Gamers who want to relive their glory days of controlling massive hyperspace cruisers and squadrons of fighters in epic space battles can now do so with the re-release of the 2000 real-time strategy space video game expansion, "Homeworld: Cataclysm." The lost game, which has been renamed to "Homeworld: Emergence," is now available to purchase and download via Good Old Games (GOG.com). Aside from the name change, the game is basically still the same title that was released at the turn of the century.
Name change
The game, which was developed as a stand-alone expansion to 1999's "Homeworld," was a big step for the franchise as it added a myriad of new changes and updates to the original game.
The expansion was originally developed by Barking Dog Studios and was published by Sierra.
With its recent re-release, the game's publishers were forced to rename the game to "Emergence" due to the existing copyright that Blizzard Entertainment has for the name "Cataclysm." The name is currently being used by the third expansion of the company's highly popular massively multiplayer online role-playing video game (MMORPG), "World of Warcraft."
The same experience
As with the original expansion, "Emergence" will be taking place 15 years after the events of the original game. The expansion still retains the same basic gameplay elements as the first title, but with a few enhancements that allowed for better control of fleets.
Several features such as the ability to move fast forward through time were also added.
Optimized for newer systems
The original games from the "Homeworld" franchise will still technically work with newer systems as they were all compatible with the 32-bit and the 64-bit version of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7. However, the games were very unstable without the proper patches, service packs, and updates, which will take quite a while to properly download and install.
The games are also very glitchy on Windows 7, with constant crashes becoming a big problem.
Gearbox Software, the owners of the IP, solved this problem by releasing a port of the original game, called "Homeworld: Remastered Edition." The remaster is fully compatible with newer version of Windows and includes different enhancements to let the game take advantage of newer hardware.
Similarly, the game's two other expansions were released as remastered versions.
To celebrate the launch of the remastered stand-alone expansion, GOG.com is giving big discounts for all of its "Homeworld" titles until the end of the month. The "Remastered Collection" can now be picked up for $12. "Emergence" is currently priced at $9, while "Deserts of Kharak" is available for $17.
