thoughts on Homeworld (1999)

I've just finished playing homeworld, and I'm brainrotting about it a little bit. It's kind of fun, because I remember receiving the game-of-the-year edition for christmas when I was around 10 years old? it came with a crazy-detailed manual that had huge written histories of all the clans and ships, but I never actually beat the game until today, at least 20 years later.

I appreciate it in part because the story is not afraid to leave things unexplained. How does the hyperdrive work? who cares. What's up with the ghost ship in the sea of lost souls? no idea. What are the ships in the graveyard in the shining hinterlands? I think a world feels more grand and wonderful when it isn't bogged down by rules and trying to connect everything to them. I think I also just enjoyed the poetic bent of the creators - using Barber's Adagio for Strings/Agnus Dei to soundtrack major moments, the level titles previously mentioned (plus others - the bridge of sighs, the gardens of kadesh).

There's not much to the story as far as acting/dialogue; Two voices for the fleet, with sparing lines. The Bentusi. And I felt the acting was good: the flat affect from fleet intelligence on the line "The subject did not survive interrogation" betraying the anger.

I think, too, the medium is perfect for the story it wants to tell. It's a story about a long journey across a galaxy, and the game itself is slow-paced and contemplative, with moments of action with long breathers in between. It makes the journey feel long because it is long. That, combined with the persistent fleet mechanic, bringing the same ships with you mission-to-mission, plus the importance of salvage, makes the fleet feel coherent and missions feel connected in a way that supports the story.

idk I just really enjoyed it a lot.