Homeworld, 3D Strategy game, Sierra Studios

URL: http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/homeworld/

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Rating: Excellent!

Review:

Homeworld is a 3D strategy game. You are a race who found out that you are not from the barren planet you are on. Your goal is supposed to be to get away from the hell you live in now and back to the Eden where you came from. Although I think the real goal is to kick as much butt as you can on the races that stand in your way, but what do I know, I'm hung up on the 6th level.

I thought this game looked cool on the shelf but was a bit pricey for me to gamble on, most of the newer games are. Then I saw someone with a 3dfx Voodoo 3 2000 (great card IMHO) was having problems with the Open GL in the game. I didn't have any GL games or any major problems with my V3 2000. Now I really wanted to try it. I set Go-zilla to DL'ing the 64mb demo and went to bed. The demo gave me just enough of a good taste that I went out and bought it within a day. I'm having no problems with the Open GL. After there gets to be a lot of ships on screen it does start bogging down my PC but I really don't have that great of a computer.

The game play graphics are great. The between level video is kind of lame. The in game interruption videos are getting on my nerves since I'm stuck and have seen them so often. Parts of the game are a nice relaxing float through space with a great sounding new age type of music. Then the music changes and a warning comes through and things heat up pretty quickly, get ready to hit the pause button to get your bearings. If your strategy was good you will soon be back to the relaxing music while you clean up and fix up (hint; if you build up a fleet before going on to the next level your opponent will be stronger too). Go have a smoke and a cup of coffee, this may take a while. The battles are not like a FPS, you could do them that way but you would soon die because you have a whole fleet to command. Better stick to telling what squadrons who and how to fight rather than attempting to control one ship at a time. This was for the single player mode.

You can also play multi-player across the net on the World Opponent Network, a free gaming site. It also can be played on a LAN, better not get this one going at work unless you want the place to go out of business, it's very addictive. Finally you can play multi-player against the CPU. It comes with a "Mission Man" that is used to make custom multi-player games but I haven't installed that. It's kind of like Risk but with no borders to fill in. There isn't any relaxation in the vs mode. You have to jump right in researching new technology, acquiring resources, building, defending, attacking and hopefully finally attacking the opponent's mothership. You can have more than 2 players (I want to say up to 7 but I can't find where I think I read that), working on the allied system/back stabbing, again like Risk.

I really like this game. I don't think it will be like the Tomb Raider/Doom type of games where once you beat it you know where everything is and playing after that is just to blow someone up. With this game, strategy has to be changed to match the situation. If all your fighters get blown up you're not going to be able to afford a destroyer until later and will have to compensate. If you like strategy games and first person shooters I recommend getting Homeworld. While it's not really an FPS you do get to blow things up ... a lot. Who know's, maybe after I get better at it I'll play you online sometime.

Submitted by: Myk