Homeworld: Emergence

Let's go back to the year 2001. I received my first personal computer. One of the first games I picked up? The original Homeworld and, as someone coming off of the Playstation and N64, the sheer scale and artistic craft involved blew me away. Homeworld is closest thing to video games having a Mona Lisa at this point in time. Now, the year before I got this computer, Homeworld Cataclysm dropped. I remember chatting with folks on good old WON. People didn't seem to like Cataclysm. Citing both a bad story and poor balance, most did not recommend Cataclysm. I was unphased and acquired it. The original Homeworld is a masterpiece, but Cataclysm is no slouch. In fact, Cataclysm is outright fantastic. Its sin is just not being the original Homeworld. The new playable factions are the Kiith Somtaaw, a minor clan within Hiigaran society and the Beast, a techno-virus which assimilates both machine and flesh. Each faction plays differently to each other AND towards previous factions. Gameplaywise, there's more need for being proficient with small ships. The previous Homeworld was really about mastering fleet warfare. Cataclysm is all about smaller craft. Now, that's not to say the heavies are gone. The Somtaaw's Dreadnought is easily the coolest ship in the game. So cool, it's the title vessel. It's also part of why the single player is, once again, an actual epic. You're commanding a ragtag group of space miners being pressed into fighting what amounts to a space zombie apocalypse on your own as the beast infects Hiigaran and Imperial Taiidan ships alike to add to its fleet. Over all, Cataclysm, or rather Emergence now, is a must have for sci-fi fans, RTS fans, and people who fancy games as art.

Has the strongest story and campaign of all the games in the franchise. The story is also stand alone. The graphics are a bit dated, but its an excellent game!

First off, the fact that this is not only the only example of a survial Horror RTS is not enough, the fact that it is a damn good one is worth all the struggling you have to do for this to work on modern systems. Like any Homeworld game, this is a very well designed game system, and with this being the last game in the 'good' homeworld trilogy (which includes the first Homeworld and the deserts Prequel... 2 doesn't count to me), it has it's own thing going on. You are a mining vessel in a science fiction story... you should be boned from that alone, and the unknowable horrror you naturally unleash should also bone you. But you are player one, you are going to forget you're a mining vessel, set your wimpy mining lasers to 'MURDER EVERYTHING', crack the whips on your researchers and fight tooth and nail to stay alive... or if you're having troub;e, drop the difficulty down for a bit to get through the story. Reccomend it, in spite of it's old graphics and low compatability with modern systems, because this is one of my favorite games of all time, even if I didn't grow up with it and it has zero nostalga points for me.

This was the first Homeworld game I played. Great story, great graphics. No other game up to now can give this "lost in endless space" feeling you cen get here. The soundtrack is amazing and adds to that feeling. For me the best in the series. I have the CD here, so as long as GOG doesn't talk about improvements over the original (Ultra HD anywhere? or at least 1920x1080?)... Sadly this one does not work with nglide, else I'd have my Ultra HD...

Can remember playing this game years ago on my old AMD Athlon 3200 with G-Force MX400 and it looked and ran like a dogs dinner. Downloaded it today and cranked everything all the way up and even all these years it still holds up. Fantastic and very immersive story, great visuals and what a music score. If you haven't downloaded it already and you're a fan of the RTS genre then this is a must. Thank you GOG for a wonderful trip down memory lane