So why does everyone rave about the Homeworld campaign?

[irishScott]

Just finished the first Homeworld (picked up Homeworld: Remastered a couple of weeks ago). It was good, I certainly got my money's worth and then some, but I remember reading about how epic the campaign plot was (a major factor in my buying the game) and... well technically yeah I guess it is "epic", but after the first two or three missions it just came off as Battlestar Galactica Lite (VERY lite). Sure it was well presented and aesthetic, but it was shallow as hell. The original Starcraft had about 7x the plot and 6x the characters.

Speaking of aesthetic, one of my pet peeves was the immersion-breaking jerking-off-to-its-aesthetic Homeworld did at the beginning of some missions. Most notably: "The Ventuzzi are under attack! We must help them quickly!" Followed by about a full minute of watching enemy ships "cinematically" blast the Ventuzzi ship, and I can see my entire fleet in the background just sitting there as I'm unable to order them while the cinematic is up.

"Scramble all fighters... but after we watch the enemy blow up another 1/3 of that ship we're trying to save. It's just so cinematic and epic..."

Now that said I really liked the aesthetic and the gameplay, the "cinematic" nature of the battles was beautiful 99% of the time. But if I was trying to sell someone the game the last thing I'd point out is the plot, it was just so thin... I can only surmise that a lot of people recommending it based on the plot played it in their early teenage years or childhood before they knew better.

 

[sandorski]

It was ground breaking in the before time.

 

[Maximilian]

It was ground breaking in the before time.

Yep, in the long long ago :thumbsup:

Also its Bentusi.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I bought it saturday. I'm most of the way through the first game's campaign and I'm loving it. I've beaten this game uncounted times before the HD version, but I still manage to get immersed in it over and over again. I love the story as a concept. They seem to shy away from actual "characters" apart from the mothership computer person, who ends up not feeling like a person at all. I always though it was intentional. This isn't really a game of individual heroes, but of a whole civilization. It has the effect of everything feeling remote and kind of sterile though. That feeling isn't changed by the black and white hand-drawn cut scenes, but I can appreciate the effect they were going for. It never mattered that much to me because I loved the gameplay so much. I haven't got into homeworld 2 yet, but IIRC there was a bit more emphasis on story in that one.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

It came out in 1999. It was definitely a big deal back then. (How many GOTY awards did it get?)

Battlestar Galactica wasn't rebooted until a couple years later. Most people wouldn't have been familiar with the 1978 series.

There are style decisions, too. Maybe you prefer the cartoonish full color animated cutscenes from StarCraft 1 to the B&W comic-book-ey animated stills in HW. But nothing like StarCraft 2 or WoW was on the table back then, and... character development? What characters? Piffle.

 

[irishScott]

It came out in 1999. It was definitely a big deal back then. (How many GOTY awards did it get?)

Battlestar Galactica wasn't rebooted until a couple years later. Most people wouldn't have been familiar with the 1978 series.

There are style decisions, too. Maybe you prefer the cartoonish full color animated cutscenes from StarCraft 1 to the B&W comic-book-ey animated stills in HW. But nothing like StarCraft 2 or WoW was on the table back then, and... character development? What characters? Piffle.

All I'm saying is the plot was paper thin past the first 2 missions. The aesthetic was great, I just wished they paired it with something a little more specific.

For an analogy, if Homeworld was telling the story of the US in WWII:

1. America invokes the lend-lease act with Britain and establishes an oil embargo on Japan, increasing tensions with the Axis.
2. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
3. America declares war on the Axis
4. Allies invades Africa
5. America invades Japanese Empire
6. Allies invade Italy
7. Italy joins allies
8. Allies invade France
9. Allies win and the world is saved.

No matter how "epic" or aesthetically pleasing that telling of WWII might be, there's just nothing to sink your teeth into. As I said I like Homeworld's aesthetic and found it really engrossing, but at times it seemed like it was only there to compensate for lack of story. They could have had more scripted events, extended cut-scenes, any number of ways to flesh out the story.

I still enjoyed the game, and I'll play Homeworld 2, but I doubt I'll be replaying it.

 

[bguile]

Just finished the first Homeworld (picked up Homeworld: Remastered a couple of weeks ago). It was good, I certainly got my money's worth and then some, but I remember reading about how epic the campaign plot was (a major factor in my buying the game) and... well technically yeah I guess it is "epic", but after the first two or three missions it just came off as Battlestar Galactica Lite (VERY lite). Sure it was well presented and aesthetic, but it was shallow as hell. The original Starcraft had about 7x the plot and 6x the characters.

Speaking of aesthetic, one of my pet peeves was the immersion-breaking jerking-off-to-its-aesthetic Homeworld did at the beginning of some missions. Most notably: "The Ventuzzi are under attack! We must help them quickly!" Followed by about a full minute of watching enemy ships "cinematically" blast the Ventuzzi ship, and I can see my entire fleet in the background just sitting there as I'm unable to order them while the cinematic is up.

"Scramble all fighters... but after we watch the enemy blow up another 1/3 of that ship we're trying to save. It's just so cinematic and epic..."

Now that said I really liked the aesthetic and the gameplay, the "cinematic" nature of the battles was beautiful 99% of the time. But if I was trying to sell someone the game the last thing I'd point out is the plot, it was just so thin... I can only surmise that a lot of people recommending it based on the plot played it in their early teenage years or childhood before they knew better.

When I first got homeworld, way back when, I had visions of huge space fleets, epic battles for resources, scouts and probes searching for the enemy, guiding my fleet across galaxies etc. For the first few missions it delivered on that, especially the still awesome 'Kharak is burning' mission, but after that it went down hill for me. Instead, most the game after that was spent capturing vessels. Plus missions like the super nova research station where you could only move your fleet through certain corridors, or the mission where have to shoot all the asteroids was not what I had in mind. The game was sort of let down for me, and it took me years to finally finish it.

However, I still love it, despite its shortcomings. There wasn't anything like it when it came out, and the graphics (at the time) were amazing. It came with a 100+ page manual, of which 40 were dedicated to back story alone.

Also, I remember owning an sci-fi art book when I has very young that must have contained Chris Foss and Peter Elson artwork, because when I saw the ship designs in Homeworld, especially the Taidan ships, something clicked, because to me, that is what spaceships are supposed to look like, with bright colors, and stripes all over them.

 

[swilli89]

Keep in mind that Homeworld 1 mechanics are essentially broken in the remastered version. For single player, I suggest playing the original with its actual physics based bullets (instead of just look up tables based on rolls) and its proper functioning formation system.

I know that doesn't address plot, but it had a huge effect on gameplay for me.

For multiplayer you will have to stick to the newer version obviously. Speaking of which, has anyone played multiplayer recently? I played the first week it was out and it was a buggy nightmare. However, for games where someone didn't drop, it was ultra fun.

 

[TidusZ]

I'm around 2/3 through the campaign I think and I'm also not overly impressed, although my problem is more the lack of game speed options. I'm basically tabbed out for an hour while I harvest resources after the mission is done. I never played the game originally due to my pc being too slow at the time. It feels to me like a solid foundation for a game but needs more to it.

 

[Nox51]

The resources auto harvest after the mission is completed

 

[irishScott]

The resources auto harvest after the mission is completed

Wait, seriously? So all that time I spent waiting for salvage corvettes to return with far-flung debris was absolutely worthless? Wonderful.

 

[Scooby Doo]

If I remember right, in the original HW1 they weren't auto-collected. That came with either Cat or HW2.