Upon the discovery of an ancient galactic map inscribed with the words "our home," the people of Kharak began construction of a massive mother ship and fleet to traverse the galaxy and reach their long-rumored home world. Players construct, maintain, and control the Kharak fleet through 16 challenging single-player missions or against fellow humans on Sierra's WON.net online gaming service. During the solo campaign, you'll face literally hundreds of enemy vessels. All friendly and enemy ships, ranging from small, yet dangerously quick interceptors to the powerful, though expensive destroyers and heavy cruisers, are rendered with exquisite detail; further, expect plenty of impressive visual effects, from the glowing ship exhaust to fiery explosions. Adding to the pluses, Homeworld's thoughtful interface design eases the intense--and often complicated--resource gathering and combat situations. --Doug Radcliffe

Amazon.com Product Description
Homeworld is the next evolution of real-time strategy gaming, delivering a fresh experience in a totally 3-D universe. It gives players freedom to create new styles of play while delivering cinema-quality graphics, special effects, vividly rendered ships, and an innovative interface.

Homeworld immerses you in a full 3D battlefield and makes it easy to zoom, pan and rotate your view to different perspectives. You can choose to watch battles unfold from afar, or select any visible ship and instantly shift your focus to their view and follow them through combat.

Large scale battles are incredible to watch from either perspective. They're so detailed and so well rendered that they remind me of some of the space battle scenes from the Return of the Jedi (ok, the resolution isn't as good, and the game isn't as smooth as CGI, but it's pretty incredible nonetheless-- large battles are definately "wow" material).

The gameplay is well balanced, and to date, I've found the different missions/battles to be quite challenging. Unlike most strategic war games I've played, the storyline for homeworld is quite interesting. It unfolds gradually, and does a great job in building up the drama behind your mission.

The main difference behind homeworld and other strategic wargames is the 3D nature of the battlefield. Space is definately harder to fight in than land.

Definately five stars, definately a must have...


Sierra confused technique with gameplay   November 30, 1999
 38 out of 49 found this review helpful

Ok, at the risk of being labeled a spoil-sport, I'll say I didn't like Homeworld. The concept is creative, the design elegant, the graphics impressive, the soundtrack awesome. The AI is dim-witted; the interface ridiculous, and the gameplay annoying.

First, I like the idea of a 3d tactical space game. Too many of them (notably Star Fleet Command) are entirely too two dimensional. Of course, making a space sim 3-d means you need to be able to look at the "map" from different perspectives. Sadly, you can spend as much time managing the camera as you spend fighting your forces. Not a good combination.

Second, the AI is incredibly dumb. I didn't have as much problem with avoidable collisions as one reviewer, but my fighter pilots had this nasty habit of launching out of the mothership and then parking while the battle raged around them. I shouldn't have to go tell newly minted units to fight back. Especially since I couldn't see them to tell them to get their rears in gear most of the time. (That doggone perspective camera-management problem again.) This is a real drawback when you have a lot of units on the map, which makes too many demands for micromanagement.

Last, the gameplay is annoying because I spent as much time trying to figure out how to play as I spent playing, only to be annoyed with the dumb AI and camera management tasks once I had the interface down. Not a good sign

Bottom line: The game has potential, but the learning curve is too steep and the minor problems too distracting to make it fun. If you want a game that looks good when you play and has a great soundtrack; and if you don't mind a steep learning curve or large micromanagement demands, this is it. If you're on a limited game-buying budget, don't have a lot of time on your hands, and would settle for something less technically impressive but more fun to play, then Homeworld isn't for you. It wasn't for me.


A great game!   December 2, 1999
 22 out of 23 found this review helpful

I've been a fan of RTS for a long time - starting way back with Warcraft I, II, Starcraft, Command and Conquer, etc... I was very excited to hear about Homeworld, and was well rewarded while playing it!

I have seen some of these reviews knock the user interface. I have to say, I thought the 3d interface was great! It was intuitive and easy to learn (A mouse w/a wheel is highly recommended - it allows for zooming a bit easier than with a two button mouse)

The graphics are amazing. They were so good, I didn't mind getting blown up a few times on the last level. The battle between two huge fleets was so pretty, it was hard not to stop and just watch! It was like watching your house burn down!

Another aspect of the game that was impressive to me - I had absolutely NO bugs to report. I know that can be system dependent, but it's the first game in a long time that worked out of the box, through ALL the levels, without failing at some point or another.

I highly recommend this game. I'm sure there will be many imitators - and some may make marginal improvements, but this game is a huge step for the RTS genre.

I hope Relic turns into another Blizzard - I look forward to their next quality release.

Now that we've conquered 3D RTS, where do we go next?


Ever cried during a movie?   November 23, 1999
 18 out of 25 found this review helpful

I cried the first time I lost in Homeworld. The music, the immersive feeling, the stress of saving 600,000 inhabitants, must have all got to me, because when my last tray of 100,000 inhabitants exploded, I just curled up in a ball and tears started coming to me eyes. Just like waking up from a bad dream, or at the end of a sad movie: you know it's not real, but you cry anyways. Homeworld can give you such an experience. I'm a 26 year old male, married with 2 children. Computer programmer. Don't know any other game that can do this to me. I'm still learning about strategy, so I can get past mission 4. (Hard core gamers, don't laugh) Anyway, it's a great introduction to Real Time Strategy for newbies to the genre like me, who thought 3D graphics was only good for 1st person shooters and sims.


One of the best real-time strategy games ever...   November 10, 1999
 17 out of 19 found this review helpful

"Homeworld" - Relic Entertainment - Sierra Studios - PC - Grade:A+

Every year for the past few years, someone has released a game that has taken an established genre of computer gaming and turned it from something stale and bland into something fresh and exciting again.

These are the games other companies imitate, because the developers of these particular games innovated.

In 1997, Blizzard's "Diablo" took the term RPG and game it a strong dose of action and spawned dozens of imitators. Last year, Valve Software's "Half-Life" took the nearly lifeless first-person shooter market and made it viable again by adding something simple - story.

"Homeworld" is this year's innovator and the lesser companies are already scrambling to copy the lessons taught by it.

I offer this word of warning, though - take care, as this could become crack for any one of us. I already suspect that "Homeworld" will be one of those titles that always just seems to take "just ten more minutes" of time. You've been warned. It's incredible, and addictive. Damn timesinks.

Much, much more than just another "Starcraft" knockoff, Relic Entertainment's first project "Homeworld" is a drastic reinterpretation of the real-time strategy game. In a field once ruled by two-dimensional games, "Homeworld" has made the drastic jump - into 3-D.

For perhaps the first time ever, players can rotate around in the vast reaches of space, commanding large armadas of fights, corvettes and capital class starships in epic battles that would make George Lucas proud.

The best way to describe what it feels like to be playing "Homeworld" is to envision yourself as the commander of the Rebel Fleet in the end sequence of "Return of the Jedi," confronting a large armada of imperial ships bent on your destruction. First and most importantly, the interface is incredibly intuitive and easy use. This said, go through the tutorial. You still have to learn how the camera system works before you'll have the intricacies down pat. They have to teach you how to look before you walk, then fly.

The camera system is half of the joy of "Homeworld." You can watch battles from the far distant lofty perch above, or you can zoom in close and follow the path of one of your ships as it zips and zooms in its combat with your opponent.

All the time, every ship is clean and well-designed. The graphics are crisp and showy without being distracting, although there have been moments where I've felt like Nero watching Rome burn - the battle was just too beautiful for me to do anything.

Ships are divided into four classes: fighters, which are small ships designed for ship-to-ship combat (think X-Wing); corvettes, which are made for heavier combat but not as much (think Corellian Blockade runners - i.e. Leia's ship at the very beginning of "Star Wars") and capital class, which are designed to have heavy firepower but low, low speed (think Star Destroyers).

In addition to these four classes, you also have your Mothership. The Mothership is your central base of command. If it blows up, you lose. Guard it with your life.

Misplacing the Mothership will be tough, too, considering the thing is friggin' huge compared to your tiny little scout ships. This sense of scale was exactly what the game needed to make players feel like they were there.

Moving ships is incredibly easy, as simple as point-and-click. You can also set your units into various combat formations, as well as tell them to assume a defensive or offensive stance.

It sounds like a lot to learn, but you pick it up quick once you get going. Learning the keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys is another thing that will help you keep your ships flying.

From the opening of the game, however, it's clear that "Homeworld" is gearing for a slightly older audience. Those of us think of "Alien" and "Blade Runner" with fond memories, we fit right at home. The basic storyline is that the race of people you belong to finds the remains of a crashed spaceship on your planet. Within a few dozen years, you've figured out your people did not originate on this planet. With the discovery of a map, the construction of the Mothership begins as you and your people prepare to journey to your Homeworld. "Homeworld" is also filled with one of those big, epic, sweeping scores that put the feeling of the vastness of space into you from the getgo and never loosens up.

While the single player mode is a bit short (only 15 missions), the multiplayer mode more than makes up for it, letting up to eight players duke it out in the vastness of space. If you've ever wanted to see a truly epic battle on your computer, right now, it doesn't get any better than this.

Homeworld isn't perfect, with a few features that would have been nice to have not making it into the final version, but the merits of the game so far supersede these petty little complaints so as to rub them out.

Remember that Homeworld is a first-generation title that's the first release from a team, and you better this bodes well for Relic.

"Homeworld" doesn't just chip away at the old RTS mold, it shatters it with a massive sledgehammer and keeps on pounding until all that remains is dust.

A new watermark has been set.

If you've ever been vaguely interested in real-time strategy, space combat or even science-fiction computer games at all, do yourself a favor and buy "Homeworld."