Homeworld - Final Rating

Written by Reiko

It's been a bumpy ride with Gateway II: Homeworld, including some technical issues, but I'm finally able to put together my thoughts on what made this game fun and where it surpassed or fell short of its predecessor. You might remember that I really enjoyed the original Gateway for a number of reasons. I enjoyed this one too, but I suspect that the overall result may not be quite as high as the first. Sequels are hard: providing everything that made the first installment good while creating new but similar content is a very delicate balance. Let's see how Homeworld compares.

Puzzles and Solvability

I found the puzzles to generally be fair and logical. There are only a few places where points seem optional, most notably when saving Diana. I may have been helped by remembering some bits of the puzzles, but even so, I think the pieces fit together well. I had very few issues solving anything. The puzzles are clever in a way that makes the player feel smart for figuring them out.

The puzzle with the magnetic clamps is one of my favorites.

I enjoyed mapping the ice maze even though it wasn't necessary, but it's good that there was an interesting non-mapping solution to finding the way through as well. While mazes are cliche in text adventures now, that is a maze done right.

Score: 7

Homeworld - Endgame Escape (Won!)

By Reiko

We're in the home stretch, having used the TransWarp technology to rendezvous with the Artifact en route to the Assassin homeworld. I need to stop the terrorists and escape before we arrive there.

When I exit the Heechee ship, I find myself back in one of the blue-metal Heechee corridors of the Artifact. A bulkhead door is closed in front of me, but there's a button next to it, which I press, opening the door. Proceeding down the corridor, I quickly find myself back in the familiar cargo bay area from earlier, with Diana waving at me from the storage area ahead.

Diana and I are both happy to see each other.

I climb up the ladder and talk to her. She's so excited but also puzzled to see me.

Homeworld - Purloined Personality

Written by Reiko

Last time we had a number of lengthy conversations with Raphide and Astatine and then helped Raphide put Astatine out of his misery. Unfortunately, Raphide didn't know anything useful about the TransWarp drive theories that I need in order to intercept the Assassins before they destroy Earth.

First I return to Convergence to see if he has any other leads. He's back to hiding in his hood but speaks to me readily enough. The dialogue choices here are amusingly varied, from straightforwardly telling him what happened with Raphide, to gossiping about Raphide's mistakes, to accusing him about his own inaction, to playing it cool.

Some of these options are meaner than others.

I don't want to rat out Raphide to him, really, but I tell him about the dead end. Convergence's response is curious, though: "Did you say the [sic] Fogram had Solifluction STILLED? That's not the same thing as murder. We might still have a chance!"

Homeworld - Spirits and Spies

By Reiko

Previously, we discovered Convergence was the head of a secret society who had leads on where to find the items necessary to fix the ship so we can return to Earth, but we still need the TransWarp drive from Solifluction to get back in time to stop the Assassins. So we have to contact his son Raphide again and also find Astatine in Fogram's lab. The Aesthemis constellation unlocks the door to the lab, so I step inside.

Please note that this post has fewer screenshots than normal because we have many lengthy conversations in which the only image is the exact same picture of the character having the conversation with us.

Sneaking into Fogram's secret lab.

There's a lot of mysterious equipment in here, but the most interesting things are a visor and a strange device on a pedestal. I think I remember something about the visor, so I look at the device first. It sort of looks like a belt but with a piece of metal attached. I reach for it to pick it up and fiddle with it, but instead it zaps me. Ow! Then the screen on the wall lights up, and we see an Ancestor, who says, "Who are you? Do you belong here? Get out! I'm at a delicate stage in my experiments and I will not tolerate your interference!"

Homeworld - Gravity's End

By Reiko

Interrupted, just when it was getting good!

Last time we attended a mysterious rendezvous and met Macropterous, a member of a secret religious sect among the Heechee. He believes we can help each other, so he gave me the course code to the sect's headquarters. However, I have to follow some ancient Heechee prophecies in order to gain access, because our meeting was interrupted before he could tell me how to do it.

History of an obsolete religion.

I have put the course code into the ship and now activate it to travel to a new location. A rocky hill is crowned by the ruins of an ancient temple. Oddly enough, this seems to be a tourist destination, as a guidething (bot) wakes up when I arrive and begins telling me about the "ancient site of the Temple of Sterigma." The ancients who built the site worshiped the elements and focused on religion as much as science and technology. Yet their scientific studies were the undoing of their religion: as they learned to understand the world around them, they ceased to worship it. That's reasonable.

Homeworld - Far from Home

By Reiko

I didn't show this last time, but we are now officially in the final quarter of the game!

Previously, we rode a Heechee escape pod and arrived at the Heechee homeworld, hidden for millennia inside a black hole along with its entire solar system and many other solar systems too. Very cool, but very impractical. The Heechee are alive and well, having been hiding from the Assassins all this time. But our presence is a major problem. We're a prisoner in all but name, assigned a "job" of giving lectures to the Heechee public about humans but not allowed to return to the outside universe and risk revealing where the Heechee are.

Functional but alien architecture.

We get some sleep in the quarters assigned to us, and now, after what was a very long cutscene, we finally get to move around again. From a gameplay perspective, this is exciting - we get to explore an alien planet! From a character perspective, this is depressing - we are stuck on another alien planet, not allowed to return home while terrorists are trying to destroy our entire race. At least we're being reasonably well-treated here, so we'd better make the best of it while we try to find a way out.

Homeworld - Into the Black

By Reiko

Previously, we escaped the Phoenix Sect using an automated Heechee escape pod, which crashed on a remote ice planet populated by strange crystalline creatures. Now we've got to find a way to get out of here. There's nothing to eat, at any rate, and our behavior so far has certainly not conformed to any standards of finding shelter and resources in a survival situation. I briefly thought that we'd be able to escape using another similar pod buried in a glacier, but it also crashed and is unusable. Whether its occupant died before or after the crash is uncertain, but I was able to retrieve (loot?) its special identity pod, which will surely be important later.

Those tentacles could grab me just as easily as a Kord.

Now I need to find a way of dealing with the crystal tentacle creature that guards the rock cleft to the north. It's clearly dangerous, and I can't do very much with it with what I have. Finally, I go back to the village to see if I can do anything else there. I notice there are some more sculptures I haven't used. I pick up a large gem and go show it to the artist, who first seems afraid of it, and then shows me another story [10]:

Two Kords are exploring a cliff face that is riddled with caves. They peer into many of the darkened caves, and eventually enter one that is half-hidden by great spikes of ice. 

They slide through a long cavern. The light from the outside becomes dimmer as they progress. Just as it seems that they are going to turn back because of the darkness, they spot a red glimmer coming from the innermost depths of the cave. They press on and come upon a lit area.

Homeworld - Ice and Fire

By Reiko

Part III - Rescue: the start of the second half of the game.

Last time we escaped the clutches of the Phoenix Sect for a third time by triggering a Heechee escape pod on the Artifact, sending us off to who knows where! We've got a new world to explore. I hope I'm wearing something warm enough, because this world looks very cold. The ground is covered with ice, and the ship has crash-landed, softly enough that I don't seem to be injured, but hard enough to have damaged its systems.

Our first look at the new world.

Homeworld - Scorpions and Spiders

Written by Reiko

Welcome back to Gateway II. Apologies for the long wait through the summer. Back to your regularly scheduled coverage now. Previously, we were sent to be an ambassador to a giant alien artifact that was suddenly detected in the solar system. When we approached, it sucked us in and now we're stuck, unable to leave, just like everyone else that had accidentally jumped to it from Gateway. We met the last one of these, injured by a vicious spider robot run by a hostile AI. Now we're making our way through several alien zoo areas in an attempt to bypass the robot and get to the control center of the artifact.

This is the guy we had to impress.

Homeworld - From Ooze to Apes

Written by Reiko

Last time we finished talking to all the digitized people, including a girl named Miki, who had the code to get into the zoo areas. We have to go that way to get around the dangerous spider robot that's protecting the main corridor leading to the computer control room.

Heechee numbers on the obelisk

Miki's code works as advertised on the zoo door, and it slides open, revealing another blue tunnel [20]. I walk through the tunnel and end up in an "Obelisk Room" containing a blue obelisk with Heechee numbers scratched on the side, a red force field portal, and a glowing red sphere.

Homeworld - Ghost in the Machine

Written by Reiko


We've just been collected by a huge alien artifact as we attempt to fulfill our diplomatic mission. No way out at this point except to explore the artifact and try to figure out its purpose. But before that, I can gather some supplies from the ship.

We're well-stocked on medical supplies.

Homeworld - Two Birds, One Stone

Written by Reiko

Last time we triggered the auto-launch sequence for the Aquila, which is supposed to take the Ambassador to the mysterious artifact that showed up in the solar system recently. We escaped a hit squad at our apartment and arrived at the military base where the Aquila is ready to launch, only to find ourselves in the middle of a full-scale terrorist attack. How do we get out of here?

Mission Aquila is GO.

Homeworld - Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

Written by Reiko

The game opened in our penthouse apartment in San Francisco, but almost immediately we are thrust into danger and intrigue as we receive two calls, one rather more mysterious than the other. The company that runs the Gateway station and its prospecting missions wants us to come right away to talk to their alternate ambassador to the mysterious Artifact that recently appeared in the solar system. But then I was warned by an anonymous undercover FBI agent that the fanatical Phoenix Sect, who killed the original ambassador, apparently has us in our sights as well. We have to escape!

A mysterious anonymous agent warns us that things are going to get hot.

Amid that tension, there are a few interesting things in the apartment. The TV (er, "PV console") has a description that includes this: "It is an old 2-D flatscreen model, devoid of the 3-D tank and the full Virtual Reality hook-ups that are common among the more sophisticated consoles. You specified the older model when you were having the place outfitted - you didn't want anything to do with full immersion VR after your last mission as a Gateway prospector." The whole endgame of the first Gateway was a lengthy puzzle to repeatedly break the Assassin AI's VR simulation, including a rather detailed simulation of hell, so I can understand the PC's aversion.

The bed is also described as "old fashioned" and "You never did get used to the new fangled, high-tech sleep cocoons that are considered standard in the year 2112." I don't think we ever get a visual of what those are supposed to look like, though. The reading light is even described as an anachronism. I guess that's an easy way to display an apartment that looks pretty normal to our eyes while painting a verbal picture of a culture with more advanced technology.

Game 134: Gateway II: Homeworld (1993) - Introduction

Written by Reiko

The second game in the Heechee saga, Gateway II: Homeworld is of course the sequel to Frederik Pohl's Gateway, which I played back in 2016-2017. As I mentioned then, Gateway II was one of my favorite childhood games, so I'm very glad we've finally made it here. In fact, I still have the physical game that I've kept all these years. (I'm not sure where the box went, but at least I have the game itself!) It's been six years since I played Gateway, and far longer than that for Gateway II, so I will be rediscovering the game as I play, although I do remember bits and pieces.

The Gateway games are loosely based on the science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl; the main character, Robinette Broadhead, is ostensibly the same in the games, although compared to a game protagonist, the personality is far stronger in the book. The setting is that of a sort of science fiction gold rush to exploit alien technology found in a space station located between the orbits of Mercury and Venus. Built by the Heechee millennia ago, the space station is filled with automated ships with FTL drives set to go random places in the galaxy. Some locations might be interesting, while others might be dangerous, or even deadly.

In the first game, the main character has won a lottery ticket that will take him to the station, where he can then try his luck with the ships, to see if he can find any useful technology to bring back and sell. The first part of the game involves exploring the station, going on some basic missions, finding a few Heechee artifacts, and working our way up to get more lucrative and interesting location codes.

Successfully completing a mission.

The second part of the game is where the stakes are raised, as we have to visit four more worlds on a top-secret mission to save the galaxy. Another alien race that the Heechee just called the Assassins destroy all other civilizations once they reach a certain threshold of technology by sensing artificial radiation using a station called the Watchtower. Presumably we're going to reach that level very soon. Fortunately, the Heechee already built a cloaking device to protect their part of the galaxy, but for some reason they never activated it. That's where we come in.

Each of the four shield generator planets has its own set of puzzles, some of which require objects from the station. The fourth planet also has a notable and friendly NPC: Rolf Becker, who was a prospector lost years ago on his third mission. An optional sub-puzzle is to learn how to be kind to Rolf so that he'll want to come back to the station with you. After we activate all four generators, we learn that there's a fifth piece that must be activated at a location in the same system as the Watchtower. We have to go into enemy territory, basically, and after we get there, we find ourselves caught in a VR trap set up by the Assassin AI. We have to use techniques learned earlier in the game to break the VR programming, escape the trap, defeat the AI, and get the shielding system fully activated.

This guy really grows on you.

Completing all that and saving humanity to boot makes our plucky protagonist one rich Robinette. My official station balance at the end of the first game was over $47 million! Now he can return to Earth and retire a rich man if he likes. But the stage is set for a sequel, because the Watchtower was only an outpost for the Assassins, and one of the Heechee artifacts indicated that the Heechee themselves are still out there somewhere as well. This isn't the end of the story, of course.