Even after all these years, I still remember the first time back '99 at nine years old, I heard the words "No one is left...Everything's gone....Kharak is burning..." with Adagio for Strings playing, and HW1's ambient sounds; it's just such a gut wrenching atmosphere. That and the line in the next briefing "The subject did not survive interrogation" was perfectly vindictive and dare I say welcomed.
I had the same experience at roughly the same age, probably one of the most impactful gaming moments, it truly gave a feeling that every unit lost was irreplaceable and brought everything one step closer doom.
The voice acting combined with adajio for strings is absolutely MINT. 100% everyone involved in the making of this series is what modern day games lack severely
Thanks for showing Homeworld some love. Although I love all the Homeworld games, appreciating their gameplay, style, music and lore, it was Cataclysm / Emergence that was my introduction to the series and made me fall in love with it. Deserts of Kharak also struck a chord with me.
Imma say this, I'm 26 years old so I wasn't really able to play Homeworld on release. I've been a gamer for years and years now playing essentially everything and decided to play the Homeworld Remastered Collection because I fancied another space game to play... I was blown away, not only is it such an enjoyable game to play gameplay wise, but the haunting yet beautiful music and story/setting was amazing... Just the idea of floating through space, alone, with only your own fleet and mothership to keep you safe and not knowing what you may go up against was so exciting I was amazed... Just, you've gotta play it, and the 2nd game too, and then number 3 when that releases this year... Just a masterpiece
16:00 The best way to get rid of Heavy Cruisers fast is to salvage them. They stop attacking once the sixth salvager gets in place, plus you get free access to the most powerful ship in the game. That's why I never had so much trouble with Tenhauser Gate (sending support craft to repair the Bentusi ship also helps). Return to Kharak is another story though. And Chaptel perilous can be a bit tricky. The motto (and meme) in Homeworld is "Salvage everything you encounter!". That applies specially to Heavy Cruisers and Kadeshi multi beam corvetes. Turanic ion arrays are also a nice bonus. Plus it adds a lot to the ongoing story to have unique captured ships present all the way to the last mission. Although its a bit op of an strategy. Even the dynamic difficulty from the remaster can't cope with the humongous fleet you are able to get by the last mission (except Return to Kaharak and Chaptel Perilous, as said earlier). There is even a glitch (only in the remaster) in Karos Graveyard that lets you bypass the fleet size limit to build your own extra capital ships. 22:13 Well, its a way to put it. The dynamic difficulty problems were already present in Homeworld 2, and they were lessened in the remaster. Still, be prepared for Balcora Gate and Balcora. I think that for my pre Homeworld 3 playthorugh I will stick with the classic Homeworld. The remaster's problems get more apparent with each replay, and they really pissed me off the last time, to the point that switching to the non remastered Cataclysm felt like an improvement. Will miss the graphics though. Also, you can easily change the resolution settings to play at 16:9 1440p (4k has some weird issues with ui and the mouse) by messing with some numbers in the registry editor in both, classic Homeworld and Cataclysm. EDIT: BTW, great video!
I had know idea about that "dynamic difficulty" thing. that explains some frustrations I've had playing through the remaster over the years. It does look really damn good though.
I didn't know about the adaptive difficulty either. On my first playthrough at the time I would have followed the mission advice. It kept things naturally in balance and made for an enjoyingly challenging game. I replayed through the remaster, (still not knowing about game mechanics) built a massive fleet then came up against 4 Quaar Jets in the next mission.
I was deciding myself between Homeworld 1 Classic vs Remastered when I started the game a few weeks ago. I went with Remastered because what I enjoyed most of the game is its ambience: the majesty and peaceful solitude of space, and the mysterious encounters along the journey. I think the improved graphics, sound, and UI of the Remastered bolster exactly that.
re:mods. Many of the total conversion ones on the workshop don't work anymore, but if we're talking about pure Homeworld mods I recommend FX:Galaxy. It makes all 8 races playable and adds a bunch of new SinglePlayer content - like Turanic Raider and Taiidan SP missions and a 33-stage Challenge Mode.
i played the og homeworld back in 1999 and i had to give up the game after i couldn't complete the mission where your fleet takes damage from a radioactive nova. i really enjoyed the game nonetheless. i am surprised they made a remaster!
The whole difficulty scaling makes a lot of sense now... the two listed missions were a lot more punishing and difficult than i recall. Specially the defend mission and now i know why. I guess i did too well xD
Easiest way to beat mission 3 in HW remastered for me is just build some (ideally around 3-4 pairs)salvage corvette before you end mission 2,then once u go back to kharak u can order all your salvage corvette to capture all taidan ships (even before the cutscene starts).
Best way to win mission 3 and tenhauser gate is have lots of salvage corvettes. Partly because you can use them to kidnap the enemy ships, but also because the AI tends to prioritise them as targets and so they stop shooting at the Cryo trays / Bentusi exchange
The biggest problems not addressed by the 2.3 fan patch is the physics and AI behavior. The OG game had projectile accuracy based on the bullets, rather than RNG probability. That gave things a different, more authentic feel in the old game. AI-wise, how the ships fought was altered from the original game. One such example is the Kadeshi multi-beam frigates, which would do a barrel roll. This gave them a greater ability to shoot down strikecraft, due to their arcs raking about.
Also, even though the crafts usually mantain formation, they don't behave correctly when fighting, the sphere formation for example still doesn't work as it was originally intended. Ship stats and health are still all over the place, with frigates being heavily nerfed in the Remaster.
Tbf, the plethora of units were a bit off-putting in OG HW. Like playing rock-paper-scissors, except you had 4-5 versions of paper and could only guess how your pedicure scissor would work into cardboard... In the end I was concentrating on Heavy Cruisers and Missile Destroyers because they could eliminate the enemy capital ships before they shank'd my mothership. Homeworld: Cataclysm had a much sleeker unit design with the corvette merge and the streamlined ship functions.
Playing Homeworld Classic on multiplayer is quite an experience. There are less than 10 active players at the moment, but it is still so fun to hop on matches and get good at the game with practice and other players' tips.
Glad you mentioned the issues with the remaster. Personally I much prefer the original, mostly because the physics based combat just works better, even if the camera can be a bit of a pain.
Finally, I have been asking and asking. Great Video Zade. the old voice lines have a certain quality to them, the graininess of the audio makes it sound like the Kushsan's tech barely got them to the stars, yet they persevere to victory. HW2 is where I entered into this series so I'd have to say HW2 even though I think it is an inferior campaign by a large margin. The ship designs are too good, and it spawns so many mods that would allow the creators to make their own games from the experience they gained. So I hope regardless of quality of HW3 that it doesn't get abandoned like DoK did and they release proper mod tools or even full dev tools.
Never knew about the many many issues of homeworld. Did know about the amazing story though. Maybe you could try out nebulous fleet command. Albeit it is in early access, it is a 3D space combat game where you can build your own fleets, and it's pretty punishing but fair.
[[Adagio For Strings starts playing]] But seriously? YES. Play HW. And Cataclysm. Cataclysm is underrated. Edit: In case of Cataclysm it's actually Gearbox's boss Randy Pitchford enacting the change because he wanted to avoid having to deal with Blizzard...and the latter was actually neutral to the game having Cataclysm in its title.
One con about playing the original that was brutal for me and that Zade didn't mention in this video is the potential technical issues you'll encounter on modern machines. I've had so much trouble running it that I don't even remember the last time I had this many problems trying to run a classic game (and it's not the actual original from a retail copy, it's the modified copy from Remastered Collection!). Crashes on certain ship and shell explosions, during specific in-game events in missions, opening certain menus during gameplay, when clicking certain ships, and at a point, seemingly completely at random. I managed to slug my way up to mission 10 by sketchy .dll downloads, command line parameters, registry key edits and many more troubleshooting methods to avoid the crashes that kept striking me, but in the end no matter what I did I encountered an unsolvable crash during mission 10, and after so many issues and this last hurdle I just gave up and restarted the campaign on Remastered (with the 2.3 fanpatch). It is, however, a testament to how good the game was, since I liked it so much that I spent hours fighting it's technical problems on modern hardware and, when I eventually gave up, I still restarted it with the newer version, even with its problems. It is indeed sad that we don't have a definitive way to play the first game, be it a port of the original that actually works on modern hardware (and what baffles me is that Homeworld Emergence from GOG runs on the same engine yet runs almost flawlessly on both of my computers) or a proper Remastered version that doesn't alter the gameplay so much. But it is at the very least better than nothing, and playing Remaster with the 2.3 patch was overall still an awesome experience I would recommend to anyone.
One of the most bonker thing about Homeworld 1 original is how you can abuse the difficulty setting, using one of the most broken unit in the game: *Salvage Covette.* You see, Homeworld 1 doesn't have a limit cap on how many capital ship (From Frigate up to Capital) you can capture, you can capture as many ship as you like, *including broken enemy ship that you can't build.* ( Kadeshi Multi Beam Frigate for example)
I remember on in the old days on the relicnews forums it was kind of a competition to see who could snag the most Kadeshi ships. Those multi-beam frigate of theirs's were absolute monsters and easily made great anti-capital wolfpacks for a while after the Garden. All made possible by the humble Salvage Vette, the true hero of Homeworld.
Great video, I remember my best fried loved and was always playing this game but never got around to it myself. I'm still waiting for you to review the HOMM series and the Might and Magic series as they were my favourites
Good job. If I ever have time to play long RTS games, this one is on my list. Out of curiosity, are you considering covering Minecraft Legends, since that's being marketed as essentially a non-traditional RTS?
I knew to expect the difficulty scaling thing, and yet it never really posed that much of a problem for me. That said, I still completely agree. I want to bring my elite doom fleet that I harvested so carefully, to absolutely flog the enemy into dust.
I remember playing Homeworld, back in the 90s when I was in college. There were only so few of us PC gamers and we all loved it! But it wasnt a very well known title and was difficult to convince others in the later years (post 2000). I've never played homeworld remastered or the second one, but the mods looks amazing. I might just try and play it again before number three is released.
I agree with everything in this video. I wasn't aware of the Player Patch, I'll have to grab that then for when I get back to the game - I never actually finished HW1, my entry into the series was 2 and I didn't seriously play 1 until Remastered. (Has it been that long since it came out? Holy shit.) Mods-wise, my two favourite mods, both for OG HW2, are..... maybe not stuff I'd recommend to everyone, tbh, because they both appeal to my very specific interests. Tactical Fleet Simulator takes the game in a more, well, tactical military direction, adding a lot of new units and modifying existing ones, so there's a lot more options for how you build your fleet. The rock-paper-scissors aspect feels a lot stricter in vanilla HW2, and TFS opens it up a bit with more soft counters and more ways to determine your own doctrine. The other one is Complex, which is, uh..... well, it's right there in the name, it adds an absolute _shitload_ of mechanics (e.g. rather than hard caps per unit type you now have a certain amount of crew and officers which you can use as you see fit, and losses are gradually replenished), and some maps even have _planets_ to colonise, turning it into an honest-to-goodness 4X game - there's one map in particular which may be the biggest map I've ever seen in _any_ RTS, dwarfing even Supreme Commander, where using hyperspace to get around is practically mandatory. It's still possible to end games in a reasonable timeframe on the smaller ones, but if you go all-out on the big maps, you could be in for the long haul. Both mods are built on the existing HW2 faction framework, so you still have the Hiigarans and the Vaygr with their existing units, and the new models generally (with a few exceptions, particularly in Complex) fit those aesthetics, so they may not be the best for recording good footage (although both of them do add some pretty capital ships that could make for some dramatic background battles), but I enjoy playing them very much. Like I said though, they both have some strong appeal to my specific sensibilities, they're definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
Very good Retrospective Analysis Zade. I never played the Homeworld games this is very informative in case I buy the new HW3. I enjoy playing RTS games and enjoy watching your videos. :)
I can think of two good reasons - 1) the product was actually good & 2) it was released prior to the advent of social media (where everything is hyped into oblivion).
You can't cover Homeworld 2 without covering Homeworld 2 Complex and its improved fork, Homeworld 2 Complex Simple. The madman behind Complex Simple went as far as to add a functional pilot mode into the game.
I'm probably too late about this, and TH-cam may not make my comment properly visible (cuz they seem to only appear in the deepest of the dept of the comments), but Gearbox Software is pretty notorious for not really caring about the games they put out. Other than games like the Half-Life 1 expansions and the Brothers in Arms series for example, almost every game they put out after Hell's Highway, they basically didn't care making them unless it's Borderlands (I mean heck they literally used the original budget for Aliens - Colonial Marines just to make the original Borderlands), so it's not really surprising that Gearbox barely fixed anything in Homeworld - Remastered Collection. Moving on from the small PSA, this was a pretty good review. I've never player the Homeworld series, mainly cuz it looked too complicated to play (I've always been used to playing the typical top-down RTS games like C&C and StarCraft for example, so the more 3D looking perspective and the other unique gameplay elements scared me off a bit), but watching this helped me a bit to understand that it's not really that complicated, just unique and functional for this type of game. So yeah I may give this one a try someday, especially since I really would like to try out more of Relic's games (I own Dawn of War I GOTY edition and Company of Heroes 1, tho that game sadly wouldn't install on my PC, so I've been thinking of getting the Steam version, but yeah these 3 plus more, even Space Marine I'd really like to play in the future), tho idk if the original is also available on online stores or just the remaster (especially GOG), so I may either find a physical copy online or just get the remaster.
I knew there was a serious sdue with Remaster when I did the Asteroid mission and I had zero fleet on the other side. When I played the original I lost zero ships. I have always hated how they made all capital ships so easy to kill.
I really tried playing the original, but it crashed too much. Eventually, it crashed every time after an explosion. I had to play the remaster (didn't know about the patch) but still I really enjoyed it.
weirdly enough, my very first campaign run through felt almost perfect. had to retry final few a couple times but that it still felt like a fair challenge. doing a second one right now purposely maxing out caps and capturing beyond it and I admit the 15 assault frigates in the ghost ship mission gave me a pause but it’s still not too bad right now. i will see. I was going to mention the unrelenting Vagyr swarms here as where I definitely felt dynamic difficulty sting hard but ill wait for the next video-
Buy game(s), install, enter Homeworld 1999 version, game does a CTD and removes night light mode after attacking the first group of ships in the tutorial. As someone who has not played any Homeworld game, playing the remastered version may prove to be the better choice as it's bound to be less buggy? I didn't mind the dated graphics at all, but i do mind having game crashes.
The remastered graphics are definitely appealing. But regarding the originals they're actually attached to the remastered purchase, and as far as I know they launch fine.
Regarding the dynamic difficulty, let's talk about HW2, since the remasters are build upon that engine, so HW2R should be the closest to the original: It used to be very tightly balanced. There was some room for error, but if you didn't understand micro-managing Strike Craft, you could get stuck around mission 5 or 6. You were supposed to read the manual and it would take you several afternoons/evenings to figure out a mission and improve your mechanics. You may even want to replay a mission, just so you can do better and carry more RU to the next. HW2R doesn't have a manual anymore, nobody reads these anyways these days, the tutorial still only teaches you the basics, and "hard games" don't appeal to the masses anymore anyways. The "gaming landscape" has changed and HW just doesn't fit with some major rework. The "other solution" was making the games stupid easy. I recently watched a streamer, who has to be one of the worst HW players of all times, and he made it through 2/3 of HW2R without any issues (I'm still waiting for the finale). All he did was building random units, sending them all to attack and maybe clicking an objective. No strategy, no scouting, bad unit choices, bad unit grouping, fleets scattered all over the place, orders that made things even worse .... RU would run low occasionally, but the auto-collect at the end of a mission was always more than enough to make up for any losses. It was painful to watch, but educational. You can essentially start a mission, figure out the enemy fleet composition, restart, queue up the appropriate counter ships and go AFK for 90% of the time. I tried it and it even works in most HW1R missions. HW is different from other RTS games and takes some time to get used to, but once you're used to it, there is no excuse for not beating the remastered campaigns. It's so stupidly easy compared to the originals, I just don't know how to put it into words.
I replayed Homeworld 1, stolen so many ships that the last mission was SO hard due to the PC having enough to almost one shot my Mothership lol Playing Deserts now :)
I guess it depends on the computer. It usualy works fine in mine. Although it requires a community patch (Hardware acclereation patch) to be able to switch to a non software renderer. The GOG version has that already applied as far as I know.
@@igorokinamujika2073 I made it run but had a lot of issues with controls and when screen is moving, I will put my old computer with CTR to play the game as it should be played in windows 98 lol
@@diego2817 Just tried myself, and got it working perfectly in a Windows 11 PC with a physical edition. You will need this: 1-Update the game to the 1.01 patch. (not sure if this is necessay, but I am running it in that version). 2-Get the "Hardware Acceleration Fix". Its available in pcgamingwiki. 3- Set this arguments in your game shortcut path: C:\Sierra\Cataclysm\cataclysm.exe /heap 256000000 /enableSSE /triple /disableAVI /safeGL Of course, the firs part has to change if cataclysm.exe is in a different path 4-Allways execute the shortcut as admin (there is an option ion compatibility to do so allways. 5- Be sure to go to "Personalised effects" or something like that (my version is in castillian so it may vary in english) and enable all the options that improve visual (I think thats all of them except instant transition and pointed transparency) as some are disabled by default. The following are optional if you want to run the game at higher resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio, I think they also work with the GOG version. 6- On options-> Image set the renderer to Opengl and the resolution to 1600x1200 32 bit. 7- Close the game, go to start and search for regedit. Execute it. 8- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Cataclysm 9- Edit the numbers of screenWidth and screenHeight to your liking. I recommend not going higher than 2560 and 1440 respectively. Guess I misremembered how simple it was to set it up, as I usually install it once when doing a clean install of the OS and then forget about it. Plus I have all the necessary patches and shortcuts saved for ease.
@@Zade_95 Yes, that's the one I got. I even tried windows 10 startup crash patch... Still didn't make it work. At least, I can make the game work on Virtual Machine...
I hadn't heard of Homeworld until the remastered collection, bought it...and played the first two missions before never touching it again. When I got it it was such a buggy, unusable mess, with the first missions being ridiculous with strike craft formations that just wouldn't shoot that it completely took me out of the series for years. I'm planning on going back to it, and I love the lore, but holy hell was the remastered collection an INCREDIBLY bad game for newcomers looking to enter the franchise.
@@Zade_95 looking back you did actually do a homeworld 2 video that I missed, however it was sponsored so not a proper analysis, so I was half wrong lol
a nish possibility,fairy empire mod for the remastered version (and yes,this mod is still in develop,but the mod maker can't transfer the work from it's lower version of hw2 remastered version,but she is trying to get it done on the newest hw2 remastered version)
Ironically; space is filled with countless comets, asteroids, and meteors for space travel to be real. It's still entertaining, but NASA's dream will never be a reality. Hell is their destination!
13:20 did you talk about Normandy's demise twice?
lmao woops... two takes!
Even after all these years, I still remember the first time back '99 at nine years old, I heard the words "No one is left...Everything's gone....Kharak is burning..." with Adagio for Strings playing, and HW1's ambient sounds; it's just such a gut wrenching atmosphere. That and the line in the next briefing "The subject did not survive interrogation" was perfectly vindictive and dare I say welcomed.
The feels from that mission is real.
I had the same experience at roughly the same age, probably one of the most impactful gaming moments, it truly gave a feeling that every unit lost was irreplaceable and brought everything one step closer doom.
The voice acting combined with adajio for strings is absolutely MINT. 100% everyone involved in the making of this series is what modern day games lack severely
Thanks for showing Homeworld some love. Although I love all the Homeworld games, appreciating their gameplay, style, music and lore, it was Cataclysm / Emergence that was my introduction to the series and made me fall in love with it. Deserts of Kharak also struck a chord with me.
Imma say this, I'm 26 years old so I wasn't really able to play Homeworld on release. I've been a gamer for years and years now playing essentially everything and decided to play the Homeworld Remastered Collection because I fancied another space game to play... I was blown away, not only is it such an enjoyable game to play gameplay wise, but the haunting yet beautiful music and story/setting was amazing... Just the idea of floating through space, alone, with only your own fleet and mothership to keep you safe and not knowing what you may go up against was so exciting I was amazed...
Just, you've gotta play it, and the 2nd game too, and then number 3 when that releases this year... Just a masterpiece
16:00 The best way to get rid of Heavy Cruisers fast is to salvage them. They stop attacking once the sixth salvager gets in place, plus you get free access to the most powerful ship in the game. That's why I never had so much trouble with Tenhauser Gate (sending support craft to repair the Bentusi ship also helps). Return to Kharak is another story though. And Chaptel perilous can be a bit tricky.
The motto (and meme) in Homeworld is "Salvage everything you encounter!". That applies specially to Heavy Cruisers and Kadeshi multi beam corvetes. Turanic ion arrays are also a nice bonus. Plus it adds a lot to the ongoing story to have unique captured ships present all the way to the last mission.
Although its a bit op of an strategy. Even the dynamic difficulty from the remaster can't cope with the humongous fleet you are able to get by the last mission (except Return to Kaharak and Chaptel Perilous, as said earlier). There is even a glitch (only in the remaster) in Karos Graveyard that lets you bypass the fleet size limit to build your own extra capital ships.
22:13 Well, its a way to put it. The dynamic difficulty problems were already present in Homeworld 2, and they were lessened in the remaster. Still, be prepared for Balcora Gate and Balcora.
I think that for my pre Homeworld 3 playthorugh I will stick with the classic Homeworld. The remaster's problems get more apparent with each replay, and they really pissed me off the last time, to the point that switching to the non remastered Cataclysm felt like an improvement. Will miss the graphics though.
Also, you can easily change the resolution settings to play at 16:9 1440p (4k has some weird issues with ui and the mouse) by messing with some numbers in the registry editor in both, classic Homeworld and Cataclysm.
EDIT: BTW, great video!
Hi! Can you tell me how to change the resolution in HW classic towards one that is not present on the game GUI?
I had know idea about that "dynamic difficulty" thing. that explains some frustrations I've had playing through the remaster over the years. It does look really damn good though.
Same here (never knew about the "dynamic difficulty").
Suppose that just cements my reputation as a (professional) filthy casual. :D
I didn't know about the adaptive difficulty either. On my first playthrough at the time I would have followed the mission advice. It kept things naturally in balance and made for an enjoyingly challenging game. I replayed through the remaster, (still not knowing about game mechanics) built a massive fleet then came up against 4 Quaar Jets in the next mission.
I swear the Original game had dynamic difficulty in the same vein, but maybe I’m just misremembering.. it’s been a few years.
I was deciding myself between Homeworld 1 Classic vs Remastered when I started the game a few weeks ago. I went with Remastered because what I enjoyed most of the game is its ambience: the majesty and peaceful solitude of space, and the mysterious encounters along the journey. I think the improved graphics, sound, and UI of the Remastered bolster exactly that.
re:mods. Many of the total conversion ones on the workshop don't work anymore, but if we're talking about pure Homeworld mods I recommend FX:Galaxy.
It makes all 8 races playable and adds a bunch of new SinglePlayer content - like Turanic Raider and Taiidan SP missions and a 33-stage Challenge Mode.
i played the og homeworld back in 1999 and i had to give up the game after i couldn't complete the mission where your fleet takes damage from a radioactive nova. i really enjoyed the game nonetheless. i am surprised they made a remaster!
Gosh, thank you covering the HW series again. This game series is very close to my heart.
My pleasure! There's more where that came from soon :)
@@Zade_95 your content is always enjoyable. Looking forward to it!
I was wondering why the difficulty in the remake was such a pain in the butt, thanks for explaining
my pleasure, thanks for watching!
The whole difficulty scaling makes a lot of sense now... the two listed missions were a lot more punishing and difficult than i recall. Specially the defend mission and now i know why. I guess i did too well xD
Easiest way to beat mission 3 in HW remastered for me is just build some (ideally around 3-4 pairs)salvage corvette before you end mission 2,then once u go back to kharak u can order all your salvage corvette to capture all taidan ships (even before the cutscene starts).
Best way to win mission 3 and tenhauser gate is have lots of salvage corvettes. Partly because you can use them to kidnap the enemy ships, but also because the AI tends to prioritise them as targets and so they stop shooting at the Cryo trays / Bentusi exchange
The biggest problems not addressed by the 2.3 fan patch is the physics and AI behavior. The OG game had projectile accuracy based on the bullets, rather than RNG probability. That gave things a different, more authentic feel in the old game. AI-wise, how the ships fought was altered from the original game. One such example is the Kadeshi multi-beam frigates, which would do a barrel roll. This gave them a greater ability to shoot down strikecraft, due to their arcs raking about.
Also, even though the crafts usually mantain formation, they don't behave correctly when fighting, the sphere formation for example still doesn't work as it was originally intended.
Ship stats and health are still all over the place, with frigates being heavily nerfed in the Remaster.
Tbf, the plethora of units were a bit off-putting in OG HW. Like playing rock-paper-scissors, except you had 4-5 versions of paper and could only guess how your pedicure scissor would work into cardboard... In the end I was concentrating on Heavy Cruisers and Missile Destroyers because they could eliminate the enemy capital ships before they shank'd my mothership. Homeworld: Cataclysm had a much sleeker unit design with the corvette merge and the streamlined ship functions.
Still remember that moment in the campaign all these years later.
Playing Homeworld Classic on multiplayer is quite an experience. There are less than 10 active players at the moment, but it is still so fun to hop on matches and get good at the game with practice and other players' tips.
Glad you mentioned the issues with the remaster. Personally I much prefer the original, mostly because the physics based combat just works better, even if the camera can be a bit of a pain.
I'm playing Homeworld Emergence for the first time, absolutely love this series.
The Gritty Homeworld. A brilliant game with even more trauma thrown in!
One of those games that's been on my ''I should get around to that' for years.
Finally, I have been asking and asking.
Great Video Zade. the old voice lines have a certain quality to them, the graininess of the audio makes it sound like the Kushsan's tech barely got them to the stars, yet they persevere to victory.
HW2 is where I entered into this series so I'd have to say HW2 even though I think it is an inferior campaign by a large margin. The ship designs are too good, and it spawns so many mods that would allow the creators to make their own games from the experience they gained.
So I hope regardless of quality of HW3 that it doesn't get abandoned like DoK did and they release proper mod tools or even full dev tools.
Hey thanks for the support mate - really appreciate it!
Never knew about the many many issues of homeworld. Did know about the amazing story though. Maybe you could try out nebulous fleet command. Albeit it is in early access, it is a 3D space combat game where you can build your own fleets, and it's pretty punishing but fair.
Superb video. Gave me all the info i needed and more🎉
thanks mate!
It looks cool, but I'm looking forward to Nebulous fleet command.
The music and the art direction
[[Adagio For Strings starts playing]]
But seriously? YES. Play HW. And Cataclysm. Cataclysm is underrated.
Edit: In case of Cataclysm it's actually Gearbox's boss Randy Pitchford enacting the change because he wanted to avoid having to deal with Blizzard...and the latter was actually neutral to the game having Cataclysm in its title.
One con about playing the original that was brutal for me and that Zade didn't mention in this video is the potential technical issues you'll encounter on modern machines. I've had so much trouble running it that I don't even remember the last time I had this many problems trying to run a classic game (and it's not the actual original from a retail copy, it's the modified copy from Remastered Collection!). Crashes on certain ship and shell explosions, during specific in-game events in missions, opening certain menus during gameplay, when clicking certain ships, and at a point, seemingly completely at random. I managed to slug my way up to mission 10 by sketchy .dll downloads, command line parameters, registry key edits and many more troubleshooting methods to avoid the crashes that kept striking me, but in the end no matter what I did I encountered an unsolvable crash during mission 10, and after so many issues and this last hurdle I just gave up and restarted the campaign on Remastered (with the 2.3 fanpatch).
It is, however, a testament to how good the game was, since I liked it so much that I spent hours fighting it's technical problems on modern hardware and, when I eventually gave up, I still restarted it with the newer version, even with its problems.
It is indeed sad that we don't have a definitive way to play the first game, be it a port of the original that actually works on modern hardware (and what baffles me is that Homeworld Emergence from GOG runs on the same engine yet runs almost flawlessly on both of my computers) or a proper Remastered version that doesn't alter the gameplay so much. But it is at the very least better than nothing, and playing Remaster with the 2.3 patch was overall still an awesome experience I would recommend to anyone.
One of the most bonker thing about Homeworld 1 original is how you can abuse the difficulty setting, using one of the most broken unit in the game: *Salvage Covette.*
You see, Homeworld 1 doesn't have a limit cap on how many capital ship (From Frigate up to Capital) you can capture, you can capture as many ship as you like, *including broken enemy ship that you can't build.* ( Kadeshi Multi Beam Frigate for example)
I remember on in the old days on the relicnews forums it was kind of a competition to see who could snag the most Kadeshi ships. Those multi-beam frigate of theirs's were absolute monsters and easily made great anti-capital wolfpacks for a while after the Garden. All made possible by the humble Salvage Vette, the true hero of Homeworld.
i've played the HW1 remastered and didn't have troubles until the final mission. but didn't know about adaptive difficulty.
Great video, I remember my best fried loved and was always playing this game but never got around to it myself. I'm still waiting for you to review the HOMM series and the Might and Magic series as they were my favourites
Thanks mate :)
Yes, yes it is worth playing. The story is amazing.
Good job. If I ever have time to play long RTS games, this one is on my list. Out of curiosity, are you considering covering Minecraft Legends, since that's being marketed as essentially a non-traditional RTS?
HMMM i might do, depends on how I'm doing for time. I'll see if I can squeeze it into the schedule, especially since Blackbird is developing it!
@@Zade_95 lol, I had thought "maybe he will because BBI is developing" and then completely forgot to mention it in my original comment.
I knew to expect the difficulty scaling thing, and yet it never really posed that much of a problem for me.
That said, I still completely agree. I want to bring my elite doom fleet that I harvested so carefully, to absolutely flog the enemy into dust.
i usually use the capture ships to hold and or capture the things to hopefully thin em out quicker. maybe get some free destro's out of it lol
FX Galaxy is one of the best HWRM mods out there
I remember playing Homeworld, back in the 90s when I was in college. There were only so few of us PC gamers and we all loved it! But it wasnt a very well known title and was difficult to convince others in the later years (post 2000).
I've never played homeworld remastered or the second one, but the mods looks amazing. I might just try and play it again before number three is released.
You should! Can probably pick it up cheap on sale :)
I agree with everything in this video. I wasn't aware of the Player Patch, I'll have to grab that then for when I get back to the game - I never actually finished HW1, my entry into the series was 2 and I didn't seriously play 1 until Remastered. (Has it been that long since it came out? Holy shit.)
Mods-wise, my two favourite mods, both for OG HW2, are..... maybe not stuff I'd recommend to everyone, tbh, because they both appeal to my very specific interests. Tactical Fleet Simulator takes the game in a more, well, tactical military direction, adding a lot of new units and modifying existing ones, so there's a lot more options for how you build your fleet. The rock-paper-scissors aspect feels a lot stricter in vanilla HW2, and TFS opens it up a bit with more soft counters and more ways to determine your own doctrine.
The other one is Complex, which is, uh..... well, it's right there in the name, it adds an absolute _shitload_ of mechanics (e.g. rather than hard caps per unit type you now have a certain amount of crew and officers which you can use as you see fit, and losses are gradually replenished), and some maps even have _planets_ to colonise, turning it into an honest-to-goodness 4X game - there's one map in particular which may be the biggest map I've ever seen in _any_ RTS, dwarfing even Supreme Commander, where using hyperspace to get around is practically mandatory. It's still possible to end games in a reasonable timeframe on the smaller ones, but if you go all-out on the big maps, you could be in for the long haul.
Both mods are built on the existing HW2 faction framework, so you still have the Hiigarans and the Vaygr with their existing units, and the new models generally (with a few exceptions, particularly in Complex) fit those aesthetics, so they may not be the best for recording good footage (although both of them do add some pretty capital ships that could make for some dramatic background battles), but I enjoy playing them very much. Like I said though, they both have some strong appeal to my specific sensibilities, they're definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
Very good Retrospective Analysis Zade. I never played the Homeworld games this is very informative in case I buy the new HW3. I enjoy playing RTS games and enjoy watching your videos. :)
The only game that I always have installed on my PC since it was released...from time to time I like to play a bit! 😉 Nostalgia I guess!
I can think of two good reasons - 1) the product was actually good & 2) it was released prior to the advent of social media (where everything is hyped into oblivion).
You can't cover Homeworld 2 without covering Homeworld 2 Complex and its improved fork, Homeworld 2 Complex Simple. The madman behind Complex Simple went as far as to add a functional pilot mode into the game.
Sounds great - I'll be sure to try it!
I'm probably too late about this, and TH-cam may not make my comment properly visible (cuz they seem to only appear in the deepest of the dept of the comments), but Gearbox Software is pretty notorious for not really caring about the games they put out. Other than games like the Half-Life 1 expansions and the Brothers in Arms series for example, almost every game they put out after Hell's Highway, they basically didn't care making them unless it's Borderlands (I mean heck they literally used the original budget for Aliens - Colonial Marines just to make the original Borderlands), so it's not really surprising that Gearbox barely fixed anything in Homeworld - Remastered Collection.
Moving on from the small PSA, this was a pretty good review. I've never player the Homeworld series, mainly cuz it looked too complicated to play (I've always been used to playing the typical top-down RTS games like C&C and StarCraft for example, so the more 3D looking perspective and the other unique gameplay elements scared me off a bit), but watching this helped me a bit to understand that it's not really that complicated, just unique and functional for this type of game. So yeah I may give this one a try someday, especially since I really would like to try out more of Relic's games (I own Dawn of War I GOTY edition and Company of Heroes 1, tho that game sadly wouldn't install on my PC, so I've been thinking of getting the Steam version, but yeah these 3 plus more, even Space Marine I'd really like to play in the future), tho idk if the original is also available on online stores or just the remaster (especially GOG), so I may either find a physical copy online or just get the remaster.
The scaling issue is why I stopped midway through my Homeworld Remastered campaign. I can't understand how they ever thought that was a good idea.
Yeah I get that. Got super annoying lol. Players patch to the rescue!
Love the videos, just upped to Knight level :)
Yoo thank you man. Appreciate ya!
I knew there was a serious sdue with Remaster when I did the Asteroid mission and I had zero fleet on the other side. When I played the original I lost zero ships. I have always hated how they made all capital ships so easy to kill.
I really tried playing the original, but it crashed too much. Eventually, it crashed every time after an explosion. I had to play the remaster (didn't know about the patch) but still I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, my original retail copy hasn't worked since WinXP.
weirdly enough, my very first campaign run through felt almost perfect. had to retry final few a couple times but that it still felt like a fair challenge. doing a second one right now purposely maxing out caps and capturing beyond it and I admit the 15 assault frigates in the ghost ship mission gave me a pause but it’s still not too bad right now. i will see. I was going to mention the unrelenting Vagyr swarms here as where I definitely felt dynamic difficulty sting hard but ill wait for the next video-
Excellent video. It's definitely the original for me.
Thank you! :)
ah, so many good memories
RIP Sierra, we'll see if Relic can pull their heads out of their collective ass and live up to the legacy of their founding.
Well, shit.
Now I'm dying for the reviews proper of the games (ESPECIALLY "Cataclysm"/"Emergence"!).
Won't be far away!
Very cozy video
8:23 What game is this?
Impossible Creatures. Another Relic classic!
Buy game(s), install, enter Homeworld 1999 version, game does a CTD and removes night light mode after attacking the first group of ships in the tutorial. As someone who has not played any Homeworld game, playing the remastered version may prove to be the better choice as it's bound to be less buggy? I didn't mind the dated graphics at all, but i do mind having game crashes.
The remastered graphics are definitely appealing. But regarding the originals they're actually attached to the remastered purchase, and as far as I know they launch fine.
@@admiralmallard7500 Alright then the issue is on my side, thanks.
Completed homeworld 1 remastered without player patch .. tough but not very tough
I remember trying to play homeworld and being overwhelmed by the 3d space, maybe ill give it another shot
Once you figure it out it's pretty rewarding!
Regarding the dynamic difficulty, let's talk about HW2, since the remasters are build upon that engine, so HW2R should be the closest to the original:
It used to be very tightly balanced. There was some room for error, but if you didn't understand micro-managing Strike Craft, you could get stuck around mission 5 or 6. You were supposed to read the manual and it would take you several afternoons/evenings to figure out a mission and improve your mechanics. You may even want to replay a mission, just so you can do better and carry more RU to the next.
HW2R doesn't have a manual anymore, nobody reads these anyways these days, the tutorial still only teaches you the basics, and "hard games" don't appeal to the masses anymore anyways. The "gaming landscape" has changed and HW just doesn't fit with some major rework. The "other solution" was making the games stupid easy.
I recently watched a streamer, who has to be one of the worst HW players of all times, and he made it through 2/3 of HW2R without any issues (I'm still waiting for the finale). All he did was building random units, sending them all to attack and maybe clicking an objective. No strategy, no scouting, bad unit choices, bad unit grouping, fleets scattered all over the place, orders that made things even worse .... RU would run low occasionally, but the auto-collect at the end of a mission was always more than enough to make up for any losses. It was painful to watch, but educational.
You can essentially start a mission, figure out the enemy fleet composition, restart, queue up the appropriate counter ships and go AFK for 90% of the time. I tried it and it even works in most HW1R missions.
HW is different from other RTS games and takes some time to get used to, but once you're used to it, there is no excuse for not beating the remastered campaigns. It's so stupidly easy compared to the originals, I just don't know how to put it into words.
I played the remaster and saved all thr cryo trays 1st try, I did play it multiple times ~2000 though
HW should have been made into a movie years ago!
I replayed Homeworld 1, stolen so many ships that the last mission was SO hard due to the PC having enough to almost one shot my Mothership lol
Playing Deserts now :)
Kapisi! Gotta love a battlecarrier
I would choose the remastered over the original, and im a veteran on the games. Just tor the visuals.
The best homeworks is cataclysm, but is so hard to play it today and making it run
I guess it depends on the computer. It usualy works fine in mine. Although it requires a community patch (Hardware acclereation patch) to be able to switch to a non software renderer. The GOG version has that already applied as far as I know.
I've picked it up on GOG so I'll see how we go. Keen to try it!
@@igorokinamujika2073 I made it run but had a lot of issues with controls and when screen is moving, I will put my old computer with CTR to play the game as it should be played in windows 98 lol
@@diego2817 Just tried myself, and got it working perfectly in a Windows 11 PC with a physical edition.
You will need this:
1-Update the game to the 1.01 patch. (not sure if this is necessay, but I am running it in that version).
2-Get the "Hardware Acceleration Fix". Its available in pcgamingwiki.
3- Set this arguments in your game shortcut path:
C:\Sierra\Cataclysm\cataclysm.exe /heap 256000000 /enableSSE /triple /disableAVI /safeGL
Of course, the firs part has to change if cataclysm.exe is in a different path
4-Allways execute the shortcut as admin (there is an option ion compatibility to do so allways.
5- Be sure to go to "Personalised effects" or something like that (my version is in castillian so it may vary in english) and enable all the options that improve visual (I think thats all of them except instant transition and pointed transparency) as some are disabled by default.
The following are optional if you want to run the game at higher resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio, I think they also work with the GOG version.
6- On options-> Image set the renderer to Opengl and the resolution to 1600x1200 32 bit.
7- Close the game, go to start and search for regedit. Execute it.
8- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Sierra On-Line\Cataclysm
9- Edit the numbers of screenWidth and screenHeight to your liking. I recommend not going higher than 2560 and 1440 respectively.
Guess I misremembered how simple it was to set it up, as I usually install it once when doing a clean install of the OS and then forget about it. Plus I have all the necessary patches and shortcuts saved for ease.
@@igorokinamujika2073 gracias Igor, voy a tratar a ver cómo me va.
Well then. I'm satisfied I've completed both without the player patch 😂
Though I never knew HW1R had the same scaling system.
gaming god
@@Zade_95 I wish! But thanks anyway 😂
Yes
Will they ever remaster Homeword Emergence?
I don't think so. I think they lost the code lol
@@Zade_95
Oh...
That's sad...
I can NOT play it on Windows 10...
Do you own it on GOG? I think it includes a pacth to make it run
@@Zade_95
Yes, that's the one I got.
I even tried windows 10 startup crash patch...
Still didn't make it work.
At least, I can make the game work on Virtual Machine...
where can we download the players patch?
Steam / ModDB
@@Zade_95 thank you
its space opera yo
Not a criticism, but your videos are a little quiet lately, I have to reach for the volume on the speakers even when YT is maxxed out.
Hmm thanks the heads up, I'll be sure to keep an eye on it next time!
Yes. Its still as good as it ever was.
The answer is yes. It will be worth playing in 2033 as well.
And I am still waiting for GoG to release Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 4 games collection..
I am the strategy master of the third dimension
Lol I've been playing the remastered campaign of homeworld 1 I just assumed the original was as unforgiving as the remaster
I hadn't heard of Homeworld until the remastered collection, bought it...and played the first two missions before never touching it again. When I got it it was such a buggy, unusable mess, with the first missions being ridiculous with strike craft formations that just wouldn't shoot that it completely took me out of the series for years. I'm planning on going back to it, and I love the lore, but holy hell was the remastered collection an INCREDIBLY bad game for newcomers looking to enter the franchise.
Next video soon? Its been 10 months where is the homeworld video you talked about...
😓 I know... I know...
@@Zade_95 looking back you did actually do a homeworld 2 video that I missed, however it was sponsored so not a proper analysis, so I was half wrong lol
a nish possibility,fairy empire mod for the remastered version (and yes,this mod is still in develop,but the mod maker can't transfer the work from it's lower version of hw2 remastered version,but she is trying to get it done on the newest hw2 remastered version)
Bentusi
Ironically; space is filled with countless comets, asteroids, and meteors for space travel to be real. It's still entertaining, but NASA's dream will never be a reality. Hell is their destination!
U are a classic
Gearbox has failed this much, and Deserts of Kharak doesn't even have key rebinding...
And we trust them to make HW3 not a dumpster fire?
Guess what, game in the past were hard and love that, today people go and comoplain to a developer because it fail a mission twice lol