Homeworld

aka: Spaghetti Ball
Moby ID: 296
Note: We may earn an affiliate commission on purchases made via eBay or Amazon links (prices updated 3/26 4:02 PM )
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

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

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)

What is wrong with you people?

The Good
Good graphics. That's mostly it. The graphics are impressive in their own time, and almost entirely run the game. Also, it didn't seem to crash very often or have many errors, and it was possible to move in 3D, a rarity in games. Finally, resources transfer over from levels.

The Bad
It's a slow game, with complicated controls, especially difficult missions, boring music, and a token, nonsensical storyline.

To elaborate, perhaps one of the biggest, though by no means only downsides of this game is the music. First, it's slow and boring, like a lullaby, that makes you want to fall asleep, but worse. For a non-turn-based game to be good, you at least have to convey that there's some excitement involved, even if in reality space is vast and lonely. Second, there's not much choice of music, and you end up listening to the same songs over and over again. Third, it doesn’t have much variety. They all sound pretty much the same, so you really don't have much choice if you don't like it, besides turning it off. Then, there's the game itself. Its graphics will probably entice you to buy it, but after you're gotten over your amazement in the first few levels, you realize there's really not much fun in the missions. They're complicated by the dizzying array of controls and uses of keys, made even worse by the very thing that was supposed to make it better, 3D, so that you get the feeling you have no business commanding a fleet, and would be better off controlling just one or two ships, but you can't if you want to succeed. And even if you do succeed with the missions, and get over the boredom, it'll eventually become to difficult to complete at all, even if you think you've done all you could in the prior missions, making you wonder if you should go back and try those boring missions again.

Then, to make a long review longer, there's the storyline, which is a whole topic in itself. You can read the entire manual (which I did), listen carefully to every word said in the beginning movie and in-game, and play more than halfway through, but it won't make a difference. You still won't get it. You can start as either of two factions, though I think there's only one or two differences between them, then fight the other side when you play. But you never figure out why you're fighting. Which is fine for the first few missions, but then it starts getting really, really frustrating as you go on and start struggling, not knowing who you're fighting. You don't even get to see people's faces, so you don't know what you look like, but soon you start thinking "Hey, I've dragged in almost a dozen ships with their pilots still alive, how come no one simply asked them why they're shooting at us?" It makes a player angry, like playing a text adventure where there's an obvious answer, but the program can't seem to recognize it. You're some race living on a desert planet, leave it for your homeworld...but someone wants to stop you? WHY? Maybe you find out in the end, maybe not, but I was fed up before that happened. I finally snapped when it came to an asteroid level, about halfway through the game. For some reason not explained in the game, your mothership must fly through an asteroid field at a constant speed. No reason why, no explanation for why you can't just go around, above, or below it, why you can't stop, clear a path, and continue when it's clear, or why you can't harvest their resources (by the way, it also doesn't make sense that you can find all the resources necessary to make ships in just a few asteroids. Last I checked, most asteroids were made of just a few elements and compounds, so unless your people, whoever they are, know alchemy, I don't see how you can turn iron into uranium, radon, or whatever materials you need to build spacecraft), for which the asteroid belt seems to contain a wealth of, and use them to make a huge fleet and fully upgraded Mothership. That just took the cake for me, and I stopped playing the game.

The Bottom Line
A waste of money. It beacons you to buy it with it's fancy graphics and the feeling it's a "new" game, then entices you further with it's token plot, but when you get down to it, the game hardly makes any sense, and its faults combine to make it a boring, stupid, difficult game, that stops being fun after the initial shock at its newness wears off around level 3 or 4. You'd have to have a mighty strong suspension of disbelief, and a very weak sense of adventure to enjoy this game, plus be either superhuman or have massive perseverance to finish this game. I can't comprehend why this game got a 3.9 out of 5, unless the people here rated it after just playing the first two levels, or just looking at the box.

Windows · by kvn8907 (173) · 2007

3-D Gaming that breaks new ground

The Good
The tutorial makes learning the interface a snap...When I heard of the game, the first thing I thought was that they couldn't pull it off becuase it would be difficult managing in 3-D...but they did it, and just spending the few short minutes in the tutorial can familiaize you with the interface fast...

The unit balance of the game is good...even in the late game process, you still have to build basic units and each ship class has its disadvantages and its strong points...

The single player campaigns are extremely well scripted...the ingame scripts makes the game very interesting, but doesn't interefere with the game play...

The idea is fresh...In a desert of no end of C&C clones, this is one hell of an oasis...

The graphics is detailed to the point that you can see the engine trails of a scout, or the tractor beams of a salvage corvett...zoom in to see every little detail on the ship, or zoom out to control your whole fleet...the camera control is extremely easy to master...

Brilliant control scheme...you can basically play the whole game with a mouse...Homeworld allows you to command an armada with a mouse wheel and two buttons...

Everything from formations, to rules of engagement, Homeworld provides a large amount of tactics for RTS fans

The Bad
I tried as hard as I could but could only find two bad things about this game...

The two sides are almost the same, with the exception of two units...As different as they may look, they are still all do the same thing...This doesn't take away anything from the game, but just lacks the depth in that area that Starcraft revolutionized

With wonderfully scripted missions in single player, it would have been nice if a editor was included in the game, so that more missions and maps can be created, as the single player campaigns were a little too short...

The Bottom Line
Tired of C&C clones? Homeworld is leading a revolution in RTS gaming, space combat has never been so entertaining...

Windows · by MadCat (53) · 2000

Inspired by George Lucas

The Good
Story: The people of the planet Kharak live in question of their existance, don't we all. The planet is goverened by several Clans, these clans have only settled down from war as their planet is becoming unstable and they must leave. An malfunctioned satelite finds a large deposit of metal in the Great Desert and an team is sent in to look at it. The first civilisation, built around a large ship has been discovered, they are aliens to this world. Inside the ship a crude map, etched onto a black stone with a word that any clan knows, Hiigara - Home. A large mothership is built to send them across the stars to home, the ship is controlled by a Karen Sejet, who is fleet command. They set off on their first mission, only to find that the ship assigned to repair their hyperdrive system has been destroyed and the mothership gets ambushed, they return to fix the mothership. Apon arrival back home they find their planet destroyed, and the only hope they have of living is to go home.

Menu: Simple but smart looking menu, and a pop up bar on the bottom of the game window controls the different centers.

Sound: Brilliant. Random chatter from the squadron of pilots in their scouts during battles "Flank left, keep the home fires coming, they're toast" Wepons sounds are good as well, from the sizzle of the Ion cannons, to the ping pow of the gattling guns from the scouts. Music is stunning, over 20 different tracks, inculding a theme song sung and written by Yes.

Graphics: In the past all space must be black....right...Homeworld breaks this rule in style, glossy, wonderful eyecandy backgrounds with the light center of the galaxy changes each mission so you get closer each time you continue. The ships themselves are incredible, they look dirty, mishapened, very industrial as well, this makes the "unskilled workmen" story more realistic. The mothership is great, with flashing beacons and all. Smaller ships leave a wake of jet vapor that slowly fades away, making nice patterns in the sky when underfire. Explosions are brilliant, ships start burning then explode in pieces or just vanish in smoke depending on what ship or weapon is used. Bullet marks show the bullets hitting the craft as well.

Gameplay: The is one of the first 3D RTS. It handles well, the 3D camera is controlled with the mouse and it is a marvel, easy to use as well. Ships are moved with a "pizza slice" style range, a large circle shows the maxium a ship can move in the proportions of the screen, want to move further, then use the sensors and you can travel the distance of the map. A.I is brilliant, the little ships learn as they get better at fighting, and killing. The larger ones start knowing when to fire and where to get a better effect so constant care and repair of your ships help give you a better army. Speaking of army Homeworld is the only game where you store your current troops from the last mission, the whole game just flows, the only changes are when your ships get repaired, and that is better than having to send out repair corvettes. The difficulty is scaling as well, start out a level with a fleet big enough to beat anyone, the computer will throw in more to stop you. Units are interesting as well, anything (But the Mothership) can be captured and chagned to your side. There are also cloaking ships and gravity wells that halt hyperspace jumps.

The Bad
The graphics looked a bit too messy from close up, and the maps are a bit boring with not much to avoid. But apart from that this game rules.

The Bottom Line
One of the best RTS ever, play it and learn all the tips.

Windows · by Sam Hardy (80) · 2001

[ 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

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Homeworld: Cataclysm
Released 2000 on Windows
Homeworld 2
Released 2003 on Windows, 2004 on Macintosh
O.R.B.: Off-World Resource Base
Released 2002 on Windows
Homeworld: Mobile
Released 2022 on iPhone, Android, iPad
Homeworld Universe
Released 2001 on Windows
Spaceforce: Homeworld
Released 2012 on Windows
Gateway II: Homeworld
Released 1993 on DOS
Homeworld: Remastered Collection
Released 2015 on Windows, Macintosh
Sentinel 3: Homeworld
Released 2010 on iPhone, 2011 on Macintosh, 2014 on Windows...

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
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

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.