Homeworld® Remastered Collection

Homeworld Remastered by Gearbox is in fact a wonderful remastered edition to a well aged Homeworld franchise. Unfortunately as so often and known for fact Gearbox ceased the game support far to soon, as usual. They had 1 huge update in the works when their devs stopped working on it and got relocated to other internal company projects. That being said: There remain many issues in the remastered editions of Hw1 & Hw2. Be it formation breaking - other weird unit behaviors or numerous missing audio components and unit animations the originals held dear. You can take a look here to get a grasp on the Remastered bugs: https://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/t/hwr-bugs-solutions/1639765 Fortunately most of these bugs can get fixed with community work around's. Unfortunately these fixes require to be loaded as mods and so most of the rather small mp player base don't know about them nor care or use them. Game play wise we're lucky that Gearbox implemented the unmodified classic versions of these games and I strongly suggest every newcomer to play these first despite the outdated graphics. Because the whole game play affair will be an entirely different one in regards of balance & bugs and game play in general. Imagine a grand RTS game with strategic depth while hw2 plus there remastered counterparts are more like a Supreme Commander in space with paper thick armored ships. Best to keep the Remastered Editions only for Multiplayer matches and mods such as Hw FX which allows you to play with almost all known Homeworld races while granting them unique game play styles coming along with it. Despite it's bugs and flaws Homeworld Remastered is a wonderful and recommendable game with a strong Story awaiting for for Hw1 and a somewhat lesser good story for Hw2. Graphics are top of the line and it's very enjoyable to see ships engaging in combat.

I am uncertain I will even be able to start this game. I am just into the 2nd mission and wow but the controls on this are horrendous! I have never seen a game with such anti-intuitive and backwards controls. Maybe this was originally a console port, I don't know, but it is very difficult to select your ships, giving orders is a nightmare and the ease at which you can change or cancel a command is staggering. Meanwhile the game runs during cut scenes so you get to sit back and watch the enemy wipe out your forces and are helpless to defend while the ship contoller blathers on and on about this and that. It would be one thing to get your briefing and then get attacked as pretty much every other game out there but having to sit, unable to interact with your forces while the enemy rips you a new one and listen to the Mothership Controller list off your objectives while the enemy destroys your fleet is beyond annoying.

I didn't play this game for the longest time because I had no idea it would work. You're commanding entire fleets? How would that be fun? But this game manages it. You're not so much micromanaging as designating AI groups to full-fill tasks, and making sure they stay bolstered. You're under attack? Better get the right collection of attack ships together in a decent formation. Guard you resource collection vessels as they scavenge asteroids for materials to build and research. And the adorable salvage corvettes actually pick up and carry things you send them to find. I never get tired of them finding objects, latching on, and carrying them home. This is all done on a MASSIVE scale. You will have hundreds of ships zipping around almost out of your control, but that's why you assign groups to numbers and there's plenty of hotkeys and quick dropdown menus. Takes some getting used to flying around in multiple dimensions but luckily you can zoom all the way out and select your targets, and your units are smart enough to adjust altitude. You might feel out of the loop as fights carry on largely independent of you, but behind the scenes you're sending out repair ships, assigning new fleets, researching upgrades, keeping tabs on your other ships and accomplishing missions and sub-missions. It's an interesting balance of slow and spacey one minute, and the next a bee hive of laser beams. The story is intriguing and the voice acting sounds naturalistic, if a bit deadpan. The music is sweeping and strange and accompanies the surprisingly colorful void of deep space. If you prefer to feel like the fleet commander instead of a general deep in the field, this game gives you that experience of designating flight patterns, commanding squadrons by class and speed, defending objectives and always feeling like you squeaked out a victory by ingenuity, not just brute force. Quite a unique experience I'm ashamed to admit I didn't try earlier.

Bought this bundle after seeing a few articles about Homeworld 3 in dev. Thanks GOG for securing this absolute gem of a game. Trying to unearth flaws in a game that's nearly 20 years old is a daunting task when faced with the quality graphics, interface, story, soundtrack and gameplay. The remastered versions provide additional polish to an already outstanding product. I'm by no means a technical person or have any exposure into the nuances of game development, so this from a perspective of an average layperson who has been gaming for well over 30 years. I've plowed through the C&C franchise, Dune 2000, 7th Legion, Supreme Commander, Age of Empires, Settlers, etc. All brought pros and cons to the table, evolving in an already crowded playing field for the genre. HW changed it all. Besides the RTS in 3D space piece, this brings a new level of strategy at a time when a lot of games were won with absolute overwhelming numbers and 'tank' units. HW brings an extra layer of strategy and gives you room to approach the enemy in different ways. Splitting the fleet and flanking an enemy battle group with bombers while your cruisers lead the frontal assault can alter the dynamics of gameplay. Yes, you can spam salvage 'vettes and build your fleet at low cost but thankfully this loophole was eliminated in HW2 (my fav). Finite resources bring another layer of strategy as you progress - managing and maintaining your fleet properly is incredibly rewarding as you watch the last Taiidan cruiser erupt in flames. At the end of the day, the story is what makes this game one of my favorites of all time. There is an emotional component that was rare in 1999 and still remains a benchmark for game writers IMHO. Superb voice acting, gorgeous art in the cutscenes and a layered storyline are the cherry on top of an already delicious Sundae. Get this game.

You are 100% of the time under the assault of an enemy that has no resource limit, no slowing down, and seems to exponentially increase its production of ships the more you destroy their ability to make them. Just pretend fighting the final battle of the original Homeworld, with no preparation time and a handful of fighters and virtually no resources. Each mission doesn't allow you to stay and search for more resources to build, there is no explanation to what and how the ships you make, actually attack so you're stuck making them just to see what they do. Each mission gives you no time to think or maneuver. The second when one objective is complete, a whole enemy fleet arrives in FORCE. Wash rinse repeat. On the 3rd mission, you are told to defend a space station and repair it, but as soon as you stop the small fleet attacking it, it auto heals then jumps you to the next part of that mission. You have no time to rebuild your forces. I made 7 squads of bombers that attacked on carrier and almost destroyed it on the 1st pass then just spiraled around one side of the carrier as half of them were blown away before finally deciding to turn around and attack again. When you destroy one of the 3 carriers making waves of bombers and fighters AND marine cruisers, the 2 remaining make ships FASTER. I know this because there was a map blinding red flow of enemies coming from the remaining carriers that my 5 laser cruiser and 2 flak groups couldn't even defend against, when they did just fine against 3 carriers. If all this game is going to be is a struggle and not an ounce of fun, then what's the point? The plot/story is freaking stupid. Is the entire galaxy out to lunch as the Vegyar rebuild their empire and systematically take over ALL your planets? Did the Higarians learn absolutely nothing from the last two games? This game is just not enjoyable to play.