Originally posted by: Spudd
Mine field + sensor disruptor + 1 flak frigate = enemy fleet go boom.
Game was pretty fun, but way too short: beat it in 2 days. Only drawbacks I see compared to all the other HWs are:
1) Story seems slopped together. It has a very grand premise, but the execution is off. It's very jarring to go from HW:Cat to HW2.
2) Lack of ship designs leads to paper-rock-scissorz game. (Note, you can't beat this game using only one kind of ship; you need all of them.)
3) Interface is annoying; it's convoluted and unncessary especially when you take into consideration the clean, minimalist design in HW 1 and Cat.
4) Can't play the campaign from the other guy's perspective. This is in my opinion, a big no-no for RTSs. Every major RTS has allowed you to play as the "good" guys and the "bad" guys, and whoever was "in-between." This game gives you one perspective, and that's it-- you can't play as the Vaygr. Doh. I still think StarCraft did the greatest job of showing you everyone's perspective of what was going on--things were never black and white. Besides, 15 or 16 missions total just ain't right for a game that's retailing for an avg. $50.
1.) Premise is ok. But yeah, the story could have used a little work I guess.
2.) I liked the ship designs; I just didn't like the way the battlecruisers and destroyers matched up against frigates - frigates just seem to be pretty weak in this game. What happened to the impressive armor of Cataclysm?
And I think they intended it so that you'd need to balance the fleet out, instead of using just one kind of ship to do everything. A group of about 5 flak frigates will make short work of a fighter squadron, but they're damn near useless against anything bigger than a corvette. Flak frigates and ion frigates are a good combo.
Fighters too - interceptors can do ok on their own, to a point. They're best for dogfights with other interceptors, and good for breaking up very lightly defended resourcing operations, but not much else. A group of interceptors escorting bombers though - the interceptors handle the fighters, while the bombers tear apart the resourcers.
And battlecruisers - give them an escort of fighters or corvettes, and they're probably good against just about anything. That Vaygr Trinity Cannon destroys frigates and anything smaller in one or two hits. I prefer the Hiigaran cruiser though.
3.) The interface took some getting used to, but I think I like it more than the original design. One major advantage is that you can see the launch/build/research managers at the same time as the battlefield.
One thing I
don't like is the reliance on icons in the ship selector - quickly distinguishing pulsar vs standard corvettes without text can be difficult. And playing as Vaygr, telling the smaller ships apart in the "taskbar" can be almost impossible because they're so similar. I'm one to micromanage, and quickly build and re-designate new ships into groups by type - Interceptors as 1, bombers 2, corvettes 3, etc. Now granted, this doesn't work well for fighting on multiple fronts, but then, multiple fronts never really is a good thing anyway.
4.) Agreed on this one. The original Homeworld offered this, but there really weren't too many major differences in ship types. They looked different, and there were maybe 2 or 3 specialty ships unique to each race, but that was about it. Now, we've got the Vaygr, which lack any ion cannon technology, instead relying on heavy missiles. And they use several types of fighters, unique corvette types, a whole different technology research method - you don't research each ship's armor individually; you research that entire class' armor upgrades at once.
I would have liked more levels too. It was nice that they sped up the pacing of the game - more action happens much quicker in the level, and the levels are just plain smaller. I too beat it in around 2 days. Some levels took more than one run through to get, but I'd usually wind up annihilated within the first few minutes of the game, so it wouldn't be that much time lost.
Darn you, now I feel like playing HW2 awhile.
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