Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

Bought this before it was internet-access only. [b]Will not operate without internet access.[/b]. So I can't ask for my money back. I uninstalled it, and hope there's no "leftovers" in my PC :( How terrible of a thing to do. Thanks Epic, once again :(

aight, where the hell did that epic installer come from? I instantly cancelled it.

Played this old gem a long time ago, wanted to give it another go. EPIC dependency? Crashes even on exiting the game? Just no. Stay away, buy it on GOG - or just don't even give money and support to greedy publishers and their amoral practices.

Forcing EPIC down players throats... despicable and dishonest.

An enjoyable, if fairly mediocre RTS. The theming, soundtrack, and art design do most of then heavy lifting, whilst the important parts of the technology, mission design, and story aspects of the game were apparently left on the cutting room floor. This product clearly had a lot cut out of it in order to get it to ship on time. The game starts quite strong and presents some novel ideas (Homeworld, but in the desert!), but quickly descends into fighting identical missions in identical terrain using identical units. The most fun to be had is in using the carrier as an actual carrier, and launching wave after wave of jets against your enemy, with your ground fleet being the support that grabs the all important objectives. I love the vehicle design, and I really like the cinematic style and VOX. But the actual story presented to us via these animations and cinematics is a garbled mess that 2/3rd of the way through jackknives itself. Everyone involved in the story and mission design just seems to give up, presenting us with some absurd plotting, and just dumping every technology upgrade in the game on you that they couldn't find a way to give you elsewhere. The final mission is completely anti-climatic, especially compared the previous few. The combat is ok. The unit AI could be smarter, as units seem to shoot at the closest thing, rather than the thing they counter, and microing everything is tedious because all the enemies unit look like floating tanks, and if you zoom out far enough to see the NATOesque unit icons then they all blur into one, meaning you can't select the damn things. Thankfully the game features tactical pause (order whilst paused) meaning you can actually target that mission ship in the middle of the medium tanks. The combat mechanics are meant to take advantage of heights, but you can only really figure out the height of various dunes by using 3d mode and zooming right in, as it's completely absent from the tactical view. Another crucial feature also mission from tactical view: range. How am I meant to make informed decisions about the Carrier's range power settings, or where to station the artillery, if I don't even know how far 1300m actually is? Even homeworld 1 showed the range! The mission design is fairly samey, uninspired, and predictable: baddies arrive in waves, shoot them! And then 2/3rd of the way through the mission, "surprising" enemy reinforcements appear in a cutscene. Oh no, it's another mixed group of units with two support cruisers, or perhaps even a carrier depending on how far along the game you are! Medium difficulty is ok, nothing too rushed, perhaps a bit on the easy side. "Classic" difficult is _very_ difficult, even the first few missions are hard in this mode! Tech wise: You can't even change your hot keys, which is annoying. I also had consistent problems with sound stuttering and skipping if I played for a long time, required me to restart the game. Over all, it's another RTS game that looks and sounds cool, gets old quite quickly, and is perhaps only worth it on 25% off.

---{Graphics}--- ☑ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ Paint.exe ---{Gameplay}--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It‘s just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Starring at walls is better ☐ Just don‘t ---{Audio}--- ☐ Eargasm ☑ Very good ☐ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ Earrape ---{Audience}--- ☐ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☑ Human ☐ Lizards ---{PC Requirements}--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☐ Potato ☑ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boiiiiii ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{Difficulity}--- ☐ Just press ‚A‘ ☐ Easy ☐ Significant brain usage ☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master ☐ Difficult ☐ Dark Souls ---{Grind}--- ☑ Nothing to grind ☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks ☐ Isnt necessary to progress ☐ Average grind level ☐ Too much grind ☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding ---{Story}--- ☐ Story? ☐ Text or Audio floating around ☐ Average ☑ Good ☐ Lovely ☐ It‘ll replace your life ---{Game Time}--- ☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee ☐ Short ☐ Average ☐ Long ☑ To infinity and beyond ---{Price}--- ☐ It’s free! ☑ Worth the price ☐ If u have some spare money left ☐ Not recommended ☐ You could also just burn your money ---{Bugs}--- ☑ Never heard of ☑ Minor bugs ☐ Can get annoying ☐ ARK: Survival Evolved ☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

Unskippable Cutscenes. Also tried to install Epic when I launched. I cancelled it, and it still launched.