How Does Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak Compare to Previous Homeworlds? 

Speaking of the emotional weight of the original Homeworld, the single most emotional moment for me is when Fleet Command is reporting the "all orbital facilities have been destroyed". He's calm and professional, but you can hear his voice falter at the end of the statement where almost loses control of his emotions.

Interesting note, Gearbox replaced the scene of the vehicle approaching the Khar-Toba in Homeworld Remastered with the one made for Deserts of Kharak to increase their continuity.

That opening shot is amazing

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who realised this game was like playing the Homeworld "Historical manual" story. Despite the move to land, I was absolutely pleased to play this game.

I love the fact that we finally get a definitive hint at the real sizes of the Homeworld fleet ships. The landcarriers top out at above half a kilometer. The Taiidan Saarkin-Cho class carrier looks to be an immense 2.5-3 kilometers. This actually

One key thing that DoK also had which reinforces the Gaalsien prophecies about being destroyed, the Gaalsien had been salvaging crashed spaceships for a long time which you encounter in some later missions in the DoK campaign. It's entirely possible they were able to power the computer system of some of them at some point in the ancient past and re-learned about the banishment by the Taiidan.

Honestly I loved this game, it hit emotional chords with me that haven't been hit in a very long time. That final reveal of Khar-Toba and the city surrounding it was incredible. The music, too, was absolutely stellar.

10:00 Fun thing: Here in 2020, the same developers are gearing up to release "Hardspace: Shipbreaker," a first-person spacebound ship-salvaging game. I wonder if they had the idea in mind as a sequel back before they got the Homeworld IP, and what it means now that their hypothetical sequel is now the first in a series.

I imagine the terrestrial fleets in this game struck a cord with you now that you're traveling yourself.

I once pirated Homeworld but never played the campaign, only skirmish. I played this game's campaign first and looked on in horror as Kharak was glassed in the third mission of the remastered edition. What hurt most is that the bloody dunies were right.

To be fair, the fact that the Sidiim captain was referring to people as "Gritidiim" should have been a pretty major red flag if you've read the original manual. For context, it's basically the N-word mixed with neo-Nazi connotations of ethnic cleansing. But I agree it's still a shock - as it should be. It also serves to frame Rachel's decision to bring the guidestone direct to the kiith council to prevent it being exploited for any one Kiith's gain, including her own - a counterpoint to Cataclysm's political motivations for hoarding a new discovery, which leads to disaster.

Fantastic video. Best analysis of the narrative and gameplay Ive seen. Well done man.

You bring an intellectualism to games that many reviewers lack, and you manage it without any journalistic snobbishness. Would you ever consider taking a 'thorough look' at the Witcher trilogy?

criminally underrated franchise with an amazing amount of detailed lore. love it!

At a first impression, I have to say you do a wonderful job at presenting Deserts. Professional, knowledgeable, and fair are three words I would use to describe your review. Thanks, and keep up the good work.

OMG, Noah, you've done it again... now I really HAVE to play this game :/ Great job, as usual! I get so much from these vids that you share. I know it's a trend, but drone footage of some of your adventures would be so sweet! I love the travel vlog! Grats on getting hitched and your continued, indefinite adventure! Miss you, already. come back to Kirkland sometime ;) -Cameron

Thoughtful and well written as always. I am always thrilled to see a new video from you, especially when it's based on a franchise that I love and grew up with, such is the case with Homeworld. I just consider myself so lucky to have actually gotten a new Homeworld. Few cult classic fandoms are so lucky. Keep up the great content! You deserve all the support you get. Hope you and your family are enjoying the trip!

It's been awhile since I actually played Deserts of Kharak but I think I may have known of the potential betrayal by Kiith Siidim, as the story about Kiith Paktu was always my favorite and most remembered story from the original backstory. "I can smell the sea."

I want a tv show out of this series, please anyone, Netflix please.

Apart from the (pretty severe) performance issues, I loved this game and wish it was longer. I find myself hoping someone survived the destruction of Kharak just so we would have to go back and rescue them in Homeworld 4.

This in-depth analysis is just amazing. The points you made while drawing parallels between the Kadeshi and the Gaalsien especially were top notch.

It's over Anakin! I have the high ground!

Solid writing, interesting and relevant without going into the farfetched. Thank you my friend ! I love homeworld and DoK turned out, unexpectedly, to be my favourite. I wish it had sold more.

The atmosphere in this game is better than any other game I swear it's so damn good. Makes me realize how lifeless most games are

God I love your videos. It's so hard to find a channel that reviews the story, characters and themes of a game in such depth.

Jack Cambel's the Lost Fleet books remind me of homeworld in a sense. It's about a fleet lost deep in enemy territory and now must reach home. It was an enjoyable read, the way their behaviours were warped for the times they lived in, it was quite interesting.

I can sense the great care and detail that goes into all your reviews! It's as if you fully immerse yourself into all the games intricacies into order to deliver a sophisticated review with such care and analysis in order to allow the viewer to feel a sense of what it felt like for you when you experienced the game yourself. Bravo as always Noah!

I just stumbled on this randomly but you did a really good job with this video! The opening shot is great, and your voiceover avoids the RU-vid Lecture Intonation that usually drives me nuts. Thrilled to see my favorite series getting such a good treatment :)

Interesting write up Noah. I really like how you take games i've never really had an interest in(or heard of in this case) and really make them sound interesting through your videos. It certainly makes a case for every one of them.

My biggest issue with the campaign was that there were no neutral enemies. I wish there had been a 3rd faction like the kadeshi or turanic raiders, or maybe some giant monsters that you had to deal with.

They've yet to make my dream 4x/RTS game, Combine the Space and ground combat from the Homeworld games, Anno's city building and the grand scale from Stellaris.

Noah, I tell you what, you did a really great job on this game review. This review was really well thought out and superbly explained without causing any unnecessary confusion, unlike other game reviews I've seen lately.

ill subscribe because your narration is quite good. Thank you for taking the time to do more than 1 take.

I loved how well you explained a lot of things :) Good video man!

Noah, mate, the way you talk about these games gets me so pumped to play them. Awesome work as always!

Hello Noah. Great video analysis! Keep up the good work! Greetings from Buenos Aires.

This is the most beautiful review I've ever watched, listened to! Fantastic!

Good stuff, since your Homeworld video, i've devoured the original and Cataclysm Amazing stuff!

your narrative was well done i thoroughly enjoyed your video

This was a wonderful review man. I was interested above all in knowing whether or not this game captured the thematic and mechanical essence of the Homeworld series. You more than adequately answered that question, and I hope you continue to do more reviews. Keep up the good work and God bless!

Really great video, keep up the good work!

Amazing and thoughtful video as always Mr. Gervais. If you ever find yourself in Chicago I would love to buy you a beer or two as a thank you for all of your hard work. But make sure to come in the Summer. Winters here really suck. Fall is OK too.

Impressive narration, well done!!

Glad i found this channel, one of best on youtube!!! Subbed

Great video. Everything was well thought out and well said.

again a beautiful essay! they are a pleasure to listen to! when i have a little more money i will support you! When you said spoilers ahead, i was like "I don't care, this essays probably enjoyable enough to be worth the spoil" and i was right. And besides that I will probably still love this game.

Delightful essay and well spoken. Thank you!

excellent, glad i found this channel especially with references to homeworld n ground control

Amazing. Truly amazing work.

I've always thought that the reason this ground based game works (on a mechanical level) is because it uses the 3D terrain so effectively. This game honestly uses 3D combat as a much bigger part of the gameplay than the fully 3D games ever did.

"There's no part of deserts of kharak that isn't immediately and satisfyingly identifable as homeworld." Well said. I really loved this game and not only am a LONGTIME homeworlder but met some of the DoK devs a few years ago and talk to multiple. They are incredibly passionate people and this is a superb analysis of their work, I'll be showing it to many who are ignorant of the homeworld franchise that I have opted to try and hook through THIS game rather than the remastered collection. Oh, and you've earned a subscription.

Gotta love the new bell notifications, subscriptions are actually subscriptions again.

This was awesome dude! I would love to see you do a breakdown of the plot for the other games.

Finally got around to playing this after watching this earlier in the year, and I'm glad I did! Easily one of the best single-player real-time strategy campaigns I've played in years.

What a fantastic overview. You're a great narrator.

What a review. Insightful and well written.

Superb video!

You got me into homeworld, and now I got another game to play. Thanks! :D

I love the introduction !

I had to say that your reviews are like hearing poetry. It was a sublime pleasure viewing your review. What a superb tribute to the Homeworld series, and this game in particular.

I'm now just an aspiring starting game developer. But the experience, especially in emotional sense, that a Homeworld game gives me is exactly what I want my perfect RTS want to be like. I'm sure I am one day going to make this game. I wonder if you would, somewhere in the far future, be interested in writing a story for a game like this?

Thank you blessed Noah

we love you, Noah!

Liked just for the intro. Well played :)

i actually played Desert of Kharak first because of Steam sale and got hooked into the Homeworld universe. imagine my shock when the Taidan came to nuke Kharak and i realized that Gaalsien were right just beautiful games and beautiful music

All very well said! Great video

HOMEWORLD 3!!!! Can't wait to see if they get it right and follow the original masterpiece, or goof it up! Love both of your homeworld videos, great synopsys of the games!

Amazing as allways

Watching this video made me replay again and again DoK! What a great game, what a great comeback to the Homeworld series. Loved the remaster versions as well. I would love to see a Homeworld 3...

This is perhaps the best deserts of karake video I've ever seen , thank you I now feel the need to play the game again 😀

I'm so happy for you. You are traveling through your big country with your wife and dog and make money by exploring a good prequel to an old videogame serie. Wow. Now I don't know how you define success, but I'd say you have quite a bit of it at the moment. ^^ Thank you for the video.

Amazing video

Nice job !

Do you ever plan on releasing more bus only videos. I demand to see more of this adventure!

Well damn that was a nice video to watch.

This is a really good review.

I really did enjoy the game. I came into it in a weird place. Hadn't yet played homeworld 2, (and still haven't) but finished Homeworld and Homeworld Cataclysm. The concept of "We're going to build a land carrier" is always interesting.

This only further wants me to see you do World in Conflict in a future video.

Hot Dang this was a good breakdown. Being a long-time fan of the series (Played Homeworld in 2001 BRUH), I'll have to give this a shot.

Good review, thought it was fair even when point out small short falls, I love the Homeworld series... although haven't been able to get the Deserts of Kharak as of yet and your review answer several question and surprised me with thought of a fourth in the series, adding is that rumor or fact that you have found out? but all and all good review.

Memeber reading Homeworld and the best part was where the generals debates what tactics is the right for space fighting.

Does anyone remember Ground Control? From early 2000's? I absolutely loved that game as a young 'un. Is this in any way similar?

good as always

keep up the good work buddy

The game does desert surfaces extremely well, the graphics of the desert looks almost like the real thing.

This was incredible! Love that i found your videos! Hopefully in the future you will be able to buy a better microphone.

I remember one thing that annoyed me in this game is that everyone refers to Rachel using her first name, while everyone else is Intelligence etc. I think Science Officer, Dr S'jet or whatever during missions, and maybe Rachel during cutscenes, would've worked out better. How it is right now, it feels too much like constant reminder to the player that she's the main hero and ancestor of Karan S'jet (who noone mentioned by first name outside of cutscenes AFAIK). It kinda undermines her experience and role in the fleet. Also, horrible rubber balancing in this game really angered me. Enemy carriers spawn infinite ammount of enemies without the need to harvest resources. I had to redo a mission because I lost too many units when fighting inifinite waves of enemies instead of target-firing on enemy carrier immediately (the mission where you defend Sakala). It was very frustrating. Other than that, I found the story quite good, but as you said, the Sakala arc was kinda "video-gamey". It felt like they had to find and excuse to fight different unit types. Also, I feel that terrain advantage thing could be exploited more in the gameplay. As it is right now, it feels more like a gimmick than actual important decision. I never had a feeling of "I can't engage them uphill/downhill/etc", because the advantage was miniscule.

I finally played this game, and can now watch this video

A good game that IMO suffered in terms of depth because of the mid process theme swap ate into the development time. That said the theme was well used.

Hi & hello ! In defend of Homeworld 2 I can say that Complex mod helps me beliwe that Homeworld 3 or Some kind of Master of Orion in this universe is a huge wish ...

great video

i still goto play the other homeworld games. Deserts of Kharak was my introduction and i love it!

that betrayal sceen deserves an award for visual design

Bravo! I almost felt like I was back in English Lit taking a book apart.

one of the things i loved best from homeworld was encountering a wide variety of threats on the journey. the kadesh, the turanics, taidan, the junkyard dog thing, the ghost ship, meteors and solar flares, space was teeming with strange hazards. in comparison, it seems like they had difficulty thinking up diverse threats for the deserts, thus the betrayal to help bring some diversity to the levels and give some length to the campaign. a third faction that used units that could burrow in the sand or swim under it would have been great

BTW, I love that e-brake! Is that the pull and twist model? VW make another in that era that's just a long standing lever, still no thumb release though... maybe the next gen? You went old-school!

OK you get a second comment. This is very well put together. Cheers Noah!

I would love to see a video on Command and Conquer.

Nice video! Sums up the greatness of the homeworld franchise in a good way. I do have to disagree about the betrayal being a low point moment for the game. I did not see it coming, and it made me feel really betrayed by the supposed "allies", which made it a very emotional moment. Of course the description of the clan in the dlc extra booklet really hints to it, since they aren't really that different from the Gaalsien.

Awesome video, I'd forgotten about the prologue, but I'll definitely try it now. Also, "Maas" is pronounced "Moss".