[ i n i t i a l p o s t ]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazballs.

[ d o w n t h e l i n e e d i t ]

Just thought I'd come back to add a little more clarity. I've apparently clocked as of this moment 182 hours on this game. Homeworld 2 I like to think is my 'stuck on a desert island game', I've realistically probably clocked thousands more hours on this before it made it's way to a remastered version and on to Steam itself.

The Bad:

- Dynamics of the new remastered game, not so amazing if I'm totally honest, it looks very pretty, is more stable than the base classic HW2 game - The keys were all re-mapped which doesn't make much sense. It will hopefully just take time for the mods that took years of development on the original game to match up to what we have with classic.

- Stability - My preferred game is classic and is typically what I play, what I've sadly found is running it on modern hardware (GTX 980 + Core i5 34xx) is that it can be prone to crash when too much is going on, however I have noted for better stability that if I run the Gog.com version on a Core i5 laptop with an Intel GPU the game is massively more stable than it's Steam counterpart on Nvdia. I can only hypothesize on the reason for the insability is the Nvidia GPU ibeing too modern for this old game, or there is an issue where memory limits are being hit as the classic game runs in 32-bit (3.5gb maximum ram usage) or potentially a variation of both issues. I may eventually end up just buying a used period specifc laptop (Core 2 Duo / 32-bit windows XP / 4gb ram) or something along those lines to be able to run this properly.

The Good:

- Seriously, if you like playing RTS games such as AOE2/SWGB, Total Annihilation, Zero-K, etc. This is pure 3D space opera pornography, it's an absolutely amazing game in terms of unit classes, research methodolgy, and ultimately looks absolutely stunning (both the remastered and classic game). It can take a little time to get your head around being in a fully 3D environment but once you do I promise you it's amazing, the AI in skirmish games can surprise you and quickly overwhelm you if your build order and research path isn't carefully considered. The base game missions are engaging and the story line and artworks are masterful, a lot of people give credit to the story lines and I have to concur. The skirmish modes are fun too even in the base game.

- MODS! & custom content, this is the stickler for me and why I keep on coming back after years, there are so many amazing mods which have extended the realms and the playability of the vanilla game. A mod called Complex typically being my favourite mod is rather well... Complex! It adds dozens of new ship classes, subsystems, ways to play and fight, adding a new immersive flare to the base game. The community has for many years been creating brilliant modifications for the game, there are practically mods for every major sci-fi franchise out there (Star Wars Warlords, Babylon 5, Star Trek Continuum, the list goes on..), there are lots of maps and tweaks out there too, ModDB is a good place to look if the Steam workshop seems limited or you just want a different twist.

This is the longest review I've ever written. Nothing for me at least, comes close to what this game can provide.

[ i n i t i a l p o s t ] Fucking amazballs. [ d o w n t h e l i n e e d i t ] Just thought I'd come back to add a little more clarity. I've apparently clocked as of this moment 182 hours on this game. Homeworld 2 I like to think is my 'stuck on a desert island game', I've realistically probably clocked thousands more hours on this before it made it's way to a remastered version and on to Steam itself. The Bad: - Dynamics of the new remastered game, not so amazing if I'm totally honest, it looks very pretty, is more stable than the base classic HW2 game - The keys were all re-mapped which doesn't make much sense. It will hopefully just take time for the mods that took years of development on the original game to match up to what we have with classic. - Stability - My preferred game is classic and is typically what I play, what I've sadly found is running it on modern hardware (GTX 980 + Core i5 34xx) is that it can be prone to crash when too much is going on, however I have noted for better stability that if I run the Gog.com version on a Core i5 laptop with an Intel GPU the game is massively more stable than it's Steam counterpart on Nvdia. I can only hypothesize on the reason for the insability is the Nvidia GPU ibeing too modern for this old game, or there is an issue where memory limits are being hit as the classic game runs in 32-bit (3.5gb maximum ram usage) or potentially a variation of both issues. I may eventually end up just buying a used period specifc laptop (Core 2 Duo / 32-bit windows XP / 4gb ram) or something along those lines to be able to run this properly. The Good: - Seriously, if you like playing RTS games such as AOE2/SWGB, Total Annihilation, Zero-K, etc. This is pure 3D space opera pornography, it's an absolutely amazing game in terms of unit classes, research methodolgy, and ultimately looks absolutely stunning (both the remastered and classic game). It can take a little time to get your head around being in a fully 3D environment but once you do I promise you it's amazing, the AI in skirmish games can surprise you and quickly overwhelm you if your build order and research path isn't carefully considered. The base game missions are engaging and the story line and artworks are masterful, a lot of people give credit to the story lines and I have to concur. The skirmish modes are fun too even in the base game. - MODS! & custom content, this is the stickler for me and why I keep on coming back after years, there are so many amazing mods which have extended the realms and the playability of the vanilla game. A mod called Complex typically being my favourite mod is rather well... Complex! It adds dozens of new ship classes, subsystems, ways to play and fight, adding a new immersive flare to the base game. The community has for many years been creating brilliant modifications for the game, there are practically mods for every major sci-fi franchise out there (Star Wars Warlords, Babylon 5, Star Trek Continuum, the list goes on..), there are lots of maps and tweaks out there too, ModDB is a good place to look if the Steam workshop seems limited or you just want a different twist. This is the longest review I've ever written. Nothing for me at least, comes close to what this game can provide.