Straight Jacket Type Fun
HomeWorld 2
Nothing captures the imagination like outer space. Traveling the stars, exploring new points across the universe and expanding your mind with knowledge and wisdom. Fortunately, Homeworld 2 ignores that part of the cosmos and gets to the real meat and potatoes of what we all want: annilihating bad guys by the bushel. With a fully three dimensional environment, an easy to use interface, and an excellent storyline, Homeworld 2 provides excellent gameplay and kicks the snot out of any other RTS to date.
You are the "queen bee" of a mothership which is at war with an alien species whose sole purpose apparently is piss you off in a big way. Enslaving your homeworld, destroying your population, and terrorizing the galaxy, these bad guys are Nazis to the Nth degree. The basic overall story involves unlocking some sacred keys which will make you the king of the galactic hill. Along the way you'll fight across the galaxy, meet some friends, and sing tales of old while having your way with the local system maidens! Well, maybe not that last part.
Many modern RTSes are now forgoing actual new twists and turns in gameplay and instead continually heaping more and more tech trees, resources, or classes of combatants to use. Fortunately, Homeworld 2 has not taken this route. Dang it, it's about the fighting in these type of games and not jerking off to how much gold/rocks/wood you can collect! In Homeworld 2 as in Homeworld 1, you still must only collect one resource (rocks, essentially) to build ships. That's just fine with me. Nothing is more boring and tedious in an RTS than constantly have to monitor villagers/slaves/elfs and move them around to gather resources. If I wanted that tedium, I'd go pick up rocks on the beach. In HW2, you simply point at rocks and the resource collectors get to work. That way, you can actually focus on the important part of any game: fighting and winning.
Gameplay requires several things: Pausing. A. Lot. Of. Pausing. As ships zip across and the sound of ion frigates unleashing full volleys at enemy ships, you will need to pause so you can get your bearings on what your ships are doing, where everything is and reissue orders to entire groups or individual units. The fact that your ships can move across all three axis of movement (left, right, and up/down) necessitates pausing since it can become a bit overwhelming in the first few missions. However, as you progress, you'll be able to handle this with no problem.
That's not to say the game is easy. Not by a long shot. This game might not be the best one if this is your first foray into the world of RTS. The game doesn't even have a difficulty setting. Just one setting and that's it. To help you (since I'm such a nice guy!), here's a link to the Relic Forum for Homeworld 2. Good strats there. Don't waste your time buying the hint book that's on the shelves.
Let's get into a specific about the gameplay. A lot of the RTSes I've played in the past often encourage a slow and steady approach. For those in the know, this is called "Turtling." Well, forget that in HW2 (thank goodness) I'm not trying to sit here playing this game for 12 hours and only complete one mission. I want to win and win in a reasonable amount of time. In the missions, the enemy doesn't want to lose either. He will come after you unless you can whittle down his numbers in a reasonable amount of time. Basically what I'm saying is, get off your ass and go get 'em.
Ship pairings are essentially a rock paper scissors approach which the manual and in game menus do a good job or explaining. As you progress or read others hints in that forum, you might pick up ideas or suggestions you wouldn't have thought to try. For example, at one point, the enemy brings these massive battlecruisers. Big, armored, sloth like behemoths that can effectively hammer the snot out of your mothership. To counter: small little inexpensive bombers. You can target individual ship components and disable the ship with little effort. Making those battlecruisers metal speed bumps for your own heavy ships to wipe out.
There's also a few blemishes in the single player. Unlike Homeworld 1, there's no ability to allow your resources to collect everything on the screen at your own pace once a mission is over. Instead, once a mission is over, you automatically hyperspace out and onto the next mission. Many are complaining about this since they do not get time to finish rebuilding their fleet. Secondly, the formations offered up in HW2 are not as interesting as those in HW1. For example, Sphere formations are completely gone and you are unable to create massive claw formations with 20-30 fighters. While nothing of particular consequence to overall gameplay, they were just nice to see while playing. Finally, despite the game being fully three dimensional freedom of movement, the computer takes a very two dimensional approach. However, there's no need to worry. The people in multiplayer will really use that well (and kick you around like a little cat for sure).
There's a myriad of strategies and tactics you can employ throughout the game. The single player, while it gives you specific objectives, how you deal with them is entirely up to you.
Graphically and visually, the game looks great. This is a big step up from Homeworld 1. There is much more definition close up on ships, and as in HW1, you can see highly defined ship chasis as you zoom into them. The same holds true for the sound. While of course there should be no sound in space, what's the fun in that? Heavier guns make a distinctive deep thump through your woofer while the lithe fighers and gunships fly left and right across the screen in hight pitched notes.
Homeworld 2 is well worth the price of admission as the sequel to 1999's Homeworld 1.
Your nizzles the Bentusi get you the hook-up on technology again
Swarm them!
Torpedo Frigates make short work of enemy carriers
Gun platforms and flak frigates will unleash the pain
Bombers, and Ions, and Gunships, oh my!
Destroyers will make you wet