Rating: 
Summary: Not a significant improvement over Homeworld 1
Review: Homeworld 2 seemed like a great game concept, so much potential, the first game seemed so simple, yet so amazing. I was really looking forward to the sequel, but unfortunately very few risks were taken by the publisher... I think the original Homeworld's success was the emotional content... and also the angelic nature, almost a religious experience. The sound and the visuals, the voice, was from the heavens. In fact I`d go as far as to say that HW2 is pointless, and not even `more of the same`! I found the single player missions boring, just sending my craft forward and back, forward and back defending or attacking pre-defined waves of things. Once you failed the mission once, the 2nd time you`d win because the attack patterns of the enemy were the same, all scripted (i.e. no strategic enemy AI) And the coolest things have been taken out! Where is the Sphere and wall formations?! - if you played the first one you`ll be familiar with the amazing spectacle of creating a sphere formation, and setting it to GUARD your mother ship.... WOW! Try it... Also works with your carriers etc... but not in HW2!
The formations are far more conventional in HW2. Very flat and boring. The frontend is pretty much the same, the ingame art just seems upgraded (more polygons and textures, more detail) rather than better as such, sort of what you`d minimally expect and nothing more. The whole thing just doesn't feel fresh like the original did back in '99. The UI is behind the times, and hasn't seen enough improvements... games like Stronghold have a much better system where you can easily select all the units of a single type within a larger selection of mixed units. I suggest getting a copy of HW1 and completing it, it's a much more involving experience. Playing against another player without the ship number restrictions is highly recommended... you can fill the screen with ships - the dogfights are a spectacle to behold.
Rating: 
Summary: A Little More of the Same
Review: Homeworld 2 is remarkably like Homeworld in almost every way, and that is of course both a good and bad thing. Homeworld was amazing in that it took RTS to a whole new level. Instead of controlling these tiny guys running on a basically 2D or orthographic map, you were controlling ships in 3D in space. And you could zoom all the way in, micro or macro manage, whatever you wanted to do. Except for some tiresome and irritating levels (like the one where you have to navigate the dust clouds or explode due to radiation, or the final mission with the billion enemy ships) it was a lot of fun and very atmospheric. Homeworld 2 is pretty much the same thing, albeit with better graphics and some changes to the controls. Unfortunately the controls aren't really changed enough to get rid of most of the annoyances; I'll talk about this more later. H2's story is completely skippable. I actually found it so slowly delivered, trite, and cliched that I preferred just hitting escape and playing than listening to yet another story about a "chosen one". Also of note is that the music is less involving than the first game. It's just kind of there. I had some problems getting the game running acceptably on my rather powerful system, which was irritating. Finally dropped it down to 800x600 and it works ok. Then I started playing the first mission, and some more annoyances were made clear. First, they still have no easy way to select all ships of a type. The dumb "double click" system is still in place, and it is still just as hard to double-click a moving ship. There is no key equivalent. So in the heat of battle it's extremely hard to tell your interceptors to go attack a fast-moving target. You end up tediously finding them one by one, or in small groups, and sending them off, wasting precious time. The next major annoyance is the continuous interruptions in the game. Just when you're in the middle of doing something important, one of five jillion cutscenes will start playing and you lose control to hear about the Bentusi this or your ships are under attack that. It's all extremely bad timing, particularly when you can't tell your ships what to do while the enemy pounds on you. And the real killer for me is the extreme slowness of the game. Most RTS's have the ability to speed up the game for slow parts. Not this one. Watching your capital ships creep across the void of space, or slowly killing the ridiculously resilient hyperspace inhibitors (four on each asteroid), it just really isn't all that involving. The space battles are still fun, but the tasks are tiresome. The other minor quibbles have been commented on, but bear repeating: you can't change your mouse speed; you can't hang out after a mission is over rebuilding, organizing, or managing your fleet; you can't gather all the resources in an area after a mission is done (although it does it for you some times). So it's a good game, but with all the same problems as its predecessor, which is disappointing. I would wait for this one to come down in price a little.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Game but......
Review: This is a great game. The graphics are excellent and so is the game play. The tactical and strategic differences between the Vagyr and Higaraans present intruiging possibilities. So why the but! And they are small buts I found the single player campaign to be less emotionally involving than Homeworld 1 and Cataclysm. In fact I finished the single player campaign with a vague sense of disapointment. I can't put my finger on why. I keep thinking back to the overwhelming first few minutes of the last chapter in Homeworld 1 (and I had a monster fleet). Or the desecration of Kharak. Perhaps it was the decommissioning of the mother ship. In fact I don't think the campaign is as hard. I agree with another reviewers comment about not having the chance to rebuild your fleet at the end of each mission as you collect the remaining resources. Perhaps the time compression system from Cataclysm would have been better employed than simply ending it with all the resources collected. Another feature I missed was being able to increase your fleet above the population limits by absconding with the enemies prize Heavy Cruiser. Though this didn't impact the campaign at all. I said they were small buts. I know I'm nit picking but I'm glad I spent the money. And I think you will be too if you decide to purchase the game.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthless
Review: I was looking forward to this game, then I read the system requirements. This game requires you to have or buy a specific video card, I just upgraded to a 64 meg evil kyro and it won't even play the demo. If you have to buy a new video card every time a new game comes out to play the game then you will end up spending $150 each title instead of $50. Most people don't have the money or the knowhow to buy and install new hardware for the software they want to use. If these games keep tryint to push people to upgrade their computer then they are going to loose customers, like me. Until they put out a patch that allows this game to be played on the majority of the v-cards out there I will not be buying this game as it is worthless on my computer. I wonder how many other customers they will loose because of their idiocy? Ken
Rating:
Summary: Is it just me?
Review: Is it just me or am I the only one not happy with this game? I liked the first Homeworld and I also liked Cataclysm as well which is odd because I'm not a big strategy gamer to be honest. In Homeworld and Cataclysm the missions started out rather easy as they should be and start to get progressively harder and harder till near the end they become nearly impossible which is fine for me,but with Homeworld 2 the first 3 missions are a breeze beyond a breeze actually they are in fact so easy to beat that I was beginning to wonder when things would pick up---they did when I hit mission 4. The difficulty from mission 3 to mission 4 is much like this: So we have a group of adventurers who just turned level 4,so what do we send them against---oh I know how about a great wyrm red dragon the size of 3 city blocks ya that's a good idea! There is such a huge leap in the difficulty that to be quite honest---I've not been able to beat it yet. I also don't like the automatic gather all resources in the area and the end of the map missions,I often used the time it took to gather up all the resources in the area to built up or restore my fleet in safety,but now I can't do that. Over all I'm no where near impressed with this game,in fact quite the total opposite,and from what little I could see of the story so far I consider it very weak as well---it's just not Homeworld to be honest.
Rating:
Summary: Celiquest
Review: High system requirements recommended! The resolutions is flawless and dialogue is contingent from HW1. Be prepared for combat. The enemies are plenty and the missions various. It's by far the best game I ever played (to include console games). A must buy, but don't get cocky and skip the tutorial. Some controls have obviously changed. The only problem is the ship production is slow and the RU's (resource units) too few in order to build an elite force. Go to IGN.com to accquire RU's codes. Of course, critics will say you're not a real gammer if you have to use cheats. I play for fun, not reality.
Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: Unlike the first homeworld, there's less micromanaging. the Game is incredible. A true challenge for someone who thinks they're tactically competent!!
Rating:
Summary: BEWARE! High system requirements!
Review: I wanted to play and waited to play homeworld 2 for quite some time, only to find that my computer was not up to par, even though its less than a year old. I went and bought it anyway and it didn't work :( Be shure you meen ALL the system requirements so you don't end up like me:(
Rating:
Summary: Extremely exciting, like the first
Review: This game is awsome. The graphics are amazing, the AI is intelligent. When i first installed homeworld 2, i knew it wasn't going to be a flop, the whole game is truly a worthwhile investment. Sierra has done it again.
Rating:
Summary: Catered to hardcore RTS fans.
Review: As a casual RTS gamer I found this game too hard. There is no option to select a difficulty level in the single player campaign. I guess if you are a hardcore RTS player and a Homeworld 1 fan than this is the game for you, if you are not, be ready to spend a lot of time at beating certain missions.
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