When i first played Homeworld back when it was initially released, like most people i was totally blown away by it. The immense atmosphere of seeking your destiny and overcoming insurmountable odds along the way. Like, how are you even supposed to take on a freaking galactic empire? There has to be some clever trick, like blowing up a death star with your space magic noone has ever heard about. Surely a frontal assault won't work. Only closer to the final mission you realise that it actually will work. There is no clever trick to it. You just bash the emperor's mothership until it explodes and that's that. And that was the only part of Homeworld that i it never completely sold me. Despite the amazing atmosphere, storytelling, soundtrack, voice acting and challenging gameplay. It just didn't make sense. Now enter Homeworld: Cataclysm, i'm sorry Emergence. You are taking a role of a mining vessel of kiith (or clan) Samtaaw (or something). Hiigarans have a clan-based political system, and your clan is an equivalent of a menial labour. You just mine deep space asteroids and get pushed around by the more noble clans a lot. You don't get any respect. Your epic journey is now a journey to fame and power. Your evil empire is now the rest of Hiigaran political system. And this i find a much more realistic setup. You stumble upon an alien organism and fight it's corruption across a series of challenging, fun and perfectly paced missions. You are stopping a great threat to the Homeworld while earning some much needed respect for your clan. And this is exactly the missing piece that i felt was lacking in the original and what makes this entry my favourite in the series. The alien threat itself is huge, but not impossible to overcome. And you do find yourself using some clever schemes to defeat. But this is still a journey worthy of the original, except much more thought out this time.
