KADESHI: “This is the Garden … of Kadesh.” KADESHI: “For thirteen generations, we have protected it from the … unclean.” KADESHI: “The Turanic … raiders who came before you refused to join and were … punished for this trespass.” KADESHI: “Like theirs, your ship has already … defiled this holy place.” KADESHI: “If you have come to join, we … welcome you, and we’ll spare you your ship until … all have disembarked.” KADESHI: “If you have … come to consume the Garden, you will be … removed at once.” KADESHI: “What are your intentions?” KUSHAN: “We were unaware of the significance of this location.” KUSHAN: “We mean you no conflict. Please allow us time to prepare our engines, so that we will withdraw, as requested.” KADESHI: “If you will not … join, then die. There is no … “withdrawal” from the Garden.” [sounds of battle and comms chatter] Remember, there are many space games out there, but only one has the Gardens of Kadesh. Captions by: Val Grim Even with the genre not as popular as it once was, there is still plenty of space RTS games. However, most of these control on a flat plain, just like any other RTS. So, instead of all of that, what if you wanted the full 3D space experience? Outer space is a magical realm, where you can travel in any direction and be killed by materials you’ve never heard of before. Controlling units on a flat plain doesn’t quite give that experience. If you do want that, you have “Homeworld”. And “Homeworld 2”. And “Homeworld: Cataclysm”. Then “Nexus: The Jupiter Incident”, but those last two are stories for another day. There are some other little ones out there, but the point is: there’s not a whole lot. And, if you wanted this kind of game, “Homeworld” is where most people point you. It’s an ambitious, ground-breaking game... from 1999. PILOT: “Delta formation confirmed.” Some stuff from then you could pick up and play just fine – “Homeworld” has a barrier to it. It’s still a great game, but interface issues are especially clunky to play nowadays. So, in 2015, Gearbox, with the help of some original Relic developers, released the Remastered Collection. It has reworked versions of “1” and “2”, and the original versions are still included. This looks like a great deal, but there were, and still are some issues. So, let’s get into that. Compared to the original, the freshly launched remaster looked amazing. It looked more like a remake than a remaster, which wasn’t too far from the truth. The main problem was that some systems were broken – particularly, in “Homeworld 1”. The remaster for both was based off of the “Homeworld 2” engine, which does make sense, considering the level the first game was at, but how both engines handle, or even can comprehend different situations, is incredibly different. For example, in “Homeworld”, every ship is built and controlled individually. You can still group them up and put them into formations, including custom formations. How you use these can give you a huge edge in battle. You could use a frigate line to spread out firepower and screen for larger ships. Move craft into a defensive sphere, or a risky attack one. Then combine that with tactics, which goes with your standard RTS stance system. Trade speed for more damage, or vice versa. So, with both of those, you have a lot to play around with. Ships will try to hold their formation in combat, and their speed, shape and aggressiveness will contribute to your success. If you wanted true 3D space combat, this is the kind of shit you live for. This also means problems creep in when you use “Homeworld 2’s” engine. In that, fighters, corvettes and other small craft are automatically built as squads. The only things built individually now are larger and special use ships. Formations are super simplified, and now tied to their stance. Setting interceptors to Aggressive, automatically makes them a claw, and stuff like that. This was done to make micromanaging easier, which is a later conversation. But for now, we have an engine that does not comprehend individual ships and formations existing together as a thing, now RUNNING a game all about using individual ships and putting them in formations. To put it simply: it didn’t work. Formations broke apart the instant contact was made with the enemy. It would be a year and a half, until the old system was brought back, but it would be across both games. Which was fantastic news. Except, it wasn’t all quite there. This month would also be the last time the game got a patch, with a preview build for one that never came out being the last at the time of this video. Formations were implemented, but still had some significant bugs. The most notorious one being a formation of fighters that only have one ship firing. Meanwhile, the other ships are trying to pick their own targets, and end up not firing at all. How does this happen? Well, let’s go back in time. When I made the video on “AvP: Extinction”, I asked for anyone involved with it to tell me more about it. One of them was a developer who did graphics work and programming on it. He had some fun tidbits on how small the team was, and how messy development got. When I say that some games sound like they had people grabbed out of the office to do voice acting, I’m not joking about that. It happened here. They had grabbed the guy who did the unit artwork. THE GUY: “OMAIGAD!!” [rip The Guy] He also had horrifying knowledge in that the game does have a PC version, but it wasn’t part of the contract, and never shipped. Anyways, this was his first ever work on an RTS game, and he stuck in the industry. He did a significant amount of work on the “Homeworld” remaster, and was able to answer a lot of questions. So, here’s some stuff I learned. It was never going to be viable to do a 1:1 remaster of both games. Think of it more like you could play “Homeworld 1’s” campaign with “2’s” rules. What happened was that a lot of people went above and beyond. Again, they were doing a remaster, and not a remake. The original plan was to touch up the visuals, but an engine that old had its own issues, and things weren’t looking quite as nice as they could be. So he convinced them to use a new solution, which was him rebuilding the graphics engine from scratch. He thought of some madman additions for the time, like “What if beam weapons cast light?” Then they did. This is just an example from one person. A lot of quality of life features and UI updates just weren’t on the map at all. People were having to wear a lot of hats. A lot of the art staff especially was having to step up in unusual ways. After all, the original plan was “Let’s port “Homeworld 1” into the new system.” “It’s a visual update. Why HAVE any design staff?” Things become even more complicated here. When it comes to combat, the games simulate a lot and don’t cheat. To quote him: “Bullets leave the gun, fly and hit shit. They do damage. That’s it.” He compares it to the difference between an arcade driving game and a driving simulation. If it’s arcade rules, you can tweak numbers around to whatever. When things aren’t all linked together so tightly, you have some wiggle room. When they are, things are much more difficult. “Homeworld” balance is affected by how a ship behaves and the physical shape of the space ship. And this was being done by developers not specialized in it, with the help of player volunteers. Getting formations working at a baseline took months of effort. How the engine handled formations and just the concept of flight had to be rebuilt. Huge parts of the game had to be retooled, and all for what was supposed to be a simpler “Homeworld HD”. Why the patches suddenly stopped I have no clue, and can only speculate on. Could be financial reasons, could be moving people to “Homeworld 3”. I have no clue, but it certainly wasn’t a lack of passion from those working on it. The good news is that you can get rid of the critical remaining bugs. Enter the Players’ Patch. This was developed by a lot of those volunteers I mentioned earlier. This squashes a ton of bugs, rebalances some things to be smoother, and adds a whole bunch of new game options. It’s on Steam Workshop, it’s on Mod DB, if you use GOG. It’s well worth getting, and I’ll later explain some other options it adds in. So now that you’re a little more caught up with the remaster situation, let’s talk about “Homeworld”. On the distant planet of Kharak, clans waged endless war on each other. Kharak is a horrible desert wasteland. It’s sort of similar to “Dune’s” Arakkis, but there are no sand worms here. There’s also no spice, or anything of value, so Baron Harkonnen doesn’t want it either. HARKONNEN: “What are you doing here, instead of being in the desert, heading them off?” They did explore these desert wars more in the prequel game, but, again, that’s a story for another day. What’s important is that the conflicts come to a close when a fantastic discovery is made. The wreckage of an ancient, massive star ship is found. Even more startling is what they find aboard the ship. CHRONICLER: “Deep inside the ruin, was a single stone that would change the course of our history forever.” CHRONICLER: “On the stone, was etched a galactic map, and a single word, more ancient than the clans themselves.” CHRONICLER: “Hiigara. Our home.” The story continues a century later. The discovery of the ship and the guidestone has united all the clans, and all of the Kushan people have been busy. They’ve been preparing for unknown threats from space, and, through reverse-engineering, they’ve developed formidable power. Their greatest project of all is a massive colony ship they’ve been developing for sixty years. A neuroscientist, named Karan S’jet, has entombed herself inside of the mothership, to act as its organic computer and Fleet Command. The campaign begins with the mothership’s first proper test run. It’s an enormous space ship, and the testing doubles as the tutorial. Harvesters can collect asteroids or… gas… which can be taken aboard for processing. From there, you can construct smaller spacecraft. So the thing is capable of pumping out a fleet wherever it goes. It has facilities for studying salvage and researching new technologies. With other space-traveling life out there, the Kushan will need to be able to adapt. However, the most important test being conducted is for the hyperdrive. A non-FTL ship has been slow-boating to the edge of the solar system for the past decade. It’s just an easy matter of jumping over to them, without exploding. This is some old technology they’re tapping into. I like that Karan sounds genuinely surprised that they didn’t all blow up. Or become part of a Space Hulk. KARAN: “We made it… Hyperspace jump complete.” KARAN: “All systems nominal and the quantum wave effect has dissipated.” INTELLIGENCE: “We have misjumped. The support ship is not here.” INTELLIGENCE: “Fleet Command, we’ll signal the Khar-Selim while we confirm our current position.” So it is a missed jump, but not too far. Probing the area reveals that the support vessel is nearby, and ready to assist in the- Oh, okay, it’s trashed, and up on blocks. And the aliens who did it are still around. The hostile aliens gear up to attack, and they’re terrible at it. Their “Codename: Kids Next Door” space ships are vastly inferior. Even unarmed salvage ships can easily yoink their corvettes away. So they have some enhanced interrogation to look forward to. I mean, they basically blew up a food truck. They had no chance in an actual fight. So, aliens are around – the mothership will need to go back to be retrofitted. [humming of hyperspace transition] [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings] [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
KARAN: “No one’s left… Everything’s gone…” [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
KARAN: “Kharak is burning…” [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
INTELLIGENCE: “Kharak is being consumed by a firestorm.” [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
INTELLIGENCE: “The scaffold has been destroyed.” [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
INTELLIGENCE: “All orbital facilities… destroyed…” [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings] [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
INTELLIGENCE: “Significant debris ring in low Kharak orbit.” A different alien fleet has arrived and lit the atmosphere on fire. Except for the mothership fleet and 600.000 cryogenically frozen colonists, the Kushan race has been wiped out. Finding the homeworld is now about the survival of your civilization. And yeah, having your starting area be doomed isn’t new to games. What they don’t have is Adagio for Strings. [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
KARAN: “400.000 people secured.” [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings] [Homeworld OST - Adagio for Strings]
DISPATCHER: “Docking signal green.” Here, it’s all about execution. “Homeworld” is a journey. You have no clue what could be out there, besides a vague promise from a rock. I’ll talk about the story more later, since, for now, I wanna focus on the visuals. Again, the remaster had a ton of effort in this department. All the art for the cinematic cutscenes were completely redone. There were some rough-looking parts in those, and they did a good job bringing everything up to line. I can’t deny that the fidelity is way better in a lot of these scenes. The style has moved away from something that looks like a hand-drawn comic with the rough pencil lines into something more clean and digital. I think the idea was to make the look more “painting” than “pencil”. Overall, I like it a lot, and it adds a greater sense of scale in some scenes that didn’t quite have it before. At the same time, the quest for fidelity does change the mood of a few parts. Like, when you first see Karan S’jet in the original, she’s shrouded in darkness, facing off to the side. She looks strange and alien. They tried to keep this aspect in the remaster, but now the scene’s a lot more bright, she’s directly facing the camera. The spirit is there, but the atmosphere is definitely different. And that sentence sounds like Zak Bagans reviewing a trip to space. It’s a solid improvement overall, and hard to pull off artistically. It’s one thing to tell an artist to draw something. It’s another to say “Redraw this, but make it better, but it also has to be like this.” “What do you mean revisions are extra?” “Could you draw her giving bir-” It’s a rough life for artists out there. When it comes to the game itself, it looks great, and especially for an RTS. You can have a ton of ships fighting on screen, but the level of detail is great. In the original game, you couldn’t free-sweep the camera like this – you had to follow objects. Probably because a computer from back then might self-immolate trying to capture all this. You can still zoom in on whatever you want, and get up into the face of even the smallest craft. You see how they cast light and shadows, or when larger objects darken them. Weapons can have multiple levels of effects, and even the results of them can linger. You know, besides when the ships are actively on fire and dying… Even when repairs are completed, some scars from battle never heal. Unless you turn the option off. Which there are a lot of. There are, like, 9 different texture options. You can pick the smallest ship class to get battle scars. Again, excellent scalability, if your PC isn’t up to it. But, man, there are some fine touches for a space strategy game. Back in the day, they, sadly, didn’t have enough time to give each race its own special ship doctrine. In the campaign, you could actually choose the enemy’s ship designs instead, because you’d be getting the same units, with the exception of two. You can’t do that anymore, and it’s likely for the best. The Kushan ships are sleek, but angular and boxy. Most of their designs are super utilitarian. If something doesn’t help the ship do its job, get rid of it. Even as research continues, and larger and more powerful ships unlock, that doesn’t go away. They’re smooth, but not the height of efficiency. The exception is, appropriately, the mothership. It’s very curvy and feminine. It looks like an ancient fertility statue, or a silhouette of a pregnant woman. Please don’t draw it giving birth – it already does. Contrast them with the mysterious Taiidan Empire. These guys have been space faring for thousands of years. Their ships are more ornate and bizarre, and sometimes, almost insect-looking. What’s extra cool is, despite the design differences, the ships still share similar silhouettes. The details are different, but you still know the ship’s role just based on its general size and shape. You might think that readability could be a huge problem in this kind of game, but it rarely is. Get far enough away, and units will display shape icons. You may not have a mini-map, but you do have sensors mode. You can pop into this anytime and view the entire theater. Even as complexity increases, you’re never too far out of control. “Group 7 reports enemy contact.” [thumping of cannon fire] The upgraded space backgrounds also look fantastic. The early missions in the campaign start in the more dark areas of space, but as it goes on, you start passing through these colorful nebulas. What’s funny is: the closer you get to where home might be, the more orange space becomes. Maybe it’s supposed to remind you of the deserts of Kharak, or maybe it’s a coincidence. Whatever the case, the visuals in “Homeworld” come together wonderfully. Then you add in the remastered soundscape, and you have one hell of an atmosphere in an RTS game. [basey impacts and collected chatter]
“I caught one, we’re under fire.” [basey impacts and collected chatter]
“Roger that, trailer, I see you. You’re looking fine.” [loud explosions]
“Acknowledged. Engaging targets of opportunity.” [loud explosions]
“Move order confirmed.” “This is looking good, stay tight.” [hissing of beam weapons] “We’ve got enemy contact.” [multi-layered assortment of explosions] “Group 9 reports enemy contact.” “Group 9 copies. Locked on target.” “Group 7 reporting. Attack run initiated.” “Copy, we’ve got a… situation here.” [thunderous barrage of cannon fire] I know there are people who like to smugly point out there’s no sound in space. Usually only prompted by a movie or game having great soundwork. We don’t have to put up with it! Let’s just kill them! Speaking of killing, that’s really the perfect way to describe “Homeworld’s” sound design. The beam cracks, the engines whining, the artillery echoes – it’s all amazing. You can also have way more effects at once over the original. At the same time, some aspects have a “less is more” approach. The actual story of the first “Homeworld” – the plot and the details – is very simple. When characters do show up, they’re not there to add some personal drama. I’m not saying that would be bad to do, because “Ace Combat” is sick. It’s more that you’re playing Karan, which, by extension, is the mothership, which, by extension, is an entire civilization. The character you’re playing is that massive, metal beehive. Which means the stakes are too high for personal drama. When the intro goes: “She is now Fleet Command.” Yeah, goodbye human character. [Marv scream]
"Oh, my shoulder!"
When the intro goes: “She is now Fleet Command.” Yeah, goodbye human character. You are playing a hive mind abstract. Karan S’jet doesn’t give a shit if James Callis is having another mental breakdown aboard a carrier, and neither should you. Yet, a lot of people still consider “Homeworld” to be a very emotional game. This is a story immeasurably elevated by its voice acting and its direction. The Fleet Intelligence is an organization, but you only hear the voice of a single person. He’s just some stoic guy – his job is to give reports. INTELLIGENCE: “We advise commencing research immediately.” So how did they use him when everything he knows is gone? INTELLIGENCE: “The scaffold has been destroyed.” INTELLIGENCE: “All orbital facilities… destroyed…” He never remarks on how clearly horrible it is. You just hear the devastation in his voice and his speaking pace. The music swells. “Homeworld” doesn’t want to spell out emotion – it wants to evoke it. No shit this is sad! “I took care of you! Saved you from your miserable life!” Even in the abstract sensors menu, where you don’t directly see the combat, you still hear the comm chatter. They announce what they’re doing, but sometimes, you hear them celebrate victories, they get nervous or scared – the human element isn’t gone. Even as Fleet Command coldly announces a ship loss, due to the way the game is structured, it resonates a little more than just using an RTS unit. The other characters you encounter are ships, which usually represent an entire people. So the voice acting has to carry a lot more. The line says what event happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, but the tone says how the race felt about it. Your mortal enemy is the Taiidan, but you never talk to them. You just learn about them. The one message you get from them is brief and very direct. So, with how “Homeworld” has introduced everybody else, this keeps them vague and threatening right up until the end. It’s impressive. They made a memorable, captivating sci-fi story for a game, and they did it without getting too lore- or jargon-heavy. There are great games that do explore those ideas, but, with some rewrites, you could probably move “Homeworld’s” story into another setting. Strip it all away, and the space ship game has a very human story. For the remaster, they brought the original voice actors back, to re-record their lines with better technology and fidelity. They didn’t change the writing at all – the lines are exactly the same. Fans argue about which LINE DELIVERY is better. A “Homeworld 1” dork lore argument is about emotional tone. It’s like the opposite of a “Stars War” thread. At least, until someone brings up “Homeworld 2”. And the music’s cool. [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle] [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle]
“Show no mercy.” [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle] [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle]
“Moving to intercept.” [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle] [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle]
“Watch for debris!” [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle]
“Group 9 reports enemy contact.” [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle]
“Roger, Group 6.” [Homeworld OST - Imperial Battle] I’ve gotta get to the gameplay, or else I could talk about this kind of stuff forever. I always wondered if the composer for the 2003 “Battlestar Galactica” was a fan of the game. I mean, hell, the game is inspired by the 70’s show! Clearly, there were people working on it who were down with the videogames. BENTUSI: “They must not learn of our contact! We must depart.” BENTUSI: “All that moves is easily heard in the void. We will listen for you. Farewell.” CYLON: “All this has happened before, and will happen again.” As for the actual gameplay, it’s easy to learn, but hard to master. You move units just like you would in most RTS games. But you can also hold a button down to change the elevation. This gives you a lot of maneuvering options, and the game throws in some unique challenges with it. In one mission, you have asteroids approaching the mothership from multiple layers, which you need to hold off with a proper alignment of ships. Or another, where you need to carefully maneuver your ships through dust clouds – otherwise, they starts cooking in the system’s intense radiation. Besides examples like that, 3D space directly impacts combat, based on where damage is dealt. Ships in this setting rely on armor, and sometimes, it’s weaker from a certain direction. Because you COULD take on a capital ship, like a carrier, in a head-on slap-fight, but their armor is weaker at the top, so maneuvering your fleet above them will crunch through them much faster. Again, you can factor in the formations and tactics from earlier into this, but none of it is hard to pull off. Ships might have a single unique ability. You can click-drag for guard orders, or repair operations, or an attack, and it’s all kept simple. The biggest barrier to entry really is just the way of thinking, since there are still precious few strategy games like this. Enemies approaching from far below your forces or other strange angles is something you have to get used to. “Homeworld” has enough quality of life features to stop that from being overwhelming. Once you do get used to the basics, you can appreciate how the game is balanced out. Using big doom ships, like cruisers, are fun, but they’re not a death stack solution. They could be vulnerable to smaller craft, like bombers. So there are fighters and interceptors to counteract them. You could counter these with other strike craft, or move up to using corvettes. They’re still a little too nimble to be reliably hit by the larger weapons. But these are vulnerable to other corvettes. Or frigates. But frigates are vulnerable to the big capital ship guns again. But there are anti-capital frigates. Hell, there are anti-strike-craft frigates. You can create all kinds of fleet compositions that can work. But figuring out HOW they work, and especially how they synchronize with other units, is the key. Because, if you just look at one, a carrier is a big, scary ship. It has a few different weapons on it, it can build other ships, instead of just holding them, and it can also be yoinked away by some of the smallest craft in the game. There are limits on how much of a thing you can build, and there’s no one unit solution. It’s a blast putting a fleet together and then breaking it up into battle groups, attacking an enemy from multiple angles. And the interface is good enough that you don’t have to master a ton of hotkeys or be a micromanaging god to have a good time with it. It’s in that “Age of Empires” ideal zone of fun. You could pick the game up and take things slowly, and be just fine. But if you wanna light up your keyboard and get sweaty, multiplayer will show you how high that ceiling can get. It might not be quite on the “AoE 2’s” level though. Back when it was still stuck on GameRanger, I played with a guy who could reliably predict when he’d hit castle age within about 10 seconds, based on where the deer were on the map. I haven’t felt that kind of fear playing this. Now, compared to the original, there are some key gameplay differences. How building works isn’t quite the same, there are some balance changes, and some quality of life features, like being able to group-salvage, just aren’t here. I do wanna go over the two that I think are the most important. The biggest universal change is fuel. In the original, smaller craft, like fighters and bombers, occasionally have to come back to support ships to resupply. So there is an extra element in fighting strike craft, in that you can blow up their support ships. In the remaster, there is no fuel. But even in levels like the Garden of Kadesh you’ll still see carriers drop off fuel pods. The AI still uses the hidden fuel mechanic for this level, but the player never has to. So that entire mechanic has been lost. And you know what? Good! Fuck. Fuel. I like the idea of it. It could work great on larger maps or with an overhaul, like, if the small ship gets too far away from support craft for too long. I’d like the extra depth that space supply lines could add, but how “Homeworld 1” did it was mainly tedious. You still have to build your smallest ships individually. Again, it wouldn’t be until “Homeworld 2”, where you can make a squadron at once. Fuel could have worked better there, but it was already removed in that game. The consequence of this is some support ships aren’t as useful anymore, but they’re multi-role, so never gone completely. Docking craft to them still heals them, and overhaul could work, but it was very flawed in the original. And, at this rate, I know tedium. And fuel tedium – I turned on “Aurora” this year. The second big change is a campaign one – dynamic difficulty scaling. Again, this is another “Homeworld 2” thing. Basically, the size of your fleet and how rich you are determine how many enemies you fight in the next map. It’s a good way to try and keep things challenging, but a lot of people don’t like it. When a mission ends, all you have, including your ships, carry over. It’s a great example of how the story and gameplay are so intertwined in “Homeworld”. You’re moving an entire civilization around. Every ship loss and resource counts. When a mission ends, you can still linger around, collect resources and build your fleet up. You go when you choose to. And the remaster did import a great “Homeworld 2” feature that auto-collects every resource still on the map, so you don’t have to do THAT manually. Still, players like to pull off maneuvers like hijacking a bunch of the enemy’s ships, so their fleet would be huge. You also get a lot more visual variety, and your forces look even more ragtag. In this system, it means the battles will always be bigger, and a lot of people don’t like that. Funnily enough, I think this works better here than the second game. But it’s still a fair point to make. Well, if you use the Player Patch, you can scale this back down, or make the game even harder. If you don’t want constant harsh battles, you can flip it off, and if you do, you can go nuts. With the way resource amounts and a few other things are updated, it’s really the lack of options in the scaling that hurts the vanilla game. With the mod, there’s nothing to worry about. If you never played the 99 game, I’d say don’t worry that you’re missing out on the original, authentic experience, or something like that. It still has a few annoying things missing here and there, but it is vastly, VASTLY better to actually play than the original. The best part is: the Collection still has that game in there. They’re not trying to bury it away. Now I’m gonna get into what I like about the story, but not too much. As I said before, it’s a pretty simple tale. Now, when I said this story could be adapted to any setting, I didn’t mean to imply that there’s no lore. “Homeworld” has a lot of lore. The game came with a 115-page manual, which the remaster doesn’t have, but you can find a PDF easily enough. You can read about the history of the Kushan, and how the mothership was made. How all the technology works, the different cultures and clans on Kharak. It’s a deep manual. Just being near it grants you a time share inside of a high school locker. It’s fun to know, but you don’t need to know. Besides the tragedy, the start of the game opens a good mystery. Kharak was burned down by the Taiidan Empire, because they violated a 4000-year-old treaty not to develop hyperspace technology. There’s an established galactic civilization and order to things, but you have no idea about any of it. Your people have no choice but go home, and this is causing huge repercussions. Where a lot of strategy games have you building an empire, here, you’re just a token on the board. Some religions think the Kushan returning is a prophesy or holy. Factions who don’t like the Taiidan are using the burning of Kharak to further their own agenda. You feel like you’re inside a giant political game, but barely a player. I mean… fhuh… what’s an equivalent for this? Okay, think about the isolated tribe on Sentinel Island. And then, one day, the UN sees them playing around in the nearby territory, wearing power armor. Somehow, they’re also experimenting with a nuclear weapon. The UN is flipping shit, and then someone nukes the island. But all the people and weapons they were afraid of weren’t there and survived, and are now laying claim to a small part of Madagascar. Do you think that might shake up politics and cause a bunch of other situations to explode? THAT’s the story of “Homeworld”. There is a huge global shakeup going on, but you’re only seeing it through a small, kind of mystical point of view. As the story goes on, the fleet grows, and you learn more. Your only message from the Taiidan is right before you challenge them directly, and they’re still a huge threat. It’s a well-pace campaign, with satisfying reveals about the Kushan and their Hiigaran homeworld. And those who they encounter, and even fight, have some more dimensions to them. You know, except for the rocks… At its core, it’s a story about going home. You may have guessed they make it there. “Homeworld 2” has a… different… story approach. We start off with a bit of a retcon. Thousands of years ago, a Progenitor hyperspace core was discovered, which all space travel is based on. Then, thousands of years later, the Kushan find the second core in the wreckage on their planet. So, the mothership isn’t just reverse-engineered – it’s powered by an ancient, unfathomable technology. It does explain how the mothership is so absurdly powerful, and how they managed to get home at all, but there’s more to this. It’s over 100 years later, and Karan is still alive, and appears to be the same age. “Homeworld: Cataclysm” took place between the games, but I believe it’s been deemed to be non-canon. If you’re directly connected to your ship, like she was, you’re called an Unbound, and, for some reason, live a very long time. I think that’s still the explanation, but I’m not entirely sure. Anyways, this story is a little less Exodus, and a little more Revelations. CHRONICLER: “This is the story of the end time. We know this, because the third core has been found.” CHRONICLER: “Under the dark influence of this core, the Taiidan have risen under a new leader – a Vaygr warrior lord named Makaan.” CHRONICLER: “He calls himself the Sajuuk-khar. The Chosen One.” I don’t know about this setting throwing The Chosen One out there… The intro heralds a big difference in the tone of these stories. In “Homeworld 1”, religious and mystic elements could definitely be felt, but they were also ambiguous. You could view it as pure human struggle, or an act of destiny. It’s a large, unknown universe, and anything is possible. BENTUSI: “Your progress is becoming known among the inner ring worlds and elsewhere. Many cultures have prophesized your return.” It’s possible, but fate is never proven. Now we have tangible Ancient Ones and prophesy, and it’s central to this story. I wonder how this will go… DEMON: ⛧ “ÆUGH…”⛧ HERO: “You’re what? The servant of your master? You seem to be a creature from hell!” So, a new mothership is being commissioned, again commanded by Karan S’jet, and once again, we’re testing it. Except, the first was made for a journey into unknown space, and this one was being made during an act of galactic war. The ship being near undefended is strange, and it’s no wonder the Vaygr show up to attack it. The mothership does escape and gets resupplied with a proper crew, but now the homeworld is under siege. Makaan demands the second core, or else he’ll destroy Hiigara. The fleet must now travel through the galaxy, to find an ancient relic that will stop the prophesy and end Makaan’s reign of terror. He simply can’t be the Sajuuk-khar, because that will mean the return of Sajuuk. What does that mean? You’ll have to find out. If the game sounds reliant on the lore from the first “Homeworld’s” manual, well, there are elements of it here, but no, not really. The “Homeworld 2” manual does have backstory, and it’s a single page of it. This still gives more context to what’s happening, but the whole prophesy thing is still kept vague. Compared to a journey, “Homeworld 2” is more of a war story. One that’s floating around an unknown doom prophecy at the center. There’s more to unpack here, but first, I want to talk about what’s different. I’ll start with the visuals again. I don’t need to retread the technical graphics stuff, because, yeah, the game looks good! They definitely had more to draw from directly with the sequel. It was a lot more graphically complex than its predecessors, so you have more to touch up. The new backgrounds are especially great. There can be deep shades of red, and just harsher tones in general. Even if the writing doesn’t carry it, the game sure looks apocalyptic. The sheer size these battles get to, conveyed with these backdrops, convey everything I need to know. Most of the ship designs have changed a lot too, as you would expect after 100 years. Hiigaran ships are way less boxy and way more angular. These are more “space planes” and “space boats” than they were previously. A lot of the ships have large turrets on them – even on something as relatively small as a corvette. I think, this design works on larger ships, like frigates and destroyers. There are some ships I love the look of, like the battle cruiser, but the turrets are more spaced out on those. The little ones can look like space tanks. The Hiigaran ships look more sleek and dangerous now – even a mine-layer has a turret on it. Safe to say, the industrial look is now more space opera. It reminds me of the “Dead Space 1” and “2” arguments. Some people enjoy the new looks, others think it was twisted too far. I think I’m in the same spot I was in that debate too: it likely wouldn’t make sense for the ships to keep looking as Tonka truck as they were, but I definitely favor some of the first ships. Besides, the Vaygr and Taiidan remnant do carry on that spirit. They Vaygr are nomads, and their ships are extremely specialized – even more so than the Kushan’s were. It’s not like the studio had forgotten the original design ideas – it’s just a role-reversal. My feelings haven’t changed much here. I still love the look of the game. When it comes to audio, the fantastic new soundscape is here too. The biggest change is how more bombastic the music can be, and I’m completely here for it. [Homeworld 2 OST - Battle for Sajuuk]
“Enemy contact.” [Homeworld 2 OST - Battle for Sajuuk]
“Under fire, requesting orders.” [Homeworld 2 OST - Battle for Sajuuk]
“Engaging. Group 7 copies. Attack run initiated.” [Homeworld 2 OST - Battle for Sajuuk]
“Copy. Attack coordinates locked in. Let’s stay calm.” [Homeworld 2 OST - Battle for Sajuuk]
“Battle cruiser under attack. Group 1, report swiftly.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Lighthouse]
“Pursuing targets. Strike group reports hostile contact.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Lighthouse] [Homeworld 2 OST - The Lighthouse]
“Strike group clear. Enemy attacking.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Lighthouse]
“Copy.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Lighthouse]
“Flak frigate complete.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Lighthouse]
“Taking damage.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Keeper] [Homeworld 2 OST - The Keeper]
“Group 7, reporting. Standing by.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Keeper] [Homeworld 2 OST - The Keeper]
“Another ship is taking light enemy fire.” [Homeworld 2 OST - The Keeper]
“Roger. Destination locked in.” There’s no Adagio for Strings moment, but they do use the music effectively for the cutscenes. Nothing I’ll spoil here though. When it comes to the gameplay, the core hasn’t changed. In the remaster’s case, how you interact with and control the game is identical. However, with the new fleet composition comes a game that can feel very different. For better AND worse, there has been some streamlining. As mentioned before, strike craft are now built in a full squad, which does make sense. The small fry were never ships you’d send in alone, so why bother building or maintaining individuals, when they can just come out as a squad? If a squadron loses ships, you dock it back up, and it replenishes. It’s a welcome addition that I do think removed a lot of needless micromanagement. It’s faster and simpler to build and control what you want in a fight. But more than that got compressed in. Where “Homeworld 1” had resource collectors, repair corvettes and salvage corvettes, “Homeworld 2” has the resource collector, which now fills out all those previous roles. Except, you can no longer whisk enemy ships away to the dungeon. There’s now a dedicated marine boarding frigate, which is much more vulnerable and I really don’t use it much, outside of campaign. You watch a bar fill, and the ship is yours, and… (sigh) man, I’m not a fan of it. It’s not nearly as funny or gremlin-like, compared to physically seeing carrier privileges being revoked. It’s not the same kind of joy. The role-combining goes across a few classes, to reduce redundancy. Where the Kushan had 5 kinds of fighters, the Hiigarans only have 3. They do try to make up for this. Where “Homeworld’s” research was mainly about unlocking new ship types, “Homeworld 2” has actual ship upgrades. They can give better stats, new abilities, but they don’t go too in-depth. To build certain craft, larger ships, like the mothership and carriers, now have to build facilities for them. That means, when you do make a carrier, you have to decide what its role will be and what it can build. You can upgrade other sub-systems too, like better sensors. And, best of all, the subsystems are now physically on the ships. These can be more vulnerable to different weapons, so capital fights are more tactical. Instead of spending a long time to completely break an enemy carrier, some bombers can swoop in and take out its ability to make new fighters. This adds a lot of options for good micromanagement. You still have the directional armor from before, but this adds a whole new layer to it. The story is not as engaging this time around, but the gameplay is. There’s more mission variety, and objectives that feel different to play. They are the kind of improvements that come AFTER making something ground-breaking. They’re not struggling as hard just trying to make the basic idea work anymore – they got that. Now it’s “How can we make things more interesting to play?” They do pull this off for the most part, but now we have to go back to dynamic difficulty. Outside of taking some space ship options away, this is my biggest gameplay issue. Well, actually, it’s a few compounding things. See, before, you CHOSE when to leave a mission, and now, when the mission is done, so are you. Every resource is auto-collected, and your fleet goes to the next mission as is. Here’s how this gets messy. This is an act of war, so you can no longer pace it like it’s the “Oregon Trail”. You still carry ships and tech over, and everything else like before, but you no longer feel the impact, especially of their losses. Except in the worst of times. Each map has absurdly more resources. The fights are much larger, and the time-to-kill for smaller ships much quicker. You’ll be building ships more than ever before, and they feel replaceable. As the fights get more massive, you get closer and closer to a danger tipping point. Enemy numbers might increase until you’re fighting a death stack of battle cruisers. I already went over the scaling, but here’s the difference. You can win a satisfying, hard-fought battle, but you can also win it the wrong way. The way where the next mission throws you into the lion’s den with barely a fleet to your name. Without the downtime, you can no longer strategize and build your fleet back up. You can be thrown into a new mission, where you imminently need a bunch of ships that you no longer have. These missions could have multiple-staged objectives, so you don’t know what might automatically make you move forward. Unless you’ve already played the game or got screwed over and had to go back a bit. This can mean trying to set the map up to have a downtime period, because the battles get so intense, instead of just actually having a downtime period. It might not sound like much, but once you’ve played it, not deciding when you can leave is a huge loss of control. I mean, that could be the point of it, but everything no longer gels together like it once did. In that light, I’m now going to briefly go over the story, and if you don’t want spoilers, go to here: I think I feel bad for anyone who skipped ahead and came back here. It’s as stylish as ever, but, playing it again now… man, this reminds me of the “Rise of Skywalker” in the worst way possible. We’re getting way too “Stars War”. To stop the prophesy, the Hiigarans must find a progenitor ship graveyard. They need to find the wreck of a ship, which has a ship in a back of it, because the little ship can lead them to the Balcora Gate, which will then lead to Sajuuk. It is a cool ship, and your long-time bros, the Bentusi, helped you find it. Alongside giving you the first hyperspace core, which they owned. You get to Halo, but Makaan is already there, and he has his own ancient… dreadnought… Progenitor ship. These dreadnoughts were known as the Gatekeepers of Sajuuk, and I guess it doesn’t matter how Makaan got one. Anyhow, on the other side of the gate is a huge warship. This is Sajuuk. Another big ship. You defeat Makaan, you loot his pants and his hyperspace core, and all three cores have slots inside of Sajuuk that they go into. The entire mothership crew transfers over, and the whole ship jumps back to Hiigara. The battle there has remained intense, but the Vaygr have brought their “Man of Steel” atmosphere killers. These launch missiles that will kill the entire population, and the missile launchers are immune to every weapon ever conceived, except for the Jesus Ship. So the big payoff is scattering your fleet around, to shoot down missiles, before they kill the entire population. Meanwhile, the Primordial Enterprise slow-boats to each launcher to take it down. This scenario really doesn’t let you feel the true power of Sajuuk, and getting here was a string of “we have to find a thing to find a thing to find a thing”. With final victory, comes a final reveal: Sajuuk opens a new galactic network of hyperspace gates. This will significantly reduce galactic commute times and increase trade and prosperity. Thus ushers in the Age of S’jet. It wasn’t Makaan, but HER who was The Chosen One – the Sajuuk-khar. The galaxy is changed forever, and I feel nothing. It’s not horrible, and the nature of the first game’s story does make it hard to follow up on, since there is a kind of finality to it. This could have just been a political war story, or, if they were gonna go full mysticism, at least explore the elements more. Instead, we get a messy blend of things. It’s never really stuck with me. “Third impact confirmed.” “Homeworld 2” genuinely has some great features and ideas. But, with how some things were cut down, and how the campaign was written, it’s no surprise it doesn’t resonate like the original. Luckily, the game’s Skirmish mode lets you play in any faction from across both games. There are plenty of hours to be spent here, and the Players’ Patch adds even more options, like letting you control two fleets. This game is very worth picking up, and especially now. After talking with GOG, I have an affiliate deal unlike any I’ve had before. Using the pinned link, you can pick up the entire Remastered Collection for 95% off. I was going to say it’s well worth the $30. This is less than $2. It’s a fantastic strategy series and a visually faithful remaster. I desperately wish “Cataclysm” got the same treatment, but, as of the time of this video, the source code is still missing for that one. There is “Homeworld 3” to keep an eye on, and next year I wanna talk about how this series handled ground combat. So I’ve got that to keep me going. Have a wonderful Christmas! Or any other holidays you’ll be celebrating. I’ll see you next time. Joshua Crager: “Best Christmas present given or received?” Well, when I was a kid, I got this badly wrapped, like, box – it was like a shoebox, and dented and kind of wet. It looked awful. But he (dad) was pranking me, and a brand new copy of “Tiberian Sun” was inside. I got, maybe, a game or two a year back then, so I wasn’t expecting that at all. No matter what I’ve gotten since, I always look back on that. Other_Beak: “What is [your] least favorite Pokemon?” The only mainline game I owned and played was “Pokemon Gold”. I HATED Zubats, and later, I would discover Cliff Racers. Matteo.YB: “[Are you], technically, a Vtuber?” I hope not… siegschranz: “Could a 40K “Total War” be done? Should it?” I don’t know if it should, but give it a few years. It’s inevitable. Samantha Rossing: “Did [you] have a teacher [you] could never get along with?” I did, and it was in 1st grade. As a kid, I was left-handed, but she would take points off my paper and other coercion methods if she saw me using my left hand, instead of my right, to write or do homework or anything. So, now I’m right-handed, and my handwriting is still horrible. I found out later that I happened to look like how her son did at the same age, and they had had, like, a huge falling out or something, and they hated each other, so she got her revenge on a left-handed six-year-old. It sucked back then, but it’s funny to look back on. Alright, stay safe out there! Oh, right! Don’t forget to play the Turanic raiders bonus mission! This being missing was a big deal. We desperately need more games like this.
