Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

Nice combination of ideas from old "Homeworld" + some mechanics a nd pacing from "World on conflict"

This is the Ground Control for fans of the first one. One side has tracks, other side hovers. The gameplay is like that but feels faster due to less positioning work. All in all, a great RTS to get on offer. Would buy again.

Great game. The Homeworld feel is most definitely here but with a move to land-based RTS and with a few improvements! Honestly I'm enjoying this a lot more than the first two games. In space the third dimension was a cool idea but was awkward to use so it felt a bit empty and pointless. On the desert you have to deal with height advantage/disadvantage and carefully park your units where they will not be disadvantaged so the 3rd dimension feels a lot more involved in the gameplay. Some of the mechanics actually feel simplified compared to the originals, with much fewer units for example, but for me personally I like this a lot more as it makes fleet management much easier (instead of a gazillion units with that you had to juggle strengths and weaknesses with, this has more of a simple rock-paper-scissors mechanic). To me this is a huge plus as the various units were overwhelming in HW1/2. Abilities are more spread out too (baserunner unit deploys mines and also turrets and probes rather than the mothership). I really love the FTL-style power routing on the mothership as well. There is a tactical pause option which I've been making heavy use of too. Couple of downsides: pause is mildly buggy; you don't get feedback on commands until unpausing. It can also cause game to soft-hang if you pause during a cutscene, but I worked around this by saving and reloading—just brings you back to the start of the cutscene. The campaign is also fairly short. I found it very enjoyable so it may be worth it at full price, but I did get it on sale so I certainly have no regrets. Loading screens are a bit lengthy. Finally, the visuals and sounds are top-notch as you would expect from a Homeworld game. I really like watching the various vehicles zooming around in the sand. Runs fine on my GTX 1060. Highly recommended.

For me, it's an amazing game. An amazing accomplishment. Not everyone (not every developer of strategy games, that is) can manage such a balance in difficulty (not a walk in the park, but not relentless either), without having inserted a separate difficulty levels setting. And this is the case in all Homeworld games. Also, the overall story and the side (non-obligatory) goals inside missions were so interesting, that made me to want to do them all. And so, only the last mission was very easy for me, because I was fully "packed" and upgraded from my previous successes. A game that will make you believe that THEIR survival depends only on YOU and so you will want to do your best to achieve it.

This should be a classic, fast paced, highly tactical