This is the third time I've bought Homeworld 1&2. The First time was on CD-ROMs, the second was Steam, and now from GOG. The new graphics are excellent. The music is still amazing. I've played dozens of realtime space strategy games, from Sins of a Solar Empire to Star Trek: Armada and many others. While all of them have their positives, Homeworld is the only game I return to and replay every few years. Its plot is amazing, told in stark black and white cutscenes that are full of depth, and some of the most emotional gameplay I've ever experienced. I'm not ashamed to admit my eyes watered at the line 'not even beacons' from the first game. I very highly recommend Homeworld for gamers who like realtime strategy.
Along with Star Control 2, this point-and-click game was responsible for my sense of humor in childhood. It has everything you want: World domination, time travel, and so much ridiculous humor to leave you literally laughing at the intentional absurdity of the solutions to the puzzles.
Master of Orion 2016 is a game I regret buying. My complaints started off as minor - can't rotate the galactic map, the colonization cutscene is repetitive and there's no way to turn it off, the advisers don't have enough dialogue, can't build hundreds of Doom Stars and steamroll the universe - lots of minor issues which could be overlooked. I kept playing, hoping to have fun, but things only got worse. The economy victory is bland (just waste lots of money instead of buying things your species needs!), spying isn't exciting, and I'm still not happy that certain races are locked unless you buy the Collector's Edition, an additional $20 at this time of writing. What next? Preorder to receive a bigger tech tree? Certain planet biomes are DLC only? But the reason I uninstalled the game came just minutes ago. I had started a new game with Pre-Warp (because I find it interesting to not start with any ships) and in less than 100 turns, the Antarans attacked my homeworld. In Master of Orion II, when the Antarans attacked a planet and you lost, they would bombard it and leave. They would NOT blockade the planet and stay in orbit and bomb you every turn! To quote the overused cliché, did anyone playtest this thing? Surely someone could have said, "Hey, being killed on turn 50 isn't bad luck, it's bad design? And while I'm at it, why can I change the racial colors? Why does the custom race option not show the default picks of the race you're customizing? Why does Subterranean suck now?" In summary, this game is not worth it. It doesn't fix any of the problems from the original, and adds many more of its own. It is not fun. Watch a Let's Play, or buy and play the original. Do not purchase this game.
