Going Home

Recently I dipped into my backlog of unfinished games and what did I pull out? A gem from the late nineties known as Homeworld!
I must admit that prior to playing this, I had little knowledge of it (as is often the case when addressing the ever-present issue of my backlog).
In fact the only thing I knew of it was through a friend: Back in 2002, I played him Mars from Gustav Holst's 'The Planets' Suite and he recognized it as the theme to Homeworld Cataclysm. Later, he showed me how to play Homeworld - and upon seeing it, I was impressed to see an RTS set in space where the main base was a massive mothership, the legions at your command were mini-space ships and the whole game incorporated the z-axis. From there, however I knew next to nothing about Homeworld and didn't pursue it further. Years later however I happened to see the original game in a store in Melbourne and snapped it up without much in the way of a second thought. This was back in 2009 - meaning the day I finally go to play Homeworld was ten years after I first became aware of it. Go fig....

Anyway, about the game itself: Firstly, I'm impressed by the graphics in that they've aged quite well. Okay so they may look pixellated in places but it certainly still looks good now than many of the other games from the same era. Also impressive is the presentation with the voice of the mothership, the artwork used in the cutscenes and the interface. I like the use of formations in the combat ships and how upgrades and resources are implemented through the ships. And, of course, there's the use of the z-axis and how it's utilised so well. On a paper it may sound like a bizarre idea to have the z-axis in a RTS but here it works a treat

Of course so far it hasn't all been good: Sometimes the graphics grow so small that it's hard to see what the hell is going on - this is particularly frustrating during the combat sequences when your ships are getting blown to bits and you're trying to get your head around it.
But still this is a first-impressions and so far Homeworld still has a lot going for it - and enough to warrant further investigation.....