somebody

Ascendancy (DOS)

Both better and worse than MOO

The Good
The three dimensions were great. The nature of both the galactic map and the system display were great, and a definite plus over the flat universe of MOO. In addition, Ascendancy systems had the realism of containing multiple planets, although I found that the nature of these planets did not depend on the star type.

The races were, for the most part, quite novel, and my only complaint is that we humans didn't show up.

Weapon balance was, for the most part, very good. Although late-technology weapons were far better than earlier ones (and so they should be!), new advances did not necessarily make older ones obsolete. Nothing, for instance, ever exceeded the range of the plasmatron, a weapon you can get your hands on while still pretty early in the game.

The variety of technologies was, although not spectacular, decent. In contrast to MOO, which mostly offered improvements on a small set of technologies, Ascendancy research provides whole new tools and abilities. I don't think that I have seen any game with as many planetwide projects possible; there were I believe three or four completely different types.

One of the nicest bits was that most aspects of the game were not statistic-based. Battles and advances were decided not on the basis of rolling dies, but depended almost entirely on your actions (of course, there are exceptions; the technology you get from ruins is completely random, and planets are mostly evaluated based on their Three Statistics).

The Bad
The same thing nobody else liked about the game: the computer opponents.

It's a pity that the same effort which went into the rest of the game could not go into the computer code; the algorithms were far too simple, almost as if they had been quickly added to the rest of the game. Diplomatic reactions were far too simple as compared, say, to MOO, and a noticeable bug is that your allies never seem to expect you to honor your alliances.

Combat code, the other foundation of the game, was equally shaky. The enemy ships were clearly following a certain specific set of checks, which I could probably copy out here to high accuracy if it were not against the rules to give out cheats (and knowing how the computer will react to anything is, essentially, the ultimate cheat). Let's just say that I found any number of tricks which pretty much ensured military superiority, even when the enemy had the superior force. One remark I will make is that the game code is very offense-oriented; unlike in MOO where sometimes the other player will seem to "see" what you are trying to do and take evasive action. I have yet to see an Ascendancy ship retreat.

What else? Well, there are a few obvious bugs elsewhere (e.g., in the building code); it seems that they spent almost no time debugging. A tight deadline, perhaps? Another complaint is the complete randomization of the xenoarchaeological code; a race can get a valuable technology (say, large-scale construction or lush growth bombs) early in the game and have a decided advantage over the others.

The Bottom Line
Excellent game at first, and very replayable, but expect to master it quickly.

By somebody on November 5, 2001

Homeworld: Cataclysm (Windows)

Umm... well...

The Good
Cataclysm is both an improvement and a degradation of Homeworld. The goods:

The control system. Barking Dog Studios obviously took a lesson from the feedback Relic got about Homeworld, and were quick to add lots of nifty features. They added a waypoint system (one of the most-praised aspects of the game, although I don't use it much), moved special functionality to the right mouse button (in Homeworld you have to double-click, do it too slow and you end up selecting the target ship), made the game far more compatible with multiple commands (one thing I HATED about Homeworld was giving dock orders to repair corvettes, since double-clicking on the Mothership was always interpreted as a repair command), and made it possible to view the movement orders of strike craft. The mission timer is a wonderful tool, and the in-game message system is neat as well. In Cataclysm, unlike in Homeworld, you can easily customize your screen while in-game, and you can "filter" stuff on the sensors manager.

Anything else? The graphics are a slight improvement over the original Homeworld, and the cinematic sequences are a novel feature that I have not seen in the original game (the closest thing to them in Homeworld is the Mothership launch sequence). Some of the background music is great, although the same could be said for the original.

Some of the ship ideas were interesting, notably the Mimic and Linking technology. The mutability of the Somtaaw Command Ship and the self-allocating abilities of the Beast are equally novel.

The Bad
The bads:

The plot. Some people are planning to make a "Rebel Alliance vs. the Borg" mod. Enough said. I would have preferred a continuation of the original story over a digressing plot involving an assimilationist creature. The entire idea, as well as some details (the Beast "mutates" ships instead of "upgrading" them) smack of unoriginality.

The balance. Unlike Homeworld, which emphasized strategy and ship combination, Cataclysm seems focused on super-ships. The multi-beam frigate is a notable example (it can beat most ships as large as itself or smaller) of ship interactions receiving less priority than new ideas. Likewise, the final mission is entirely based on destroying two super ships, and you beat it by using a super-ship of your own (I can't say more). Compare this to Homeworld, where the final mission was a showdown between two large and diverse fleets (although, to be honest, your fleet by then is so huge that only the first wave is any trouble). In addition, the game's technological advances eventually render some ships useless. Once your enemy implements advanced sensor technology, for instance, all your Leeches and Mimics go overboard. Homeworld also had advanced sensors, but they were either limited in range or limited in sensitivity.

Another complaint is that the game, especially in single-player, is heavily geared towards micromanagement, so there are problems when going from single to multiplayer. The Mimic, although it is a very neat ship and presents some different angles from Homeworld's traditional cloaking, usually requires a menu for its special ability. Imagine the problem in carefully selecting a ship to imitate just when you need to orchestrate an attack on multiple fronts!

The Bottom Line
A nice game, whose features force you to play differently from the original. Also, as I said above, Cataclysm has a decidedly superior user interface to Homeworld. However, I personally find that the original game provides a better experience in terms of gameplay, and I hope Homeworld 2, when it comes out, will incorporate the best of both games.

By somebody on November 5, 2001