Posted on: April 29, 2025

NAGA!

Games: 83 Reviews: 11

Homeworld: DoK, very pleasantly surprised.

I played the original Homeworld shortly after it came out. Then played Homeworld: Cataclysm (Emergence), then Homeworld 2. Loved them all. Years later this game came out. A prequel to the original Homeworld, ground based on Kharak??? I was very skeptical. I still have the original Homeworld paper manual, and it describes the expedition to find the Khar-Toba/Guidestone/Hyperspace Core while the Kushan were still stuck on Kharak. I asked one basic question: How the h@ll do they make this work??!! Well,..... they did. If you played any previous Homeworld Games, the game play and interface is very quick to pick up. They have small fast units, medium units and slower heavy units. Resourcers that function near identical to the other games. There are aircraft: small strike craft and bombers which I felt they made work very well in the game. The carrier (the Kapisi) of course serves the same function as the motherships: support and produce smaller vehicles. Just like the previous games, technology progresses as time passes. The Kapisi also obtains various upgrades, including missiles! The storyline is excellent and engaging. It has ups & downs and flows very well. It starts quite bleak, which is good. You gain in strength and abilities just like the older games. The main antagonists and how they gain so much power is believable. The planetary map was good as well. The challenge level was appropriate. As long as you have a basic understanding of tactics you should be fine. The various maps where you fight were nicely done as well. Very creative. In the end It was great. I was very pleased with my purchase, and it is a nice addition to the Homeworld series. Like I said I was very skeptical of this game when it came out and am glad, I was wrong. Nice job Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive! Thanks GOG!!!

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Posted on: June 27, 2025

gardeningguy

Verified owner

Games: 24 Reviews: 1

Short Campaign but Gold While it Lasted

If the campaign went maybe 3 or 4 more missions, I think this would have been a 5/5 for me. A lot of your favorite concepts from Homeworld are reflected here. Mobile home base, persistent units and resources, researching new units and upgrades for them. To a small degree, there's some concern for the 3D environment as well, though far from the full 3D of the original Homeworld, but it was a nice touch seeking out the high ground in encounters, or setting up small ambushes around hills and sand dunes. The difficulty is a bit on the high side, and initially I was a bit irked by the AI having constantly spawning units versus a set number that, when destroyed, were done. I enjoyed the missions and variety, the addition of sort of special abilities for different units, and the inclusion of air-strike units from your base. I think graphically it holds up considering it's almost a decade old at this point, and I experienced no issues running it, and the cutscenes have that Homeworld-esque style that I enjoy. Solid music as well for an RTS! Easy recommend for anyone who enjoys the genre, just wish the campaign were a little longer to keep diving deeper into the universe. Lots of those "Oh.... OH." moments that Homeworld had and spoiled us with.

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Posted on: July 6, 2025

Woundedgre

Verified owner

Games: 6 Reviews: 2

Fast-paced RTS

Missions get harder and harder as you go. Learn to pick up resources as you go. When resources are depleted, you can salvage your collectors for more units. Keep PDS units to a minimum because you are always on the move. Excellent game but a bit too fast for my liking as you have to be on your toes the entire time. Edge of your seat play on normal setting.

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Posted on: July 10, 2025

priareyn

Verified owner

Games: 24 Reviews: 1

Pretty Good

Pretty good game. I picked this game up a while ago on sale and just now got around to it. I have played Homeworld and Homeworld 2, and I think this fits in nicely. Some of the missions can be a bit of a slog when you are waiting on cooldowns, but otherwise I really enjoyed it. I did not play any multiplayer, only the campaign.

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Posted on: February 25, 2019

Zangdaarr

Verified owner

Games: 174 Reviews: 4

Interesting but not a good STR

I've been a huge fan of STR back in the days. Deserts of Kharak is an interesteting prequel to Homeworld, the narration is great, the graphics are beautiful and the game performances overall is fine. However, the game suffers from design issues that seems inherited from homeworld and which, for me, makes it boring: - Units controls is really annoying, units can be stacked in several different groups, which is great, but it's a chore to remove them, so if you accidentally added an unit to a group, or want to rework a group without totally dismantling it, you can't. - The overview is too small, having a clear picture of what is happening is nearly impossible, moreoever, there's no minimap - The game is heavilly scripted. It's great that STR evolved from the time when the good strategy was to zerg the ennemy, even if it was cool. In Karhak, ressources are incredibely limited and ennemies come by waves, after checkpoints in the game, they have no base. So basically you cannot have a real influence on the scenario. Make sure to prepare yourself as necessary, deplete ressources to the maximum, then trigger the checkpoint. If for some reason your units setup is not good then ... meh, restart it. For this kind of dynamic, turns by turns game are more appropriate. Here, not only it makes the game boring, but it also seems like a gamble at some points. - Units transfering from one world to another is great, but the ressources are so limited that you can cumulate a debt over and over the mission and then having to start over, or to start with default ressources. So hey, well, I remember I did not complete Homeworld back in the days because it was cool but incredibly hard to control and too scripted, I am going to finish that game but I'm not having so much fun with it.

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