House of the Dying Sun

Great concept but half-hearted execution. The campaign is VERY short (one to two hours) and forces artificial "replayability" on the player in the form of making him replay completed missions on higher difficulties to unlock upgrades for his ships. Also, half of these upgrades are pretty much useless. The atmosphere, aesthetic and combat are done really well, but this seems to be yet another one of those indie titles that has you pay $20 for an experience that feels like it ends right as it's getting good. At the very least though, it's definitely not "PlayStation throwback horror game that's half an hour long and seems to only exist for the sole purpose of streamer bait" bad, and you will have some fun here.

My only complaint about this game is that it ends too soon. This game never got the exposure it deserved and absolutely deserved a sequel. It's best played with a gamepad, not keyboard, and with a VR headset. Some people complain about no VR controller support but frankly I think trying to implement VR controller support would've made the experience worse. The controls are simple and intuitive and trying to map them to VR controllers would've made them a headache. You can hear your forces' radio chatter telling you how the battle is going immersing you into the fight while you give RTS style orders to your fleet before jumping between fighter pilots taking out priority targets or defending your big ships. Something some people have had a hard time accepting is YOU ARE NOT THE GOOD GUYS, YOU ARE FRAGMENTED GUERILLAS. Your mission is to get in, wipe the targets and get out before the big guns show up because the rebels have more and way bigger guns. 10/10 I WANT MORE, GIVE ME MORE EDIT: There are some nitpicks, mainly that there are definitely correct loadouts. There is some gear experimentation you can do but especially once you unlock the CBT Deluxe mode there is lots of gear that is categorically awful and shouldn't be used.

If you've ever wanted to play Homeworld from a tactical first person view, this is your game. I run through it at least once a year. Really holding out for that sequel though.

Does not seem to be an option to adjust/flip, the Pitch and Yaw mode, as is the case with practically every FPS or Flight 'sim' combat game ever over the last 30+ years. This a Game Breaker for me, as Im completely wired to use the standard Flight Yoke responses found in all Air Craft, real or simulated., Back means up, and Forward means down. Otherwise, The game is solid, and enjoyable for the price.

Fast, Sweet, Space Action. Tired of space combat games with lots of mucking about and half hour long missions that are mostly spent flying around waiting or doing busy work with random piddly enemies? HotDS, you have objectives, you have heavy guns, and you have speed. Get in, rip it apart, and get out. Streamlined and simplified. Someone killed the emperor and them and their agents will pay. Its a short game, but its an amazing one.

The difficulty level at first playthrough was a little uneven. Missions are gated by completion of previous missions, but sometimes it opens access to one that really can't be completed (at least not by me) until you unlock upgrades by completing certain other missions first. I agree with the other reviews that the missions are short and there are not very many of them. But it was also less than $10, so it still feels like a good value.

Another painful oversight on the part of developers who refuse to properly cater for mouse and keyboard control. Do not buy this game (no matter how cheap it is) if you are one of the many people who use inverted flight controls for mouse. They have superflously put in the option to invert pitch but have failed to either lock the mouse cursor or (as they should have from the start) alter said cursor to correctly follow new inputs. Infuriating and unacceptable. 1.0

Played with a stick and keyboard. Mouse for the tactical mode. Took about 10, maybe 12 hours. Quick missions that you either win quickly or get to restart quickly. Lots of fun. Theme is very dark with what's effectively a genocidal revenge plot. Most often cited downside to this game I see mentioned is that it's short. And I suppose different people have their own valid ways of looking at it. But here's my take: This game takes 1-2 hours to play through on easy difficulty. And I think that's what you should do. Play through the game once on easy. As you play through the campaign thusly, you unlock a bigger fleet and various swappable upgrades for your ships. Once you've done that, it's more manageable to play through the game again on normal or hard. I tried a few missions on normal but proceeded then to replay everything on hard and mostly skipping normal. Missions on hard are thematically the same, but mechanically a lot more demanding. More targets, more enemies, more things to keep an eye on and more things to respond to. It's where the game sings, as you command your decently sized fleet against various challenges. And if you really enjoy the game, you can then proceed to play through the game a third time on the Dragon difficulty, which is kind of its own thing, but it's basically harder-than-easy and with only fighters, so you're locked out of your larger support ships. Overall I preferred the hard difficulty where I had all my support, but I enjoyed both ways a lot. And if you like, you can also try killing the flagship in each mission on hard or higher for achievements. I'm not an achievement hunter but in this game I found it fun to go for flagships too. Initially flagships act as a soft timer on the game; after a set amount of time in a mission a flagship spawns and it's a very powerful enemy ship that makes it harder for you to achieve your objetives. Doing all that, I clocked in about 10 hours for the game and was very happy with what I got for my money.

I LOVE the atmosphere of this game, it very much hearkens back to the vibe of Homeworld 1 and 2 with the visuals, music, and gameplay. Except this time you're the bad guy: the final mission has the same premise as the final mission of Homeworld 2, save for the fact you're fighting for the other side. My only complaint about the game is how short it is: each mission is typically 3-5 minutes long, and I finished the basic campaign in about 2.5 hours without trying to do it quickly. There is replayability in doing missions on harder difficulties and going for bonus objectives; I was able to 100% the game in about 13 hours total. There's also an endless challenge mode, but I would have loved it if there were 2-3x more missions with commensurate fleet upgrades. I picked it up on sale for $6, well worth that price if you're into space flight sims or Homeworld.

The game has some challenging moments, but the audio is quite nice too. Personally I'd change the engine hum slightly noise wise and raise some of the cockpit/armament sounds if I could for a more visceral experience. Still a game that sticks in the back of my mind to this day. Starting my second playthrough after some time!