Homeworld

aka: Spaghetti Ball
Moby ID: 296
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Conversion (official) Included in Special Edition

Description official descriptions

A discovery is about to turn the culture of Kharak upside down. The people, Kushan, are not native to Kharak at all. The discovery of the Guidestone is the ultimate proof that Kushan had came from another solar system, far away. And it's time to go home. The Mothership project united the world. Part base, part construction yard, the Mothership is capable of everything, as you never know what you will find in the void...

Homeworld is a 3D strategy game where you control a mothership and a fleet as you harvest resources, conduct research, and build up your fleet that can vary from small, fast, and nimble scouts to lumbering heavy cruisers. Move your camera in full 3D (up/down/around) and issue full 3D movement orders. Specify 3D formations for your ships, employ cloaked vessels to ambush enemy or employ salvage vessels to capture enemy ships, or defend against them with prox sensors and mines. There is a 17-mission single player campaign, or you can play online in true internet multi-player.

Spellings

  • 家园 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

175 People (132 developers, 43 thanks) · View all

Senior Vice President
General Manager
Producer, Ext. Development
Director of Marketing
Product Managers
PR Manager
Creative Services
QA Manager
QA Supervisor
QA Leads
QA Analysts
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 90% (based on 35 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 96 ratings with 10 reviews)

A fresh, new perspective on the otherwise stale RTS world.

The Good
Homeworld is certainly unique in its approach - a realtime strategy game, set in a true 3D environment. In order to survive in this game, one must abandon the conventional 2D thinking involved with most RTS games. The game maps are set in large cubes, instead of a flat map - enemies can, and often do, attack from above and below. Intelligent resource management is also key - quite often, you only have just enough resources in a given mission to build what you need.

The graphics are quite crisp, the music is wonderful, and the voice acting is also very well done, while at times a bit emotionless (although I believe this to be intentional).

There is also a very extensive backstory and plot to this game - while a bit on the thick side, the backstory in the manual is well worth a read in its entirety.

And my favorite part? Large battles in space - the ships move smoothly through their formations, and combined with the ambiant music the battles become more of a well-orchestrated dance, than a fierce dogfight.

The Bad
At times, managing enormous fleets can get a bit cumbersome; keeping track of all of your units at all times can be a bit of a challenge.

Also, some missions had rather obvious "triggers" - i.e., you complete a certain action, which triggers an attack that you're (usually) unprepared for. But to its credit, even an overwhelming battle can be won with the proper strategy.

The 3D interface can be a bit frustrating at times to the new player, but the tutorial explains the game world very well. The initial learning curve may deter some casual players, but it doesn't take long to become accustomed to it.

The Bottom Line
This game will grab onto you, pull you in, and refuse to let go.

Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2001

Great game, but be ready to spend a lot of time at the screen

The Good
This is the best game I 've ever played. The screens are beautiful and are so surreal. The mothership is home and the battles to keep her are awesome. If you buy the game, you get Prima's Official Strategy Guide. It's a must to not only stay alive, but to learn the tactics for every ship in the fleet.

The Bad
I love the game, but some could consider it very time consuming. It could take some players months to reach the Homeworld. Be ready to spend hours to learn the strategy and tactics.

The Bottom Line
It's worth the money, ten fold. The 3D's are the greatest. You will see why Homeworld was game of the year.

Windows · by Ken Bodiford (1) · 2003

Revolutionary!

The Good
Homeworld is a RTS game that doesn't play like an RTS game. Skipping the standard-build base, mine resources, build army, kill enemy- order of events; Homeworld creates a unique RTS experience by running the player through a continuous series of missions that arc over course of the game. Your fleet remains intact from mission to mission (barring ships destroyed in combat), and as the game progresses you steadily gain power, as do the enemies you face. This approach, along with Homeworld's revolutionary 3-D space movement system and the ship AI make it a top notch RTS game that is engrossing and very enjoyable to play.

The Bad
However, the game is not without its faults. The 3-D movement interface has a large learning curve so don't expect to get good at it until 2-3 missions into the game. Additionally there is very little differentiation between the two "sides" you can play. Ship design differs radically but actual ship capabilities, weapons and systems are virtually identical except for a few not very effective "special" ships that are unique to one of the two alien races.

The Bottom Line
This game is a real time strategy game set in space. It combines elements of campaign based strategy games with the RTS gameplay features of resource collection, technology research and fleet construction.

Windows · by Joseph Bell (31) · 2000

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Not a 4X game SharkD (425) Feb 4, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Homeworld appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Cut content

When asked, the development team at Relic said the game will feature 5 different races: Taiidan, Kushan,Turanic Raiders, Kadeshi, and T-mat. In the final version, the T-mat was absent. Although the modders community have found a reference to some of their ships in the source, Relic never released more info about them.

Music

The British rock band Yes approached Alex Garden to have their coming song put into an idea for the game. They both came into an agreement liking the idea of how Homeworld is pretty down to reality ('we're all finding a way home') and for this specially this game, Yes produced the song Homeworld / The Ladder which was the newest single of 1999 and the opening song for their album The Ladder. On the album was a Homeworld trailer.

Online servers

The game's online servers (which were hosted on World Opponent Network, or WON) were shut down on 1 November 2008 in the wake of WON's total closure.

References

The game contains a reference to the movie Blade Runner. After playing past mission 7, look at your autosaves. Some of them will have a prefix of "Tenhauser Gate," which is part of the dying words of replicant Roy Batty.

Source code

On 26 September 2003, the Homeworld source code and accompanying documentation was released by Relic on their Relic Developer Network. It has been stripped of code not owned by Relic Entertainment (including but not limited to the Bink SDK). On 21 February 2004, the code was released to the public

Awards

  • CNET GameCenter
    • 1999 - Strategy Game of the Year
  • Computer Gaming World
    • March 2000 (Issue #188) – Strategy Game of the Year
    • March 2000 (Issue #188) – Best Manual of the Year
  • Gamepower
    • 1999 - Top 5 Strategy Games
  • Gamespot
    • 1999 - Best Music of the Year
  • GameSpy
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #98 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • Gonegold
    • 1999 - '99 Must Have
  • I.D. Magazine
    • 2000 - Silver Award (Interactive Media Design)
  • PC Gamer
    • 1999 - Game of the Year
    • April 2005 - #46 on the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2000 - Most Original Game in 1999
  • PC Zone
    • 1999 - Game of the Year
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/2000 – Most Innovative Game in 1999

Information also contributed by Carlos Aquino, DarkDante; Henry Aloni, Indra was here, Maw; PCGamer77, Sciere and Scott Monster

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Related Sites +

  • Homeworld
    Relic's website for reference of the game. Includes screenshots, concept art, ships descriptions...
  • Homeworld @ GamingHaven.com
    Game reviews, links, screenshots and more.
  • Pilotview How-To
    View the battles from a pilot's point of view! Right click your Homeworld shortcut and add the switch /pilotView to homeworld.exe. In game, focus on any unit and press "Q". This even works for enemy units! The pilotView functionality requires Homeworld version 1.4 or greater.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 296
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Rynok.

Additional contributors: Kasey Chang, Unicorn Lynx, Arvin Chandra, Scott Monster, DarkDante, cow, Patrick Bregger, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added September 30, 1999. Last modified March 24, 2024.