nice abilities should you chose to build some of the more unique subsystems.

The ability to capture any ship in the game has also been added. That is right, capture ANY ship in the game. Including motherships. In addition, the units which capture enemies are much less flimsy so while they do still need an escourt they can be counted on to not die immediately.

Fleet formations have also been added. While there are really only 3 choises for fleet formations, they really do make it easy to use ships of different classes together. When used properly these formations are extreamly powerful, however you need to learn when to use a formation and when to break it up.

There are a few things I am less than satisfied with however. It is for these reasons that I am only giving it a rating of 4 out of 5.

The first major thing I was disapointed with was the reduction on the number of formations. I remember that with the orrignal Homeworld there was a large number of fomrations to chose from. I kept wishing I had access to some of those, particularly the claw and the sphere. While it may be argued that the addition of fleet formations makes up for this change, I couldn't help but wish that I had access to many of the old formations.

The interface is something I am not 100% satisfied with as well. While I will agree that it is definately a step up from what was used with Homeworld, it does feel somehow cumbersome. I guess it is a function of too many menues when it comes to building units and researching. Even in this respect it isn't too bad though.

Also, the 3D nature of space has largely been ignored. This problem still existed in Homeworld, though it was a little less noticable there since they did fairly often launch surprise attacks from above or below. Homeworld 2 largely just uses the horozontal plane when it comes to combat. Units controled by the AI simply will not try coming from strange directions, but rather take a head on approach. Thankfully I was able to find a group of people to play with online who were not burdened with this problem.

My final real problem with Homeworld comes with the addition of a new unit: the shipyard. The reason for this has to do with multiplayer where its importaince overshadows even that of the mothership once it has been built. It has more subsystem slots than the mothership. It is the only unit which can build battlecruisers. It has all the capabilities that the mothership has and more. From a stand point of game ballance I can see why this may have happened (the game designers didn't want players skipping ahead in the research tree right to battlecruisers), however I cannot help but feel that if anything the shipyard should be more of a smaller mothership with more limited capabilities. Somewhere between a carrier and the mothership.

All that said, the game is still a wonderful game. It contains almost all of the orrignal Homeworld's good points, and gets rid of many of its bad ones with the introduction of few flaws. If you like the idea of controling an intergalatic battle fleet then I would definately suggest that you pick up this game. The campaign alone would be worth it, but multiplayer is where this game really shines since that is where you will see interesting tatics that can be used once the pesky notion of 2D is forgotten.

Rating:
Summary: Yuck!!
Review: Having just played Homeworld and not really enjoying it, I tried this one, the second game in the series (I bought all 3 at the same time. Shouldn't have done that.)

And so far, I can't even get the game to play. I installed and uninstalled twice. I have downloaded updated drivers for NVIDIA GEFORCE FX 5200 128meg video card. I have changed all of the settings over and over again. And still can't play. I see the beginning story in the aftermath that follows the end of Homeworld, of them rebuilding. But as soon as I see the ship fly in on the first cutscene, I get kicked back to Windows.

My recommedation is if you have XP, don't get this game. So far, it's more trouble than it's worth. So now I guess I will try Homeworld 2.

Rating:
Summary: This game proved a lot of things
Review: I found that this game proved 3 things

1. "Sequal" does not nessicarily mean better game
2. Better graphics are often used as an excuse to cover up the exact same story
3. Never pay full price for a computer game

First and foremost I love both Homeworld and Homeworld 2. That being said I have to say that if I had paid full price for this game I would be incredably mad. Its the exact same basic story they just improved the graphics(with eye popping clairty I might add). I still love the game and the missions are quite challanging but if you are expecting something revolutionary you are not going get it. Don't say I didn't warn you.

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: 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.