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In some ways better, in some ways stuck in the past
I must say that I enjoyed Homeworld... for a while. I did not, in all honesty, finish the game because I felt it degenerated into a pure slugfest, no tactics or strategy involved (for the most part). The short summary is that Homeworld is a fairly typical harvest resources, build forces, kill the enemy sort of game. A couple frills with the attempted 3D interface and the salvage capabilities, but nothing to write home about. If you want real-time strategy, there are better choices out there.

First, though the game is, in theory, 3D, very little is actually done in 3D, and the interface for trying to do so is difficult to manage. Almost the entire game takes place in effectively one plane (for the core game, there are a couple of exceptions). So, while the 3D idea is neat, very little is done to develop and exploit it. Second, very little strategy seems to be involved in the game. The interface is a little too clunky and micro-manage centric (to use any units with intelligence, YOU must be in direct control of them) to allow for grand tactics and strategies, and there is a sad emphasis on the captial ships. To a large degree, you can do entirely without fighter class ships (once you reach a certain tech level). Obviously, game designers have yet to notice that there are often very good reasons for having smaller stuff on the scene. The formations attempt to bring some semblance of order to the game, but those same formations rapidly disappear in actual combat, making them fairly pointless. Third, unit intelligence is miserable. This is not a problem liited to Homeworld, but seems to be endemic to the strategy genre. Fight to the death, you cannot establish a target priority intelligence. you cannot setup a series of orders (shoot your designated target unless something juicier or more deadly appears, run to a certain staging area if you are damaged, guard this ship, but do not leave it's immediate vicinity, etc.).

On the plus side, the game is pretty smooth. The views are great, and the perspective control is very useful (though a camera angle change could be nice, ie, view out from a unit's perspective, rather than always looking at a particular unit or view of any area, rather than a unit). The repair/refuel and docking capability is cool, as is the ability to jump around the map (mp only though). Sadly, I don't think the game lived up to its hype.

Homeworld
Homeworld -- Relic Entertainment's masterpiece. The winner of the E3 Game Critics Award '99 for Best Strategy and a twenty feet list of other awards. It's several reasons for this: The killer graphics, the awesome game play, the thrilling skirmish mode, the beautiful ambient music, I can just go on and on.

I bought Homeworld the day it hit store shelves and I have yet to get bored while playing it. I have to admit that I don't play the campaign anymore (playing the same story over again and over again is a bit repetitive), but every now and then I play a round of multiplayer skirmish and it's great fun every time.

Homeworld goes out highly recommended, not just to strategy gamers but also to players of other genres. This is not just a thinkers game. It's also packed with a lot of sweet guns and heavy action. Ever wanted to control an ion cannon the size of a medium sky scraper? Now is your chance.

Real-time strategy. Real 3D. Real Game.

Breathtaking as no games has been for long
Homeworld deserves EVERY bit of the game of the year accolade.

I have never seen such a breathtaking and stunning game/piece of entertainment before, and I seriously doubt something like this will surface again the next few decades.

Is Homeworld the best game ever made? That is a tough decission, but it sure comes pretty damn close!

Anyway the game/experience should be a must-have for anybody interested in a completely controlable 3D universe, science fiction, tactics, space, simulations, strategy and an extraordinary experience.

Unreal, Highly Immersive Gameplay!
Homeworld's best features-graphics engine, scripting, control mechanics, narrative flow, and mission structure, are so fluid, so highly immersive, that it makes the experience far more than the sum of its parts. The combination of large scale fleet actions and cinematic perspectives creates the most impressive space combat ever made for a strategy game. Its like being in the middle of, and in cotrol of, a Star Wars battle. 16 single player missions can make for some short gaming time but most people go through the campaign at least twice-its that good. In single player, you'll encounter 2 races, aside from the main one that your trying to decimate.

There are 26 units to choose from on each side, with 3 main classes of ships-from the paltry fire of the scout, to the amazing might of the heavy cruiser. The excellent use of 3D makes for some interesting strategies, putting much imphasis on the element of surprise...

To sum it up, buy Homeworld for its engrossing real-time-strategy matched to a vital and visually intense story, making this a gaming experience like none other.

P.S. You may want to check the Relic and Sierra message boards to see what other people think of the game-plus it could help you along in learning the basic components of the game

Blows me away...
Think Starcraft - take away a bit of the story and the uniqueness of each faction, set it in space and make it fully 3D - you've got HomeWorld.

I don't know what can be said about the graphics in this game that haven't already been said, but let me try to briefly explain their detail, if not their beauty. Some of the ships have turreted weapons. Not only can you zoom in on a ship and watch its turrets independently rotate and fire, but when they fire, you see the turrets recoil from the shot. Zoom in close enough and you can even hear the turrets rotating. Other impressive details include docking ports on support ships that open and close.

Even more so than the graphics, the user interface in this game is (to me, at least) very intuitive and easy to learn with the included tutorial. My only complaint is that there are two views - the basic in game view and the overall map view - both of which work in real time. My complaint here would be that in the normal view, you can only zoom out so far (making it difficult to manage a large scale battle) without switching to the map view. Sierra should have made switching between these two simply a function of your zoom level, rather than a seperate key.

This is a minor complaint, however.

Finally, I want to say what a good job this game does creating a believable environment - a lot of this has to do with sounds - you hear radio calls of your pilots as they comment on how their routing the enemy, in trouble, running low on fuel etc. Zoom in on an individual ship and see its exhaust. Zoom out on a large space battle and you'll see the closest thing you'll ever see to Return of the Jedi on your computer. Bravo.

This has to be one of the best games to come along in quite a while. Homeworld does for RTS what Wing Commander did for space combat