The impressions I’m reading after finishing the campaign say “a bit flawed in areas, but it’s at least better than HW2”.
edit: nice art
Aside from the lack of features and terrible AI, I really like the skirmish mode in this game. I imagine the multiplayer is probably more fun (though because of region locks, its near impossible to find a match where I am). Supposedly theres already a patch on the way that will improve the AI, as well as add a new map. If they can improve the skirmish a bit, I think this may end up being my new go-to RTS game. The inter-play and relations between units is really great, taking rock-paper-shotgun to the next level. The artifact gathering object (on by default) is also very interesting and gives the matches an almost king-of-the-hill feel to them.
Stuck on one of the final missions in the campaign though. Despite some super easy early missions, the end of the campaign feels harder than the original Homeworld. At the very least, it certainly requires a bit more finesse.
Edit: Finished the campaign. Second to last mission was very hard, but final mission wasn’t too bad.
If they can make a good skirmish AI, I might be interested in the game. How many players does the largest of the maps support?
I was going to write how I’m liking a lot the campaign, it’s really well done, and very faithful to the Homeworld formula. The sights of the dunes, the one way desperate trip, the superb art design, the middle east music, the animated drawn cutscenes, the radio chatter, the good mission design, it’s all there.
But in the mission 5 when for the first time the enemy have dozens of ships the performance hurts and the game just crashed at the end of said mission, when I needed 5 seconds more to win, making me lose the last 40 minutes of gameplay! :( :S :(
I finished this.
The game is pretty good, one of the most enjoyable RTS I played in a while. Good missions, good pace, cool units, good Homeworld vibe. It isn’t perfect, it’s short so I really would have liked a pair of missions more in the campaign. There are a pair of moments which could be done something special but I felt they really didn’t get at the needed level. I’m talking of
campaign spoilers
a) the plot twist moment, the betrayal. It was cool, but even cooler would have been if the betrayal was done in the middle of the game, instead of a cutscene. Like in one of my favorite moments in gaming, the Tie Fighter mission where your mates start shooting you because the admiral was a traitor.
b) the end mission itself, which was a bit too short and there wasn’t enough payoff in it. The first mission where you due with an enemy super-cruiser felt more epic.
Apart form that the other big problem is the performance. It’s perfectly 10fps below what it should be, even on powerful computers you will have slowdowns once the big armies are deployed by both sides. Gameplay wise, I wanted some kind of “move order and rotate” where I could rotate the final position of the units in the point where I’m sending my units.
BTW, it was a great idea to give the mothership customizable power and make it a possible combat unit.
The AI in skirmish was a bit erratic. In the default mode, where you have to capture and evacuate artifacts, the AI owned me. It raided me, advanced through tech tree fine sending tanks and jets, and it was a pain in the ass. In the other hand I played in the “traditional” skirmish mode too (kill the opponent) and it was much worse.
Thanks for the skirmish report. How many have you played so far? I was put off before release by reports of a terrible skirmish AI. Would love to hear that’s not the case.
Skirmish games? Barely a handful. I’m not a skirmish player in RTS.
DLC - Soban Fleet Pack. Launches on March 22nd.
Adds an entirely new fleet to skirmish and MP.
The store description makes it sound more like a few unit variants and some new voiceovers for the Coalition fleet already in the game as opposed to anything entirely new.
Could be. Heck if I know.
Haven’t bought the game myself. Looks like the forums are a bit salty about paid DLC being announced before the game gets what they perceive as long-needed patching. A couple of posts say that these are basically reskins of four units already in the game that have different abilities and are packaged as a separate faction (with any units that didn’t get unique variants being the stock Coalition units). More like the subfactions in Kane’s Wrath or the commanders in CoH2.
How’s the multiplayer community at this point?
Stats suggest it barely breaks 100 simultaneous players on weekends. Not sure how many of them are playing multiplayer, but I’d expect it to pick up after the patch next week (based on what I read on the forums earlier today).
Wow that’s rough! Will rts ever make a comeback? Man I miss the days when 15k were online for company of heroes. I guess I could play starcraft. I’m presuming that still has in the ten’s of thousands?
Well, this forum is a good example. It’s a good game, but I think I was the only one who played it!
I played it! Wasn’t impressed. Homeworld on a flat plane is still just Homeworld.
-Tom
Some games are just off their era perhaps? I have the same disconnect with most rts games these days, they rocked in the 90’s/early 2000’s but pretty much get a ‘meah’ since (and i do still play the classics every so often, Age of Empires, Dune etc).
So great, then. :P
Given that Homeworld’s claim to fame was being fully 3D (an entirely useless feature, in my opinion), I’m not the least bit surprised that Homeworld’s success isn’t carrying over to Dessert of Khrok. Of course, it can’t help that all those people are probably playing MOBAs now.
-Tom
I’m confused, if one of your biggest complaints about Homeworld is that it is on a 3D plane, then how isn’t Deserts of Kharak a significant improvement?