[Introduction]
If you're a fan of RTS games, then you've probably heard of Homeworld, Relic's story-driven space navy strategy game. It was notable for a number of things and has garnered a cult following since its release in 1999.
This will be a review of its 2015 remaster though. Not that it necessarily matters, because a good remaster has one job: make the game prettier and bring it up to modern specs. Add widescreen, tart it up, that sorta thing, and Homeworld Remastered does succeed in that regard.
With some hurdles. Well, one hurdle. A pretty big one.
[First Impressions]
Perhaps the first thing a new player will notice is the pace.
Sure, there's the borderline mythological narrative, the three dimensional space ships can navigate in, the almost cinematic way the fleet jumps to hyperspace, and those are all good things. But when you actually get to playing, it won't take long to realise that, no matter what the story tells you, Homeworld is definitely not in a hurry. This isn't a point of criticism, but you really shouldn't go into this expecting Star Wars action or something to that effect, even if the movies were a major source of inspiration.
[Development]
Imagine you're pitching a game concept to a publisher.
You could provide a tech demo, proofs of concept, artwork, storybooks, all that stuff. There's a slew of things you can do to prepare to really wow them and seal the deal. But what if you don't do any of that? What if you just write some stuff on a whiteboard and call it a day? Well... that's pretty much what Relic did when they presented Homeworld to Sierra. They approached them so early in development that they really didn't have anything to show, sat through two whiteboard meetings and somehow it worked.
So after Relic successfully faked it till they made it, development began in earnest. The fact that it's a real-time strategy game is, surprisingly, largely incidental. It just so happened to be the formula that best suited their vision of "epic space battles," the proper implementation of which was their main concern. RTS games were nothing new at the time, and bearing in mind that the genre was a means rather than an end, they kept things simple. No innovations there.
Where they did innovate was the position filled by the player. Drawing inspiration from Battlestar Galactica, the intent was to put us in the position of Commander Adama; to give us control in a space battle where we steer the course of the action, rather than taking the role of a pilot. It was a new idea at the time, particularly when factoring in that three dimensions must be accounted for. In fact, I was unable to find any prior RTS game where players operated in a sphere rather than a plane. I don't know for a fact that Homeworld was the first game to do this, but it may well have been.
This ties into the art direction and design philosophy of the game as well. This goes from something so simple as the vertical design of the Mothership being intended for use as a reference point in contrast to the horizontal plane, all the way to something so complex as flight patterns and associated sounds. In the case of the latter, substantial effort went into strike craft and corvettes having dynamic movement patterns and a wide array of sounds associated with individual actions. In fact, movement patterns aside, the sound-to-action association is featured with all ships in the game, and all sound is relative to the camera's current position.
But, of course, this is a review of the remaster.
As it happens, the remaster was not made by Relic at all. This might sound strange, considering it's a remaster, but let me explain:
Relic was bought by THQ in 2004. In 2007, THQ also obtains the rights to Homeworld from Sierra. Nothing happened for the next six years, and THQ declared bankruptcy in 2013. That same year, Gearbox acquire the rights to Homeworld from THQ at an auction. Shortly thereafter, they announce that they're going to remaster Homeworld and its sequel. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the source code is so fragmented that it's basically useless. In the words of producer Brian Burleson, "the bike had one pedal, needed a new chain and overall was just missing parts." So far, not so good. This effectively meant that Gearbox had to fill in a hell of a lot of holes themselves, but, luckily for them, they were not alone. Remember that cult following I said Homeworld has like 7 paragraphs ago? Well, wouldn't you know it, they came to the rescue.
I'm not making this up for dramatic effect or anything. The Homeworld modding community pretty much saved the remaster project and helped Gearbox fill in the holes in the patchy source code. The Homeworld Remastered Collection was released in 2015, less than 2 years after the remaster project was announced. It even includes compatibility fixes for the original (or "classic") Homeworld 1 and 2. The remastered versions meanwhile feature a completely new engine as well as upgraded visuals and sound.
Oh, and the Homeworld 1 remaster also breaks the game's scaling mechanic, meaning that in a game that allows (and incentivises) players to bring fleets with them between missions now punishes players for bringing fleets with them between missions.
Damn it. It was almost perfect.
[Game Mechanics]
Let me get this out of the way real quick.
So, one of the unique aspects of Homeworld 1 was that players can keep their fleet from one mission and bring it with them to the next mission. This means that, if you want, you can harvest every available resource in a mission area and build up a sizeable force before moving on. There's even a fancy docking sequence before you jump to hyperspace, and any ship too big to fit inside the Mothership is lined up next to it for the jump, giving you a nice view of the force you have assembled.
So the player has an incentive to prepare for upcoming missions, right?
Well, yes, but actually no. Homeworld has a scaling mechanic. This means that the larger your fleet is, the more enemies you'll face in order to keep the game balanced. This is good. A game ought to be balanced. Without this, you could conceivably just build an inordinate amount of ships and steamroll the entire game with no strategy or challenge, which would make it less of a real-time strategy game and more of a... well, just a real-time game. What's the point of RTS without the S?
The problem is that the scaling mechanic is broken. Unless the player strikes the "proper" balance of fleet size, the difficulty gets dialled up to 11 and missions become borderline (if not outright) impossible. Enemy presence often jumps in excess of 250%. Now, one could argue that it'd be sensible to then retire the fleet prior to jumping to hyperspace and then rebuilding the fleet at the beginning of the next mission, and that does sort of work for a while. The problem with this approach is that a number of later missions require a military force from the get go, so having no ships isn't an option either.
So what we're left with is a game that simultaneously promotes and punishes preparation. It's a perplexing contradiction, albeit one that has been addressed by the modding community, and I'm not quite certain how it didn't get addressed during testing. But I digress.
Scaling mechanic aside, Homeworld's gameplay is, at its core, rather simple in nature, if not in execution. Using the Mothership as a base of operations, the player gathers resources and builds ships with which to attack the enemy. This is nothing new and should be immediately familiar to anyone who ever played an RTS game before. Where Homeworld stands out is its environment and the challenges posed. The core may be simple, but that's just the toolset provided to the player with which to overcome the dangers of the journey to the titular homeworld.
Without wanting to spoil anything, there are likely going to be several points in the game where you'll make mistakes, usually due to erroneous assumptions on your own part - at least, this was my experience, and I think it fits rather well with the story. We're not some galactic power; here we are, a newly spacefaring people, blindly rushing through the cosmos. We're gonna make mistakes, so save often.
Do also bear in mind that no ship is a do-it-all unit. That heavy cruiser might be big and tough and expensive to boot, and although the big guns never tire, they also usually never hit strike crafts. Fleet composition is important, and you're given a wide variety of ships to use. Brute force is absolutely an option, but more often than not, clever thinking will save you a lot of hassle. For example, you could try and match an enemy heavy cruiser with your own firepower; or you could just distract it and send half a dozen salvage corvettes to steal it.
Yeah, stealing stuff is an actual game mechanic, and I highly recommend you make use of it, because it'll frequently grant you access to a ship type before you can even build it. Hell, sometimes it even provides the technology to build similar ships earlier than it would normally be unlocked.
And of course it's also just really funny.
As a final note, while it's not necessarily a game mechanic per se, I very much enjoy the comms chatter from units. It does provide situational information depending on the status, location and activity of the individual unit, but more than anything, it adds immersion.
[Graphics]
The original Homeworld was gorgeous in its day, and quite deliberately so.
I know, I know, every game that looks good is good looking on purpose, but in Homeworld's case, it was a central philosophy. They could have gotten away with some pretty low detail models, simply because the scope of the battles can grow to involve well over a hundred ships of varying sizes. This was rejected, and rightly so, because they knew players would be zooming in on the battles to see the action up close.
This is still true in the Remaster. It's very easy on the eyes. The quality models, the beautiful environments, it all comes together very nicely.
[Story]
The opening crawl establishes that, following the discovery of an object smack dab in the middle of a big ol desert on the planet Kharak, a guidestone was excavated. This guidestone depicts a map and provides a route to the Kushan homeworld. This, along with deteriorating environmental conditions, inspire the otherwise disparate familial tribes (called "kiithid") to unite and build a ship to take them to their lost homeworld. They install a hyperdrive, uncovered along with the guidestone, in the ship, call it the Mothership and make plans for going home, hence the franchise name.
Naturally, this goes awry, and the journey becomes one of peril and takes on a tone not too different from real world myths and legends. Across 16 missions, the Kushans travel from the very edge of the galaxy to its very core, eventually reaching their home, where a final peril awaits them.
The story of Homeworld is not particularly complex, and largely serves as a device to justify the aforementioned "epic space battles" envisioned by its developers. To this end, it serves its purpose, but I think it goes above and beyond the call of duty. The plight of the Kushan people is as compelling as it is dire, and the stakes are immediately high. Depending on your actions early on, it may be downright cataclysmically catastrophic.
[SPOILERS]
As it turns out, leaving Kharak and using hyperdrive technology violates a millennia-old treaty the ancestors of the Kushans were forced to sign following their war with an enemy known as the Taiidan Empire. Consequently, following the initial hyperdrive test, the Taiidan fleet shows up and burns Kharak's atmosphere. The crew of the Mothership and any crysleep trays the player manages to save represent the full sum of the Kushan species. Depending on how many you manage to save in the beginning, this may be as many as around 600,000 individuals, and as low as around 100,000. For reference, that's as little as 0.00128% of the human race on planet Earth.
Unfortunately for the Taiidans, this all happens while the Mothership is absent, so their attempt to wipe out the Kushans fails by a hair's breadth. To make matters worse for them, the Kushans also receive aid from the Bentusi, an ancient civilisation of traders and scientists, who not only sell weapons to the Mothership fleet, but also elect to present a case to the Galactic Council.
Things kinda keep escalating until the Mothership reaches the homeworld, Hiigara, where a final confrontation with the Taiidan emperor takes place. He is, of course, ultimately defeated and killed, and the Galactic Council eventually declare the war over and recognise the Kushan claim to Hiigara as their rightful homeworld.
[Pros]
- Satisfying space naval combat
- Full 3D spherical battlefield
- Unique features, such as ships carrying over between missions
- Oddly mythological story
[Cons]
- Broken scaling mechanic
- Slow pace (and in dire need of a speed-up button)
- Solutions to problems are occasionally frustratingly vague
[Conclusion]
Homeworld was a groundbreaking game, and remains a solid experience to this day. The remaster is no different in that regard. However, the broken scaling mechanic is such a glaring issue that it overshadows every other accomplishment of the remaster and pretty much single-handedly ruins the experience. I highly recommend installing one of the multiple mods that have been made to address this issue. I played through the game without any mods, and my enjoyment was significantly diminished.
There's nothing left for us here. Moral compass optional.
Homeworld 1 Remaster: 5/10
/DUX
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