In addition, Blackbird managed to create a smart analogue to the most memorable aspect of Homeworld: the z-axis. It’s also assisted by the fact that combat just looks damn satisfying, another trademark of classic Homeworld. The way Light Attack Vehicles dash and dance around dunes while armor and cruisers grind across the sand behind them feels so intrinsically like the games that came before it. It helps that developer Blackbird Interactive managed to translate the unit type icons from Homeworld 2 so perfectly, and it gets to a point where thinking “well, they have diamonds, so I should get my pentagons” becomes second nature. Ultimately what makes Homeworld so timeless is how it plays, and Deserts of Kharak doesn’t disappoint.
![homeworld remastered collection metacritic homeworld remastered collection metacritic](https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/apps/244160/6ab736808f5e0920bd229bbc5685c688d4d8a312.jpg)
Where Homeworld and Homeworld 2 felt huge and open, Deserts of Kharak feels somewhat confined - there are a lot of places your carrier or other larger vehicles just can’t go. Most of them rely on abusing chokepoints, then finishing the penultimate objective of the mission and sending out salvagers before actually completing the final objective. It’s perhaps a misstep that so many of the campaign missions are so awkwardly designed and paced.
#Homeworld remastered collection metacritic series#
In true series fashion, resources you collect and units you construct persist between missions it’s an easy way to back yourself into a corner if you blindly produce units, as resources in each mission are somewhat scarce, but it’s easy enough to quit out to the mission map and start with the default fleet. The solitary beeps and hums of the tactical radar view, the ambient dialogue between protagonist Rachel S’jek and various other units, and especially the soundtrack all blend together to create a pitch-perfect atmosphere that flawlessly complements the narrative. It’s a sense of pervasive dread, isolation, and depression that permeates nearly every aspect of the story to great effect. Set long before the first Homeworld, Deserts of Kharak is the story of the expedition that set out through the desert to investigate “The Primary Anomaly” - which will eventually come to be known as The Jaraci Object - with the dim hope that it may hold the key to their planet’s salvation. It maintains the solitude of feeling alone in space, having only your mothership to stand between your army and the cold of the void, while telling a gripping story that, while a touch on the short side, is still one well worth seeing through to the end. It’s true! It even manages to change the formula while staying true to what made its two predecessors so incredible.
![homeworld remastered collection metacritic homeworld remastered collection metacritic](https://static.gabestore.ru/screen_product/9lbe5Xiqwmk2dD0jF_XuO9H6uA1XsCC2.jpg)
Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, Deserts of Kharak is a Homeworld game set on a desert planet instead of in space. Their perfect mix macro-management and massive battles allowed me to live out my space admiral fantasies as a young teenager wasting away my summer break playing (or, mostly, trying to play) Homeworld: Cataclysm on my parent’s dial-up internet. I reviewed Homeworld: Remastered Collection early last year and instantly remembered why I fell so hard in love with those games.