I remember hearing somewhere that the real measure of a game’s success is how long it sticks with you after you set it down, and if that’s the case, then Deserts of Kharak is a triumph. Despite only being something like a ten-hour long campaign, I’ve spent the better part of two months playing a mission or two a week- agonizing over every unit lost and corner of the map that went unexplored; It’s equal parts exhausting and exhilarating, tasked with commanding a fleet where it feels like every decision is on the verge of spiraling out into catastrophe.
One of the defining features of the Homeworld series is the continuity of your fleet between missions, meaning that your army stays with you- deftly avoiding much of the downtime that can bookend RTS mission design. There’s no need to spend minutes filling out your fleet as you stare down the enemy base at the beginning of a mission, and neither is there the sense that you can let the action resolve itself as you turn the tide of battle; an early game mission had me send a group of LAVs on a suicidal push that secured a victory, but saw me enter the next level with an entire control group, gone, as a result of my ineptitude. It’s a knowledge that imbues the action with a greater degree of purpose, always thinking of the best ways you could prevent loss of life and stack the odds in your favor. (And further helped by some tremendous radio chatter)
Combined with an escalating series of missions that always seem to push you outside your comfort zone and the game never slides into repetition or complacency, and without ever feeling contrived; I have distinct memory of playing Starcraft II years ago, with every mission conspiring to find some reason to hurry you along- racing to get enough resources on a lava world or outright running from a giant wall of fire. They felt like inelegant ways of getting players to play more aggressively, but Deserts of Kharak manages to handle these quite a bit more naturally- playing around with terrain and objectives, and constantly throwing curveballs right as you think you’ve got a handle on the situation- Gaalsien reinforcements coming in right as you think you cleared the map, and so you suddenly find yourself racing to find some high ground and bracing yourself long enough to establish a new front line. This variety is also owed to the fundamentals of gameplay; your base is a massive, land-based aircraft carrier and resources dry up surprisingly fast, so there’s a constant push to keep moving, making tentative ventures deeper into the desert as keep an eye out for war parties on the horizon.
I’d say that’s another point in the game's favor- that the action in gameplay feels pivotal to the action of the story. In that two month window, I tried a couple of other RTS series, but it was hard to shake the feeling that I was just directing the extras in some massive battle scene, the real protagonists duking it out in the interstitial cutscenes- siphoning off all the drama in the process. Often the game’s most pivotal moments- your triumphs and your lowest moments happen in gameplay- reeling as you face some new threat or heartened as you find some new artifact that bolsters your journey through the desert. (And the downtime is well-used too, end of mission briefings giving you a small insight into the thoughts of a few key characters). The downside with this approach is that it can get a little exhausting, the strategic expectations ratcheting up with every mission, no alternating perspectives or “away” missions to let you cool down after some of the more intense battles.
I guess my only other problem with the game is its ending- which is weirdly abrupt considering how evenly-produced the rest of the experience is, with a couple of simple objectives and no future to consider, so it’s easy to play far dumber than in the rest of the campaign. In that, it’s probably a good point of reference for the rest of the game, an example of how listless the action would be if all the missions were discrete encounters where your decisions didn’t carry forward.
(And I'm writing this part a day later, but I think I need to stress that the final cutscene here feels so inconclusive, that in a different era, a big message would pop up and say INSERT DISK 2 and you'd go right into the the original Homeworld. Not a huge problem if you're planning on playing the entire series, but it robs the game of proper resolution.)
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Really enjoyed this one, and I suspect I’ll probably enjoy the later Homeworld titles even more- in a year where I’ve felt mired in the past, getting into this series has been a nice reminder of the day-to-day actions that build a future.
One of the defining features of the Homeworld series is the continuity of your fleet between missions, meaning that your army stays with you- deftly avoiding much of the downtime that can bookend RTS mission design. There’s no need to spend minutes filling out your fleet as you stare down the enemy base at the beginning of a mission, and neither is there the sense that you can let the action resolve itself as you turn the tide of battle; an early game mission had me send a group of LAVs on a suicidal push that secured a victory, but saw me enter the next level with an entire control group, gone, as a result of my ineptitude. It’s a knowledge that imbues the action with a greater degree of purpose, always thinking of the best ways you could prevent loss of life and stack the odds in your favor. (And further helped by some tremendous radio chatter)
Combined with an escalating series of missions that always seem to push you outside your comfort zone and the game never slides into repetition or complacency, and without ever feeling contrived; I have distinct memory of playing Starcraft II years ago, with every mission conspiring to find some reason to hurry you along- racing to get enough resources on a lava world or outright running from a giant wall of fire. They felt like inelegant ways of getting players to play more aggressively, but Deserts of Kharak manages to handle these quite a bit more naturally- playing around with terrain and objectives, and constantly throwing curveballs right as you think you’ve got a handle on the situation- Gaalsien reinforcements coming in right as you think you cleared the map, and so you suddenly find yourself racing to find some high ground and bracing yourself long enough to establish a new front line. This variety is also owed to the fundamentals of gameplay; your base is a massive, land-based aircraft carrier and resources dry up surprisingly fast, so there’s a constant push to keep moving, making tentative ventures deeper into the desert as keep an eye out for war parties on the horizon.
I’d say that’s another point in the game's favor- that the action in gameplay feels pivotal to the action of the story. In that two month window, I tried a couple of other RTS series, but it was hard to shake the feeling that I was just directing the extras in some massive battle scene, the real protagonists duking it out in the interstitial cutscenes- siphoning off all the drama in the process. Often the game’s most pivotal moments- your triumphs and your lowest moments happen in gameplay- reeling as you face some new threat or heartened as you find some new artifact that bolsters your journey through the desert. (And the downtime is well-used too, end of mission briefings giving you a small insight into the thoughts of a few key characters). The downside with this approach is that it can get a little exhausting, the strategic expectations ratcheting up with every mission, no alternating perspectives or “away” missions to let you cool down after some of the more intense battles.
I guess my only other problem with the game is its ending- which is weirdly abrupt considering how evenly-produced the rest of the experience is, with a couple of simple objectives and no future to consider, so it’s easy to play far dumber than in the rest of the campaign. In that, it’s probably a good point of reference for the rest of the game, an example of how listless the action would be if all the missions were discrete encounters where your decisions didn’t carry forward.
(And I'm writing this part a day later, but I think I need to stress that the final cutscene here feels so inconclusive, that in a different era, a big message would pop up and say INSERT DISK 2 and you'd go right into the the original Homeworld. Not a huge problem if you're planning on playing the entire series, but it robs the game of proper resolution.)
///
Really enjoyed this one, and I suspect I’ll probably enjoy the later Homeworld titles even more- in a year where I’ve felt mired in the past, getting into this series has been a nice reminder of the day-to-day actions that build a future.
JohnHarrelson
1 year ago