Sights and Sounds

Graphical and Audio Bliss

The graphics of this game are simply amazing as you can tell from the screenshots. They're so good in fact, that the cutscenes in between missions basically use the same graphics engine to move the story along. The ships are 3D rendered in astounding detail, and you can customize the colors any way you like or add insignias to the side of the ships …can you say clans? You could start off with a very panoramic view of your whole fleet where small fighters appear to be just dots in your monitor. With a click or two and a flick of the wrist, all of a sudden you're up close to see those fighters filling up your screen, which will allow you to inspect the guns or read the insignias on the side. (Though we've been told Relic may not do insignia feature due to time constraints - thanks Pike) Click and drag again and you've selected the whole squadron of fighters. Send them off to another direction, and you'll notice some pretty smoke trails coming off the ships. While probably not realistic, these trails are important for giving you an idea of the ships' heading, which is particularly important when you're not zoomed up very close.

Direct hit!

Thank god I went to Jenny Craig..

3D Audio and Video

Since everything is in 3D, naturally Relic has added in support for 3D accelerators AND 3D sound cards. The audio engine of Homeworld is something the Relic team takes a lot of pride in. It was built from scratch to be the most advanced audio engine out there. Players can expect 32 simultaneous audio channels (the engine can actually handle 100 but your ears would have a hard time distinguishing so many), Dolby surround and Doppler shifting. Talk about detail! Both Aureal3D and Creative EAX will be supported. On the video side of things, you won't need a 3D card to play the game but having one will be certain to improve looks and performance a lot. Thus far, it looks like the Direct 3D and OpenGL standards will be supported, along with most popular chipsets including Voodoo2 and Nvidia TNT. Astoundingly, the proprietary graphics engine made by Relic may support resolutions up to 1600 x 1200! Those of you looking for an excuse to splurge on a good 21-inch monitor may have found a good excuse in Homeworld!