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Homeworld 1 & 2 Remastered

Reverend

Reverend

Admiral
Admiral
Anyone remember Homeworld? I loved this game when it came out way back in 1999. It was the first space RTS (of which there are very few) to allow full 3D movement, it had a distinctive and colourful style inspired by the artwork of Chris Foss and Peter Elson, an unforgettably haunting soundtrack with a sweeping story spanning half a galaxy, thousands of year and universe evocative of Battlestar Galactica (before the reboot), Foundation and even Dune.

So you can imagine I'm really looking forwards to this: -

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXjI3DgyOqM[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2SpIWS-hY4[/yt]
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxUJIRMZaGU[/yt]

As an added bonus, a game that was being developed by Blackbird Interactive (a company founded by several former Relic devs) that seems very much a spiritual successor to Homeworld has been picked up by Gearbox (who bought the rights when THQ went belly up) and will now be an official Homeworld prequel. I know, it's old news, but until now I didn't really think it'd actually come to anything.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWBJMwNgTQ8[/yt]

P.S. Is it me, or is there an unusual amount of remasters & re-releases coming out this month? Grim Fandango, Resident Evil, all the classic Lucasarts titles cropping up on GoG and for some bizarre reason...Fahrenheit?
 
Homeworld was incredible at the time. It ran super well even on modest systems and the 3D RTS elements were amazing, albeit a bit intimidating.
 
Nothing like Nostalgia to get people to buy games they played X years ago. And some of these remakes are remakes of what are considered to be classic games. Sure we have seen games similar to these come out in the intervening years.

Would we buy a HD remake of games like X-Wing?
 
^Considering there's a considerable gap in the market for space fighter sims these day; almost certainly.

As for Homeworld, it was always very much ahead of it's time. I actually reinstalled HW1 on my system a few weeks ago and the gameplay and even the UI holds up surprisingly well. Looking at this remastered footage, it's looks like a modern game.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXvpQEQJyc[/yt]
 
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^Yeah, that was back when games weren't so big into hand holding. You actually had to think tactically and plan strategically to get through some of the trickier missions. It's been a while but I think I only ever made it all the way through to the end twice. HW2 felt a lot easier.
 
Reverend said:
^Yeah, that was back when games weren't so big into hand holding. You actually had to think tactically and plan strategically to get through some of the trickier missions. It's been a while but I think I only ever made it all the way through to the end twice. HW2 felt a lot easier.
Click to expand...

Really? I distinctly remember that most maps were quite easy. Just move either the mothership or a carrier to the resource asteroid. Then its just a matter of defending the asteroids till collectors have harvested every last resource. Then its just a matter of building up your forces and zerg attack. The only time it deviates is when there's radiation, but that only affects where my ships can go.
 
The key to beating HW was always salvaging as many enemy ships as possible, including in excess of the build cap.

I would love to buy this but Gearbox is a terrible company and I'm not giving them my money.
 
Robert Maxwell said:
The key to beating HW was always salvaging as many enemy ships as possible, including in excess of the build cap.

I would love to buy this but Gearbox is a terrible company and I'm not giving them my money.
Click to expand...

And I tried to salvage every ship I could, but the salvage ships could be overwhlmed by enemy ships.
 
Apparently Cataclysm isn't on the list as its original source code has been lost. Gearbox has said they'll do it if they find the code. (They do have the audio, though.)
 
If memory serves Cataclysm was done by Barking Dog who were bought out and shut down by Rockstar. Barring some fluke like a former dev having an old backup HD knocking around, or Rockstar both having the files and being in a being charitable mood (fat chance), I doubt the source code is even still out there.

Having the audio would be a bit of a leg-up, but they'd still essentially have to rebuild it from scratch. Whether or not they choose to do that probably depends on how well the remasters and/or Shipbreakers sell.

RE: Gearbox....they're a very odd company. I tend to think of them as the Bruce Willis of gaming. When they're into it, they're very very good. When they don't care and just doing is for the cash, they don't even bother to phone it in so much as have an intern tweet it in.
 
37 minutes of gameplay plus new and old developer commentary
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRtqy0CGur4[/yt]
 
Part 2 of the "making of" is up. Mostly just taking head "this game we're going to sell you is awesome" type fluff, but at least there's some more gameplay footage. ;)
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBIXwCv0X6M[/yt]
 
I have fond memories of the original from back in the day, but for whatever reason I never followed the series beyond that. Didn't even know there was a Homeworld 2.
 
-Brett- said:
I have fond memories of the original from back in the day, but for whatever reason I never followed the series beyond that. Didn't even know there was a Homeworld 2.
Click to expand...

Then allow me to get you up to speed. ;)
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odRUdN05q2c[/yt]
 
^ Given that he has a very good track record of declaring when he's doing a promotional deal and it's never in the format of a first impressions video, I'd say somewhere in the region of zero.

Besides, why would you even think that in this case? We already know Homeworld is a fantastic game and the improvements in the remastering are both objective and self evident.
 
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