Homeworld 2 Demo Out

[clicknext]

http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/homeworld2/
http://www.fileplanet.com

 

[Dre]

Anyone tried it and want to comment?

 

[screw3d]

I tried it. Sweeeeet graphics!! Gameplay is still OK but I prefer the old interface though. The story line..hmm..i think it would be something like the original series too.. lotsa of unpleasant surprises.

 

[Mitzi]

Could never get into the original though it did impress me. I think I'll give the new version a shot...

 

[BeauJangles]

Homeworlds is my 2nd favorite RTS of all time. The only one better than it is Rise of Nations.

I'll be buying this when it comes out.

 

[43st]

I didn't like it. I remember staying up all night playing the orginal. I think my expectations were set too high for this one.

They speeded up the gameplay and automated almost everything. You could probably win the demo by just using the build menu and never actually directing the ships thenselves. The in-game cut scenes come every ten seconds until the missions is over leaving you without much of a feeling of accomplishment. The two demo missions are almost identical to the first game. Just this time you don't have the luxury to look at your ships or systems before being tossed into the action. You can't even enjoy the scenery afterward because the mission automatically ends when the enemy is dispatched.

I really want to like it also... I keep going back to it to try to enjoy it and I just can't. Maybe someone will make a mod that's basically a 100% copy of the original except with the new game engine, which is really good. That's about all I can hope for now.

It seems that people really like it from what other forums are saying but I can honestly say that it left me empty. The story was the best part of the first game and now it's been replaced C&C type gameplay.

 

[clicknext]

I just played the little bit of single player this thing has. Damn it is sweet. Compared to the first HW, the effect of being out in open space is not at all diminished. Gameplay has been improved; feels smoother and more polished, and controls are easier (though i'm having a bit of trouble selecting and giving orders to my units, probably because I'm used to homeworld controls). Graphics are nice. The little bit of music I've heard sounds good, but doesn't have as much of an impact on me. I'm not sure if this is just a matter of personal preference and experience. The sound effects and voices are awsome; deep bass sounds for engines and convincing explosions/hits. Nice smooth understandable voices for fleet command and the people. The prominent gameplay and graphical glitches and inconveniences that were in the first one aren't in this one, such as the fighters being too small to click on individually from far away, parts of capital ships disappearing, and only being able to focus on objects.

Overall, very nice. I'm even more excited about this game now.

Oh, and it played without any slowdown at 1280x960 on my system:
AthlonXP 1.6ghz
Radeon8500LE 128MB
KT400 Chipset
512MB RAM

In fact, it runs faster than the original homeworld for me! NICE job on this area.

Though I agree that the game doesn't really feel like the first one, I don't think that's a bad thing. As Thera said, the game is a lot more automated. This should help gameplay in multiplayer. The faster pace of the game should also help.

You could probably win the demo by just using the build menu and never actually directing the ships thenselves. The in-game cut scenes come every ten seconds until the missions is over leaving you without much of a feeling of accomplishment. The two demo missions are almost identical to the first game. Just this time you don't have the luxury to look at your ships or systems before being tossed into the action. You can't even enjoy the scenery afterward because the mission automatically ends when the enemy is dispatched.

I don't think you could win the demo by just building ships. It at least created the illusion of a mildly intense space battle where you had to send out fighters to destroy the enemy bombers, and narrowly avoid the destruction of the crew. I don't know about this, but I think the similarity between the two starting missions and the two in the first Homeworld is to give those familiar with homeworld a sense of nostalgia and starting from square one again. As for the mission ending as soon as the enemy is dispatched, I like this because frankly, spending a lot of time just gathering resources after every mission was boring.

 

[ethebubbeth]

graphics are sweet... haven't had a chance to play it much, though thus far i liked the gameplay of the original more. who knows that might change in time

 

[Jeff7]

Does this still have the time acceleration that was introduced in Cataclysm? I'd play the original Homeworld a lot more if they had the time accel thing in there. That was a VERY nice addition, especially when the mission requires a long flight, or else just lots of resource gathering at the end of a mission.
The first link seems dead too.

 

[datalink7]

Well, I thought it was a lot of fun. Will be picking it up for sure.

 

[igowerf]

I tried it out. I've never played the first one, but I always wanted to. The graphics are pretty nice and the interface seems powerful but really easy to use. Selecting units seemed to be a pain though. If I zoom out, everything gets way too small. How am I supposed to know where everything is in the middle of a battle?

 

[oLLie]

I enjoyed it, but I created a game against the computer and saved it midgame. Now as soon as it finishes loading the save, Homeworld 2 Demo just exits itself.

 

[clicknext]

Originally posted by: igowerf
I tried it out. I've never played the first one, but I always wanted to. The graphics are pretty nice and the interface seems powerful but really easy to use. Selecting units seemed to be a pain though. If I zoom out, everything gets way too small. How am I supposed to know where everything is in the middle of a battle?

It was even more of a problem in the first Homeworld because you had to select individual fighters, and the pointer couldn't be off by a bit.

 

[DefRef]

Tried this the other night and couldn't warm up to it, just as I couldn't hang with the first HW. Not blaming the game at all - it's just not my cup of steaming enemy blood.

 

[datalink7]

Originally posted by: igowerf
I tried it out. I've never played the first one, but I always wanted to. The graphics are pretty nice and the interface seems powerful but really easy to use. Selecting units seemed to be a pain though. If I zoom out, everything gets way too small. How am I supposed to know where everything is in the middle of a battle?

Make battle groups.

For instance, select all your fighters and hit "crtl 1". Then, all you have to do from there on our to select the same group is hit the number 1.

 

[clicknext]

Not sure if this is really a good tactic, but I think it's a good idea to make different battle groups for different jobs. For example, put anti-fighter ships in group 1, anti-corvette/frigate in group 2, and anti-capital ship in group 3. Then whenever there's a threat you can select the appropriate units quickly.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Thera
I didn't like it. I remember staying up all night playing the orginal. I think my expectations were set too high for this one.

They speeded up the gameplay and automated almost everything. You could probably win the demo by just using the build menu and never actually directing the ships thenselves. The in-game cut scenes come every ten seconds until the missions is over leaving you without much of a feeling of accomplishment. The two demo missions are almost identical to the first game. Just this time you don't have the luxury to look at your ships or systems before being tossed into the action. You can't even enjoy the scenery afterward because the mission automatically ends when the enemy is dispatched.

I really want to like it also... I keep going back to it to try to enjoy it and I just can't. Maybe someone will make a mod that's basically a 100% copy of the original except with the new game engine, which is really good. That's about all I can hope for now.

It seems that people really like it from what other forums are saying but I can honestly say that it left me empty. The story was the best part of the first game and now it's been replaced C&C type gameplay.

I initally was really worried about it when I started playing - a whole new interface type. I hoped they hadn't screwed it up royally. And after finishing the single player demo, I'm still not entirely sure. The whole squadron based thing is a bit weird, and the shortage of fighter formation types is a bit limiting - where's Wall, Sphere, and Claw especially?
It seems to run just a wee bit quick too, like the time is set to 1.5x instead of 1x. It all goes too quick - I was trying to figure out how much damage each ship was taking; it wasn't easy to do at a glance.
But then, I am just used to the Homeworld interface, which seemed to get the job done pretty well. Maybe (hopefully) I'll adapt to the new interface.
Plus I'll have to try it tomorrow - when I'm actually awake.

 

[clicknext]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: Thera
I didn't like it. I remember staying up all night playing the orginal. I think my expectations were set too high for this one.

They speeded up the gameplay and automated almost everything. You could probably win the demo by just using the build menu and never actually directing the ships thenselves. The in-game cut scenes come every ten seconds until the missions is over leaving you without much of a feeling of accomplishment. The two demo missions are almost identical to the first game. Just this time you don't have the luxury to look at your ships or systems before being tossed into the action. You can't even enjoy the scenery afterward because the mission automatically ends when the enemy is dispatched.

I really want to like it also... I keep going back to it to try to enjoy it and I just can't. Maybe someone will make a mod that's basically a 100% copy of the original except with the new game engine, which is really good. That's about all I can hope for now.

It seems that people really like it from what other forums are saying but I can honestly say that it left me empty. The story was the best part of the first game and now it's been replaced C&C type gameplay.

I initally was really worried about it when I started playing - a whole new interface type. I hoped they hadn't screwed it up royally. And after finishing the single player demo, I'm still not entirely sure. The whole squadron based thing is a bit weird, and the shortage of fighter formation types is a bit limiting - where's Wall, Sphere, and Claw especially?
It seems to run just a wee bit quick too, like the time is set to 1.5x instead of 1x. It all goes too quick - I was trying to figure out how much damage each ship was taking; it wasn't easy to do at a glance.
But then, I am just used to the Homeworld interface, which seemed to get the job done pretty well. Maybe (hopefully) I'll adapt to the new interface.
Plus I'll have to try it tomorrow - when I'm actually awake.

The squadron thing I think basically turned fighters into more significant units, a squadron of fighters being almost equal in value to a frigate. When you lose a few fighters in a squadron, just send them back for repair and the full five will come out again. The squadron thing is also there so that there are no single little units to manage now. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't really know, but I definately have never enjoyed struggling with little units, especially the ones in homeworld which are hard to click on. The formations aren't manually selectable. A formation is automatically given to your fighters when you select a tactic. For example, when you set aggressive, it will set the most appropriate formation for that, which is claw. When you set neutral (defensive), the formation is delta.

I think the game goes a bit too quick too, but I think the original homeworld's speed was too slow for multiplayer. Hopefully the greater speed will make the multiplayer more fun to play.

 

[Mitzi]

Anyone elses machine choke on this?? My Athlon 2400 with GeForce4 4600 (with 4x AF enabled) is pretty slow when zooming in or when theres lots of action of screen! I guess turning of AF would do it but I play CS a fair bit and consider that an essential and I can't be bothered switching it on and off.

Pretty good game all in all though even though I can't grasp identifying certain ships and moving them where required (I ended up sending my resource collectors into battle a couple of times!)...need more practice I think...

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: clicknext

The squadron thing I think basically turned fighters into more significant units, a squadron of fighters being almost equal in value to a frigate. When you lose a few fighters in a squadron, just send them back for repair and the full five will come out again. The squadron thing is also there so that there are no single little units to manage now. Whether that's a good thing or not I don't really know, but I definately have never enjoyed struggling with little units, especially the ones in homeworld which are hard to click on. The formations aren't manually selectable. A formation is automatically given to your fighters when you select a tactic. For example, when you set aggressive, it will set the most appropriate formation for that, which is claw. When you set neutral (defensive), the formation is delta.

I think the game goes a bit too quick too, but I think the original homeworld's speed was too slow for multiplayer. Hopefully the greater speed will make the multiplayer more fun to play.

I sort of was wondering for awhile too - I told it to build 5 Interceptors, but whole squadrons kept flying out. Then I realized that clicking once gave one fighter.
I guess I had adapted well to the micromanagement of fighters - they worked well as distractions or decoys. I used groups a lot for fighters I wanted to stay together; anything else that was a standalone, I'd use the drag-box to select quickly.
Thanks for the tip about the formations' relation to tactics; I rarely changed tactics in the originals. If anything, I'd use Evasives for small ships attacking an ion frigate, or maybe to help a fighter outrun a pursuer. Aggressive always wound up getting too many fighters destroyed, because they wouldn't seem to bother with evasive maneuvers. I'll have to try it out with the new one.

Going on the scale set by Cataclysm, it does seem like the thing was set to 1.5x. Yes, 1x could get a bit tedious in the original, but it did help with managing the ships. Maybe they could bring the speed down just like 0.1 - 0.15x.
I'll give the game another go as soon as I get breakfast, or else I'm going to drop over soon.


Edit: Just did some Single player VS CPU - the ships here are a lot more aggressive. Defensive seems to also mean "Attack anything in visual range." I tell the squads of ships to stop firing, and return to the mothership - they do that, but as soon as they leave the docking bays, they go right back at attacking anything nearby, which usually gets them killed. The Interceptors have a habit of exiting and then engaging torpedo frigates, which doesn't last very long.
I do like the addition of the gun platforms - you can set up a good stronghold with them. True they're stationary, but that does also mean that they won't go nuts and fly out of place to attack something.

 

[xSauronx]

i enjoyed it
the detail on the ships is really really something, but doesnt seem to hamper the performance

i dont like the movement interface as much as the original...or maybe i just havent gotten used to it. i keep moving units by accident

unit caps suck, 25 fighter groups on high cap? i think not, at most thats about 125 individual fighters...how the hel am i supposed to make a 1000 unit scout ball with that! gah!

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: xSauronx
i enjoyed it
the detail on the ships is really really something, but doesnt seem to hamper the performance

i dont like the movement interface as much as the original...or maybe i just havent gotten used to it. i keep moving units by accident

unit caps suck, 25 fighter groups on high cap? i think not, at most thats about 125 individual fighters...how the hel am i supposed to make a 1000 unit scout ball with that! gah!

Scouts? I loved making spheres of bombers - over a hundred of those things could go up against just about any capital ship. I played with the unit caps too in the original - try 350 bombers sometime. There's more firepower there than a Bentusi trade ship.

 

[Vonkhan]

man ... i must be a retard ... this game is too complicated for me

back to BF1942 and UT2K3 for me!

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Vonkhan
man ... i must be a retard ... this game is too complicated for me

back to BF1942 and UT2K3 for me!

This one seems a good bit tougher than the originals, at least for me thus far. The new interface isn't sitting well with me yet, and it just moves too fast. My frigates are being taken out before I know there's an attack. Selecting multiple units is more difficult too - holding down shift to select them at the bottom doesn't work like it used to. Maybe once I get a manual for it, it'll make more sense.

 

[lchyi]

So no one thought the original HW was really weak? I bought it cause it said GotY and I was pretty disappointed. Though I was thoroughly impressed with the graphics. Maybe I put it down too quickly. I'm going to give it another shot tonight. It should run even smoother now (upgraded a ton since I bought it).