homeworld remastered collection gameplay

Homeworld remastered collection gameplay how to#
Homeworld remastered collection gameplay update#

Homeworld remastered collection gameplay how to#

It’s the brilliant understanding of how to tell a good story in this format. Strong writing isn’t the only part of Homeworld’s story that really puts it arms and shoulders above other strategy titles. They show a good story doesn’t need especially compelling characters or faces, as with nicely performed voice work, simple ship models moving in the right way, and cinematic cameras utilized in the right fashion, they managed to draw my attention more than most games. Original developers Relic really knocked it out of the park, managing to tell an engaging story about a lost people trying to find their old Homeworld in the depths of space. Speaking of strong and ahead of their time, Homeworld in my opinion still has yet to be matched in impressive strategy game storytelling today. You really feel like an interstellar traveler in these well-written campaigns.

Homeworld remastered collection gameplay update#

It shows how strong and ahead of their time the Homeworld games were, that a few simple touches are all that was needed to update the game into something that is easy to appreciate. They have masterfully touched up what didn’t work today, while knowing when to leave parts that work well even now. What’s really impressive about this is that the developer managed to institute these things while leaving the most important facets, like three-dimensional movement, completely intact. Out with the small antiquated notions of old design ideas, and in with the small modern touches that strategy gamers appreciate. Out with always needing to summon your movement disk to go anywhere, and in with a simple right click that moves the unit to landmarks in space or brings up the disk to move where you need to at your discretion. Out with right-click menus that make simple actions harder to perform then they should, and in with a sleek UI that makes orders easy to issue whether you are changing unit strategy, setting up strike groups, or harvesting resources. While the bells and whistles of all the gorgeous looks set off my inner love of awesome space battles, the real stars of this remaster are the little tweaks to the gameplay Gearbox made to update these classics for the modern day.

Now let’s get to the good part where I talk about exactly why this collection enamored me so much. That’s something in and of itself to appreciate.

The work that went into the audio is subtle, meant to preserve the original experience as much as possible. I didn’t notice an enormous difference in the sound here between the classic soundtracks and the new ones, but that isn’t really a criticism. There are some standout tracks, and at the very least it always properly sets the mood. The soundtrack, on the other hand, I don’t find that impressive. The backgrounds and ships are both gorgeous. The standouts here have to be the backgrounds though the dying planet you leave early in the game sitting in the background perfectly sets the tone for that mission and the rest of the game that follows it. The visual effects and explosions aren’t the best I’ve ever seen, but they still compliment the game well, and even the debris scattered after a ship’s death doesn’t look too bad up close. You can zoom really close into the ship textures now and see things like windows, gun turrets, lights, and nice lines outlining the metal plates that make up the structure of every vessel. If you were told that you were playing a game that came out in 1999 (and 2003 in Homeworld 2’s case) while playing this collection, I expect a great number of you wouldn’t believe it. That is because not only are the original games recreated with glorious graphical and sound updates, the experience has also been tuned up to be acceptable to today’s audience. They were masterpieces then, and they are masterpieces now. It’s a single sentence that pretty much sums up my thoughts.

In the end, I think there’s only one way to say it. I spent several hours thinking about what words I would use to start this review.