BlueMonday
Can I Kick It?
I'm getting sick of all the Starcraft nuts out there ranting and raving about how great Starcraft is, so I think its time for me to educate all of them as to why Starcraft is only a mediocre RTS. As someone who has defeated both games, and mastered the gameplay and tactics of the two, I hope that I can provide a biased but educated arguement.
<u>Graphics:</u> Although I will allow some leway for the fact that Starcraft predates Homeworld, Homeworld has much better graphics. The texturing of the ships and scenery far surpasses that found in Starcraft. Who could forget the gloomy atmosphere of the Ship graveyard or the sheer beauty of the Cathedral of Kadesh? Not to mention the detail lended to both the smallest of fighters an the largest destroyers.
<u>Playing form:</u> Homeworld made the revoultionary inception of a completly three-dimensional world. Compared to Starcraft's isometric grid, Homeworld's completly spherical spacial map makes RTS an interesting challenge. By adding the dimension of an attack coming from on top of you or below you, battle tactics and defense are stretched to the limit. Dedicating too many forces to defending the frontal attack leaves you open to a sneak attack by cloaked forces moving in from above.
<u>Musical soundtrack:</u> By far, Homeworld has the best musical score of any game ever devoloped. It's brilliant blend of choral and new age music into the missions makes it an engrossing experience compared to the boring and repetive soundtrack of Starcraft. Every mission in Homeworld had a different musical score, and a music CD of the soundtrack was later distributed with the "Game of the Year" edition.
<u>Storyline:</u> Starcraft's storyline was one of the most dried up fruits of literature ever created. I have no further to look than James Cameron's production of Aliens to find a similar storyline. Homeworld on the other hand, had an engossing an fresh storyline: A race expelled from it's home planet thousands of years ago, must rebuild a Mothership to transport it back to its rightful place in the galaxy. I have never seen this line of thought in any production predating the release of Homeworld.
<u>Overall strategy:</u> The thing that I absolutly hated about Starcraft was the fact that every god damn mission started out the same way: you had X resources and units, and you had to do Y. Every time you had to research the same things: U-238 shells, armor, cloaking devise, blah blah blah. In Homeworld, research was cumulative as each mission went by. Once you researched Frigate Chassis you never had to do it agian.
Also, the way you played in one mission directly affected your play in the next. If you didn't harvest all the resources in one mission, you would end up short in the next. If you lost a destroyer in an indecisive battle in one mission, your lack of resources and loss of a 1200RU investment deeply affected your style of play in the next mission. If you didn't build salvage corvettes in the second mission, you would have to quickly build them in the next and thusly lose half your population to the invading fleet. However, in Starcraft it didn't matter how you did in one mission, you would start off the same in the next whether you played sloppy or perfectly.
<u>Ease of play:</u> Another thing I really hated about Starcraft was the cumbersome co-ordination of production. You could only focus on one thing at a time. If you were fighting, it was of supreme difficultly to continually produce in your factories and barracks what you were losing in the field. In Homeworld however, you had a simple popup menu that had all your production facilities (carriers and mothership) and was very simple to use in the heat of battle. The same thing applied for science research.
<u>Military formations:</u> The role of spaceship formations played a profound role in Homeworld. Certain formations of ships served different roles. A claw or X formation suited fighter and bombers. A sphere formation was best used for defense and picking off lonely frigates. Whereas a wall of ion frigs and destroyers was best for a main battle fleet.
<u>Escorting</u> In Homeworld you would have to use fighters and corvettes to escort frigates and heavier ships. If you didn't, quicker enemy bombers would dodge the big guns of frigs and reduce them to rubble. Without a screen of the tenacious defenders or multigun corvettes a massive investment like a Heavy Cruiser (3500 RUs) would quickly be destroyed by a small contingent of 60RU bombers. It annoyed me that units couldn't protect eachother in Starcraft. You could group them togther, but you couldn't order the marines to defend a tank, you could only hope that you could use the force in tandem to quickly destroy the enemy.
<u>Salvaging:</u> One of the most essential skills in Homeworld was stealing enemy spacecraft. Particularly in the early part of the game when you were at a loss for RUs and had to steal enemy frigates becuase you weren't of the necessary technology level to build them yet. In Starcraft, you could only kill enemies, not steal them and use their own ships against them.
There are many more reasons I prefer Homeorld over Starcraft, but I must be on my way. When I can articulate some more, I'll post them.
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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/goodbye3.jpg" border=0>
<FONT COLOR="blue">"Satisfaction is the death of desire."</FONT c>
<u>Graphics:</u> Although I will allow some leway for the fact that Starcraft predates Homeworld, Homeworld has much better graphics. The texturing of the ships and scenery far surpasses that found in Starcraft. Who could forget the gloomy atmosphere of the Ship graveyard or the sheer beauty of the Cathedral of Kadesh? Not to mention the detail lended to both the smallest of fighters an the largest destroyers.
<u>Playing form:</u> Homeworld made the revoultionary inception of a completly three-dimensional world. Compared to Starcraft's isometric grid, Homeworld's completly spherical spacial map makes RTS an interesting challenge. By adding the dimension of an attack coming from on top of you or below you, battle tactics and defense are stretched to the limit. Dedicating too many forces to defending the frontal attack leaves you open to a sneak attack by cloaked forces moving in from above.
<u>Musical soundtrack:</u> By far, Homeworld has the best musical score of any game ever devoloped. It's brilliant blend of choral and new age music into the missions makes it an engrossing experience compared to the boring and repetive soundtrack of Starcraft. Every mission in Homeworld had a different musical score, and a music CD of the soundtrack was later distributed with the "Game of the Year" edition.
<u>Storyline:</u> Starcraft's storyline was one of the most dried up fruits of literature ever created. I have no further to look than James Cameron's production of Aliens to find a similar storyline. Homeworld on the other hand, had an engossing an fresh storyline: A race expelled from it's home planet thousands of years ago, must rebuild a Mothership to transport it back to its rightful place in the galaxy. I have never seen this line of thought in any production predating the release of Homeworld.
<u>Overall strategy:</u> The thing that I absolutly hated about Starcraft was the fact that every god damn mission started out the same way: you had X resources and units, and you had to do Y. Every time you had to research the same things: U-238 shells, armor, cloaking devise, blah blah blah. In Homeworld, research was cumulative as each mission went by. Once you researched Frigate Chassis you never had to do it agian.
Also, the way you played in one mission directly affected your play in the next. If you didn't harvest all the resources in one mission, you would end up short in the next. If you lost a destroyer in an indecisive battle in one mission, your lack of resources and loss of a 1200RU investment deeply affected your style of play in the next mission. If you didn't build salvage corvettes in the second mission, you would have to quickly build them in the next and thusly lose half your population to the invading fleet. However, in Starcraft it didn't matter how you did in one mission, you would start off the same in the next whether you played sloppy or perfectly.
<u>Ease of play:</u> Another thing I really hated about Starcraft was the cumbersome co-ordination of production. You could only focus on one thing at a time. If you were fighting, it was of supreme difficultly to continually produce in your factories and barracks what you were losing in the field. In Homeworld however, you had a simple popup menu that had all your production facilities (carriers and mothership) and was very simple to use in the heat of battle. The same thing applied for science research.
<u>Military formations:</u> The role of spaceship formations played a profound role in Homeworld. Certain formations of ships served different roles. A claw or X formation suited fighter and bombers. A sphere formation was best used for defense and picking off lonely frigates. Whereas a wall of ion frigs and destroyers was best for a main battle fleet.
<u>Escorting</u> In Homeworld you would have to use fighters and corvettes to escort frigates and heavier ships. If you didn't, quicker enemy bombers would dodge the big guns of frigs and reduce them to rubble. Without a screen of the tenacious defenders or multigun corvettes a massive investment like a Heavy Cruiser (3500 RUs) would quickly be destroyed by a small contingent of 60RU bombers. It annoyed me that units couldn't protect eachother in Starcraft. You could group them togther, but you couldn't order the marines to defend a tank, you could only hope that you could use the force in tandem to quickly destroy the enemy.
<u>Salvaging:</u> One of the most essential skills in Homeworld was stealing enemy spacecraft. Particularly in the early part of the game when you were at a loss for RUs and had to steal enemy frigates becuase you weren't of the necessary technology level to build them yet. In Starcraft, you could only kill enemies, not steal them and use their own ships against them.
There are many more reasons I prefer Homeorld over Starcraft, but I must be on my way. When I can articulate some more, I'll post them.
------------------
<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/image_uploads/goodbye3.jpg" border=0>
<FONT COLOR="blue">"Satisfaction is the death of desire."</FONT c>
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