Homeworld

Published by Sold Out
Designed by Relic Entertainment
Platform: PC CD/ROM
Price £4.99 Released: Out Now

RTS games that are set in mid space have usually tended to look a bit naff. Until recently games such as Star Trek Armada just looked flat and all wrong. The sense of depth that a space game should have was missing. Then along came Homeworld and changed it all. The game has a full 3D environment and allows units to freely move about and not just stick to a flat environment. The game engine is truly amazing and the level of detail is excellent. Zooming in on a ship shows no blockiness and it is a credit to Relic that such a beautiful game runs on such a low spec PC.

The gameplay is also excellent. The game can be paused and issues ordered at anytime. The game contains 16 missions, 9 scenarios & a skirmish mode. It can be played over a LAN or the Internet. A nice touch in the skirmish mode is that you can modify certain characteristics of the gameplay. If you want to do away with the resource collecting you can, you just get a regular injection of resources so you can build new spaceships.

The text feedback in this game is first class. All the cutscenes have subtitles as do the tutorials. Right clicking on a spacecraft brings up a menu that enables you to perform actions specific to that unit. If you place your mouse pointer at the bottom of the screen it brings up a menu that enables you to perform any action such as building other spacecraft or performing research. The menu also has your objectives highlighted so you have instant access to them if you so wish. Homeworld is the best space RTS so far and it is a shame that a Star Wars game hasn't been done with this game engine as it is perfectly suited to it.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended. The Best Space RTS you can buy.
Suitability for deaf gamers: Perfect, Everything is subtitled.

Overall Game Rating: 5/5