Well, I see it as brilliance in retrospect: In Homeworld and HW2 most speakers are military professionals. They are trained to be calm in virtually any situation, as panicking - even when your ship is on fire - is unlikely to save you. The Somtaawi were civilians in way over their heads.
But in the end, those Civilians became one of the most well respected and resourceful Kiiths. They may have made this mess by sheer accident (How could they have known what that thing they brought on board held, but at least it wasn't the Imperial Remnants who got it first) but they did whatever they had to when it came to stopping The Beast.
Thats crazy how they dont even have to show you whats happening to the stricken crew (presumably they are being absorbed into the ship's structure) because the screams describe it well enough.
+EdMcStinko One of the defining traits of Homeworld was the use of imagination and stellar sound design to convey characters you'll never see, but care about.
its a dying art these days, showing just enough to make the imagination race, without showing so much your mind doesn't have to think, its a problem most every gore flick these days has, its good for maybe one or two shocks to your system before you get used to it, this approach tho...it never stops working. I remember the first time I saw this intro, and it STILL sends chills down my spine and gives me that uneasy cold sweat and knotted stomach feeling.
There's something deeply unsettling about that ship spinning away in the emptiness of space, as its crew screams in absolute terror and agony. Despair in its purest form.
The beacon carrying the Beast (and by extension the Naggarock) being a million years old is a very subtle touch that makes it even worse: the remains of the precursors are only 10, 000 years old or so. The hyperspace cores are immensely powerful both as pieces of technology and as symbols (along with Sajuuk,) the Higarans spent generations on a world that wasn't their own before making it home, there are leftover pieces of ruined Dyson Spheres floating around... and the Beast is unfathomably older than *all* of it. Even if it didn't have the Beast all over it, the Naggarock's inertialess drive makes it bizarre and alien.
@@alduintheanti-dragonborn yeah the galaxy they were in was probably already lost to the beast so they scraped together what they could to try and save the last of their people and produced a hyperdrive strong enough to jump galaxies, as well as a large PDA to harvest resources and build small ships. Unfortunately a part of the beast was aboard as a stowaway and the rest is history.
Just imagine if the quick thinking scientist at 1:39 hadn't had the intelligence, composure, & courage to recognize that whatever was happening was spreading too quickly, & that he & everyone else on the lower decks were already as good as dead. If he hadn't told the Captain to jettison the lower decks, the Kuun-Lan would've been doomed, & odds are the galaxy would've been lost. Bravery in the face of a fate truly worse than death.
What you don’t realize is that….. This is exactly what the beast wanted if it would’ve taken over the ship or it was about to take over the ship, the captain could’ve scuttled it. But he took over the scientist and told him to cut the section loose……. The captain gave the beast exactly what the beast wanted. A SHIP Think about it That lower section is literally what starts this entire thing you can’t blame the captain for not knowing . But if he had blown up his own ship, at that time, the beast may have never spread, and would have been lost again
@@northerntoeMore like he did what was convenient for the beast. Because at this stage this particular strain was little more than an animal and couldnt really plan for shit.
The thing that gets me is that he sounds like he was likely on lunch break when he got the call from the bridge. Like he was just the closest guy to the phone when he got the call and noticed the thing reenactment going on in the hangar and promptly realized he and everyone on that deck is fucked.
@@northerntoe Considering that the Naggarock didn't scuttle itself when the parent Beast had first infected it, only sabotaged the engines, and the small amount of the Beast's biomass seems to have much less intelligence than its parent, it might have thought that ships can't scuttle themselves. It was probably relying on its base instincts of consuming everything it could.
For those curious about the inside of a beast ship, the game's credits have 2 artworks of a fighter pilot pre/post beast. The skeleton and clothes remain, while his flesh is just turned into like these wires just shooting out of him everywhere.
Yes. The Beast takes over your flesh but your mind is trapped. It's kind of like the Goa'uld in Stargate. The Beast controls your physical body while you are only able to see what is happening around you. That must be the worst fate. The Bentusi describe it as such.
@@Ama-hi5kn I think the Bentusi implied that, that fate is what happens to them specifically since they're already integrated into the ship so there is no need to throw their guts around the cockpit etc.
@@lopatnik yep. Regular people instead get turned into bio-circuitry. Thats why when a team boarded the clee-san late in the campaign, they found no bodies inside... Only bio-circuitry that used to be the crew. The beast still uses the minds of the crew to learn how to operate any ship it takes over instantly, but they are definitely dead, unlike what happens to the unbound
I was so excited when I got this game. I knew very little about it, but I loved Homeworld, and was eager to play. My dad was in the office, on the other computer, so I had headphones on when I got to this mission (It was nighttime, too, I think).... "Weee. Liiiiiiivvve" I saved the game, and exited.
+megafortress84 Back before people googled or heard of the plot before the title of the game. It's an era that can never happen again, we where very lucky.
Styke Yeah. Nowadays, games/movies/tv shows are all spoiled ahead of time :( . Also, back then, I was still terrified of the Borg (Star Trek: First Contact gave me mental scars for almost 20 years), so hearing The Beast for the first time was even scarier.
That is one hell of an inciting incident. The red herring of fighting against the Empire and Raiders worked well when they introduced one hell of a narrative swerve with this scene. A war against an ancient foe turns into a fight for survival against an ancient evil. It scarred me as a kid, and still gives me the shivers today.
This was one creepy RTS game....T_T Creepy RTS! Can you believe this? And it actually WORKED. The whole game's atmosphere was saturated with terror and despair. Looking forward to it's remastered version (if ever)
+Aleksandrs Vlasenko (Avuaz) Nearly every unit in Cata has physics-based effects which are unique to the Homeworld 1 engine. They've scrapped that engine completely and rely on the physics-free Homeworld 2 engine which uses RNG, making Cata impossible to remaster without a full-blown engine rewrite (read: new engine)
@@CommanderBohn I think the ones not wanting to recognize Cataclysm as canon were the ones at Relic. Gearbox had no problem leting BBI include the Somtaaw logo on a cinematic of Deserts of Kharak, and in the Expedition Guide there is a Kiith Story section in wich the part about Somtaaw is an exact copy from the Cataclysm manual. They even tried to remaster Cataclysm, a semi-remastered Kuun-Lan was present during the remastered beta, and some parts of it are still in the game files. Lorewise, Cataclysm fits really nice with Deserts of Kharak anmd Homeworld 1. Homeworld 2 is the actual black sheep of the saga.
@@igorokinamujika2073 Yeah I discovered that some time ago (it was in part still being mad at them for screwing up Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens Colonial Marines). Also HW2 isn't THIS bad, but the way it was presented with certain units and the lack of tech progress (The war with the Beast caused Somtaaw to create some really neat ships and tech, so why the hell Hiigarans as a whole didn't ask them for some of them, like the Multi-Beam Frigate or Leeches?)
I also like the scientist's voice. Great voice acting. He's like "What? Something's bad? We don't know, we were just..." And you know...those screams...they were the best in the history of horror. You don't need to see that, it's just their scream you feel that makes you understand how scary it is...I mean I always tried to imagine what happens in there, but still my ideas weren't as scary to be compared to their scream
I come back to this every so often just to see this scene. The power of simple voice acting and ingame cutscenes. I wouldn't know what was going through my 9-11 year old head when I saw this but I was sure I had goosebumps, what was put into the scene was enough for the imagination to run wild with it. (and not in a good way) shame what happened the source code. still have the disk for it though :) (never did find out what the "Ground control" ad was for on the back.
They never do explain just HOW the Beast controls ships designed for use by Organic crew. I like to imagine severed hands icky-green-glued to the consoles and control panels, still working away though the rest of their bodies are splattered across the ship's innerds like Meat Moss.
It actually was explained. While the Beast cells spread through and over the structure of the ship, the cells graft themselves onto the crew, and use their bodies like circuitry to connect the cells together; essentially creating a network so the entire mass of Beast cells assume complete control over the ship.
Oh man! This Campain was INTENSE! I have NEVER bevore (and after thatt) seen a campain THAT scary...okay I was 11 at that point, but alone in the dark and it scared the living s**t out of me!
I was never a huge fan of the ship design they went for in Cataclysm, but the story... the story was its major selling point. A true Homeworld expansion.
Closest you'll get is the Flood from Halo. The games don't do them justice, the books really convey just how terrifying they are to face as a average marine.
I love how you can picture what's going on down there. You can imagine when they hear the sounds, the crewmember sticking his head out into a corridor to see where the screams are coming from...then calling for them to be cut loose
Since I'm someone who has a crazy wild imagination, and I played this game when I was 11, my imagination went wild as to what went on down there. I couldn't sleep for three days and had nightmares on and off. No other game has scared me this bad since.
The most unique enemy ever created, the Beast. This is how it all started... It came back to hunt them. This is pretty similar to the R-Type series story line actually.
The Borg and The Flood are both pansies. When it comes to aggressive infection and assimilation nothing is scarier than The Beast. The Beast is in fact the only enemy I've ever faced in an RTS game that's genuinely scared me.
Nah, flood is more terrifying as it too can infect ships and AI once it has a grave mind, but unlike the beast, there is no and never will be a proper sterilisation method other than out right wiping out all life in the galaxy
That was, for me, one of my most terrifying game moments ever. And that game was the last who really made me uncompfortable. Yes, Slenderman scared, yes Dead Space Jumpscared, but this one made me uncompfortable. Will play through that again together with his other 2 Homeworld game's. :)
no shit, .... watching this scene after i played this like ten years ago still gives me the same goosebumps. you cant help imagine those crew of those ships being horribly "converted" alive by the beast. propably what comes closest is John Carpenter's The Thing. ...i definatly value my life, but being in an ship with the Beast about to get me i'd definatly be willing to space myself out an airlock to spare myself ...well, THAT death. and i got the same as you, no other game even matched the psychological terror this game brought, or implied by pure audio alone really. and the ship's intelligence officer in desperation yelling at the Bentusi when you try to prevent them from escaping is some of the best story-writing ive seen in games after they kill an cap-ship of you. "you are killing us!, you and your precious story's....or are our "flicker-lives" not worth remembering!?". hopefully they remaster this part of the homeworld-franchise in the future as well! ;).
Well, let's Hope the remastered Versions on Steam sell good, i went there first day screaming:" SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!"... if they do, they might consider redoing Cataclysm as well. Btw. Even the Cataclysm Menu Music still gives me a feel of desperation.
Sensator really?. cant they just get an Copy of Cataclysm and rip it apart its coding?. i know they had the same problem with remastering Homeworld 1 and 2 where they basically had to re-write parts of the coding to make it work on the new features/engines as the old engines did not allow it. from what i heard and correct me if im wrong, homeworld 1 and 2 remastered run on an improved HW2 engine thats largely re-written for additional modding options and features. whats stopping them from doing the same with bringing Cataclysm into this format?.
specopswolf Nothing's stopping them from ripping it off, but without the source code of a game you have to reverse engineer the game from scratch, it is quite a task. An example would be the folks over at SWGEmu that are trying to reverse engineer a certain patch from Star Wars Galaxies, 7 years later and they still haven't got it 100% right.
the best horror scene in any non horror game ever if you ask me. What really sells it is the voice acting, and the fact that we don't see it happen to the crew, we just have to imagine it.
I am honestly curious HOW it does the infecting in-ship. Does it zombify people to make combat forms? Is it meat tentacles coming off the walls? Is it infecting the mind, causing people to kill/do horrid things to themselves? They never even so much as HINT in the story how it does that and I think that's a great writing choice. No doubt some of you guys can think up something even more gruesome that what I've just suggested.
@@thebighurt2495There are very small hints to it if you really pay attention when playing the game. The beast infects the ships with micro sized techno-organic robots that rapidly absorb any compatible surface (weather that's a ship or a person, it matters not) and inflitrate it until it can no longer absorb anything. Then once it has control of that mass, it warps it to suit the needs to the vessel that was infected. It doesn't zombify people as you might think the flood does, instead it breaks the organic material down, sometimes merges the biomass into the ship itself and sometimes it leaves the body in place while wiring parts of broken down biomass into the ship itself for maximum control.
@@thebighurt2495 As what it does to the mind is pretty fucked up: According to the Bentusi (and multiplayer gameplay) the beast rewires the brain just enough to serve their needs, leaving conscious, memories and intelligence of the victim intact but completely destroys their sentience. The victim may even be conscious of what he/she is doing but no longer has control over his/her actions or inactions. Similar to a state of extreme depressions or giving in to a human's basic primal instincts to feed. They're not alive, but they aren't dead either. Death would be preferable over this twisted existence.
any sensible person would have run off the moment this cutscene happened. Crewman: sir...all our friends have suffered a horrible death...should we run? Captain: No...lets go poke that stuff with a stick! science vessul GO!
Well they needed to see what they unleashed and gather data on it to sound the alarm to Higarra. And if possible to contain it before it got completely out of control.
That's not radio static once it gets sent flying. That's their screams becoming a constant hum of unending pain and suffering, bonded from stripped and melted flesh to technological metal by the consumption of the Beast.
Gosh I loved this game, the feels, the horror, The Beast itself. Everything about it felt right. even the Voice acting-everything to the Command ship to cut scenes, to even something the other Homeworld's don't have, personality for the ships... (Beyond the same 2 VO's) The recon was overconfident. The accoulat was the by the book solider. The Worker was tried of doing their job. The processor was some nerdy caption with a clusters of machinery blocking Comms (Or at least in my mind) Just adds the bit of extra depth to the game...
If Gearbox caves in and finaly decides to remaster or even remake this game (Implementing the Beast into HW remastered's combined multiplayer owudl require some work to make infected versions of all the ships from the kushan, Taidan Higarrans and Vaygr) The first thign they sohuld do is remaster this. Then after it fades to black play the Beast's "We liiiiive" and fade in the title. Perfect teaser trailer.
LordDarthHarry It's not a case of them not wanting to do Cataclysm, it's a case of some bonehead losing the source code making a remastering of Cataclysm impossible.
Even without the source code its not impossible in this case. Just harder. The Audio assets can be acessed. The models andeffects are too but theyd redo them anyway jsut liek with HW1. The game is also on the same engien as Homeworld 1. The onyl thing they might truely need the osurce code for are the features that are uniqeue t ocataclysm like mimicks, crystal harvesting infection beams etc. Those owuld probably have to be redoen from scratch anyway to integrate them with the modified HW2 engine and interface the remastered collection uses. The osurce code woudl give them an easier time but i doubt its 100% essential. Some unique cataclysm fetures liek composite strike craft could be partialy recreted in older homeworld 2 mods so i doubt Gerbox couldnt handle it.
LordDarthHarry You are asking them to reverse engineer and redo all the mission scripting, spawns, animations, special abilities, maps, etc. from scratch, using only video footage (and possibly virtual machines running the original game) as a reference. This would be on top of remaking the models, sounds, and voice work to be more up to modern standards. On top of all this, they'd need to hammer out an agreement with Rockstar Games, a (former) division of which made Cataclysm in the first place. (They were called Barking Dog Studios at the time.) In summary, yes, it is possible. It would, however, require enough work put into it that it would probably be priced as DLC, and a pretty hefty DLC at that. Feel like paying $25 for it? (I would.)
nothing is impossible only improbable at the current time. NEVER GIVE UP HOPE!!! *crosses his fingers and starts to chant a luck charm for a remaster version of Homeworld Cataclysm
I must've played this for the first time when I was eight years old. I became completely engrossed in the game after this, thinking about it all the time during school, probably dreaming about it too, talking obsessively, rushing home to get to the next mission Didn't even know there was a prequal at the time. Good times, games are always better when you're young, before sheer gaming experience takes hold, and the magic disappears.
Homeworld Emergence is a full re-release of Cataclysm. Get it here: www.gog.com/game/homeworld_emergence The beast is back boys... Kharak forgive us... it's back.
I guess the vastness of space, the uncanny nature of fleet command, and the hopelenssness often present in Homeworld's campaign wasn't spooky enough to me as a kid. Where was this expansion all my life?
That is something I've been wondering as well. During the cinematic before Mission 9, Tactical states that, in the event that the Imperial research base is infected, the Somtaaw fleet would have to run the hell away. If planet-wide infection really did happen, the Taiidan still have their atmospheric deprivation weapons to turn to. Those things work really, really well.
Honestly when something is THAT BAD then no measure is too great... It's like some worlds in 40k, the situation is so bad that destroying the planet is the best course of action.
I really wish a developer would try to take on a space RTS like the homeworld series again. I just can't find anything like it out there. It's mostly the atmosphere that modern developers get wrong. they try to establish a sense of AWESOME power and expansive empires but what really matters is what is directly around you and your ship. The rest of space is nothing but empty blackness. great game really reminds me of the Dune universe in some aspects.
HW1 & 2 are getting HD makeovers and are coming out in the near future. Unfortunately Cata won't be getting the same treatment it seems though I am not sure on the reason as I have heard different ones given (rights issue or the source code being lost with the closing of barking dog studios).
Barking dog = rockstar Vancouver iirc, which was closed down and merged with their Toronto office about 5 or 6 years ago, but yes, they lost the source code for the game there, relic claims on their site that cataclysm was their game too, last I checked.
I enjoyed the first homeworld really much, but i remember playing this for a time i was sick in bed, and i was really trapped by the plot...Sometimes sequels equal the original and this is one of these games that doesnt really need to rely on the original one. Its a story about the humble Somtaaw miners turning from scratch the heroic slayers of the galaxy-menacing Beast from beyond time... The scene when somtaaw logo is redrawn as a sword piercing a open maw got me feeling shivers for days :)
Just imagine it killing a crewmember and assimilating his innards along with muscle fibers, bones, into its mixture of flesh that has been optimized to control a ship. Imagine it, a pile of muscle-stuff, beating hearts, eyes, and veins that covers the entire ship controls, stirring wheels and hitting levers without a person-pilot.
@cocacolacompany1 Simple, the transmitters from he lower section was still active and broadcasting. All the screams were coming from the com of the guy talking to the bridge.
The scary part is that the rings wouldn't have stopped the Beast since it's also mechanical in nature. The rings might wipe out the squishy part of it, but it's still in the code of the ships it's infected and probably capable of restarting as soon as it gets an opportunity. Plus it's REALLY patient.
i freaked out so god damn baddly during this also that a glitch on mine has the reserch frigit spinning like it had no power i dident want to sleep aneways
this is one of my favourite scenes of all games pure EPIC! i miss the good all days where real games like HW(all 3) real alert, cnc(not cnc 4 that's pure shit)commandos, star craft,age of empires, cesar, zeus, and soo far... omg
One thing i never figured out about this cut scene; is that device they have, the cylindrical structure ... is that their scanner? or is that a part of the beacon theyve hoisted out?
My thoughts are that it's their scanner. They were trying to completely analyze the beacon as it was, and to record and capture the data it was sending before tearing into it and analyzing the hardware. They never got the chance to open it before the beast awakened and consumed them and half the ship.
couldn't sleep for three whole days when this happened. And since I had a very reactive imagination it was hell. No other game did this to me before or since.
@tf08js2 Damn I was about 8 when I started playing cataclysm and had nightmares about the part when they were screming: "We LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!" (I had the german version which was even more scarier because of the voice acting which was pretty good but somehow disturbing) (Im german btw) Atleast now we can tell, where the inspiration for the flood was from.
Игры
Well, I see it as brilliance in retrospect: In Homeworld and HW2 most speakers are military professionals. They are trained to be calm in virtually any situation, as panicking - even when your ship is on fire - is unlikely to save you.
The Somtaawi were civilians in way over their heads.
But in the end, those Civilians became one of the most well respected and resourceful Kiiths. They may have made this mess by sheer accident (How could they have known what that thing they brought on board held, but at least it wasn't the Imperial Remnants who got it first) but they did whatever they had to when it came to stopping The Beast.
@@kabob0077in retrospect, it's seems more "fortunate" they're the one who found it first. Other clan or faction may get worse situationn.
Thats crazy how they dont even have to show you whats happening to the stricken crew (presumably they are being absorbed into the ship's structure) because the screams describe it well enough.
+EdMcStinko One of the defining traits of Homeworld was the use of imagination and stellar sound design to convey characters you'll never see, but care about.
That desperate cry at the end; CUT US LOOSE!!
its a dying art these days, showing just enough to make the imagination race, without showing so much your mind doesn't have to think, its a problem most every gore flick these days has, its good for maybe one or two shocks to your system before you get used to it, this approach tho...it never stops working. I remember the first time I saw this intro, and it STILL sends chills down my spine and gives me that uneasy cold sweat and knotted stomach feeling.
No truth can be as bad as the imagination
@@StykeWarden Shame they didn't remember that for Homeworld 3
There's something deeply unsettling about that ship spinning away in the emptiness of space, as its crew screams in absolute terror and agony. Despair in its purest form.
The beacon carrying the Beast (and by extension the Naggarock) being a million years old is a very subtle touch that makes it even worse: the remains of the precursors are only 10, 000 years old or so. The hyperspace cores are immensely powerful both as pieces of technology and as symbols (along with Sajuuk,) the Higarans spent generations on a world that wasn't their own before making it home, there are leftover pieces of ruined Dyson Spheres floating around... and the Beast is unfathomably older than *all* of it. Even if it didn't have the Beast all over it, the Naggarock's inertialess drive makes it bizarre and alien.
The Beast probably fought the Precursors of the Precursors.
@@alduintheanti-dragonborn yeah the galaxy they were in was probably already lost to the beast so they scraped together what they could to try and save the last of their people and produced a hyperdrive strong enough to jump galaxies, as well as a large PDA to harvest resources and build small ships. Unfortunately a part of the beast was aboard as a stowaway and the rest is history.
Just imagine if the quick thinking scientist at 1:39 hadn't had the intelligence, composure, & courage to recognize that whatever was happening was spreading too quickly, & that he & everyone else on the lower decks were already as good as dead. If he hadn't told the Captain to jettison the lower decks, the Kuun-Lan would've been doomed, & odds are the galaxy would've been lost. Bravery in the face of a fate truly worse than death.
Indeed.
What you don’t realize is that…..
This is exactly what the beast wanted if it would’ve taken over the ship or it was about to take over the ship, the captain could’ve scuttled it.
But he took over the scientist and told him to cut the section loose……. The captain gave the beast exactly what the beast wanted.
A SHIP
Think about it
That lower section is literally what starts this entire thing you can’t blame the captain for not knowing .
But if he had blown up his own ship, at that time, the beast may have never spread, and would have been lost again
@@northerntoeMore like he did what was convenient for the beast. Because at this stage this particular strain was little more than an animal and couldnt really plan for shit.
The thing that gets me is that he sounds like he was likely on lunch break when he got the call from the bridge. Like he was just the closest guy to the phone when he got the call and noticed the thing reenactment going on in the hangar and promptly realized he and everyone on that deck is fucked.
@@northerntoe Considering that the Naggarock didn't scuttle itself when the parent Beast had first infected it, only sabotaged the engines, and the small amount of the Beast's biomass seems to have much less intelligence than its parent, it might have thought that ships can't scuttle themselves. It was probably relying on its base instincts of consuming everything it could.
For those curious about the inside of a beast ship, the game's credits have 2 artworks of a fighter pilot pre/post beast. The skeleton and clothes remain, while his flesh is just turned into like these wires just shooting out of him everywhere.
Yes. The Beast takes over your flesh but your mind is trapped. It's kind of like the Goa'uld in Stargate. The Beast controls your physical body while you are only able to see what is happening around you. That must be the worst fate. The Bentusi describe it as such.
@@Ama-hi5kn I think the Bentusi implied that, that fate is what happens to them specifically since they're already integrated into the ship so there is no need to throw their guts around the cockpit etc.
@@lopatnik yep. Regular people instead get turned into bio-circuitry. Thats why when a team boarded the clee-san late in the campaign, they found no bodies inside... Only bio-circuitry that used to be the crew. The beast still uses the minds of the crew to learn how to operate any ship it takes over instantly, but they are definitely dead, unlike what happens to the unbound
Bentusi: WE... WILL... NOT... BE... BOUND!!! *BOOM*
I thought they were going supersayan and wiped all infected ships out, but no...they went emo on me :|
I was so excited when I got this game. I knew very little about it, but I loved Homeworld, and was eager to play. My dad was in the office, on the other computer, so I had headphones on when I got to this mission (It was nighttime, too, I think)....
"Weee. Liiiiiiivvve"
I saved the game, and exited.
+megafortress84 Back before people googled or heard of the plot before the title of the game. It's an era that can never happen again, we where very lucky.
Styke Yeah. Nowadays, games/movies/tv shows are all spoiled ahead of time :( .
Also, back then, I was still terrified of the Borg (Star Trek: First Contact gave me mental scars for almost 20 years), so hearing The Beast for the first time was even scarier.
this game made my adolescence bearable. Thanks for posting this.
Oh now that I think about it the Machine War from the Animatrix gave me mental scars!! (I was 13 at the time).
That is one hell of an inciting incident. The red herring of fighting against the Empire and Raiders worked well when they introduced one hell of a narrative swerve with this scene. A war against an ancient foe turns into a fight for survival against an ancient evil.
It scarred me as a kid, and still gives me the shivers today.
The way he says "It's killing us!" and that scream at 1:41 is so eerie.
all these years and I STILL feel chills running down my spine everytime I hear the "Cut us loose!" line.
god, I love how they decide to add in screams and panic through the radio!
I think it sells the idea that a) the Beast is fully capable of murdering entire ship's crews just from a defenseless PROBE and b) it works FAST.
This was one creepy RTS game....T_T Creepy RTS! Can you believe this? And it actually WORKED. The whole game's atmosphere was saturated with terror and despair. Looking forward to it's remastered version (if ever)
+Aleksandrs Vlasenko (Avuaz) Nearly every unit in Cata has physics-based effects which are unique to the Homeworld 1 engine. They've scrapped that engine completely and rely on the physics-free Homeworld 2 engine which uses RNG, making Cata impossible to remaster without a full-blown engine rewrite (read: new engine)
Sad thing is, a modder was able to accurately simulate HW1's engine nicely in only a few days for free in excuse of hw1 remastered.
Homeworld meets Resident Evil/The Thing. AND THOSE DOUCHES AT GEARBOX SAY IT'S NOT CANON. Not canon despite being a visible upgrade to the base game.
@@CommanderBohn I think the ones not wanting to recognize Cataclysm as canon were the ones at Relic. Gearbox had no problem leting BBI include the Somtaaw logo on a cinematic of Deserts of Kharak, and in the Expedition Guide there is a Kiith Story section in wich the part about Somtaaw is an exact copy from the Cataclysm manual. They even tried to remaster Cataclysm, a semi-remastered Kuun-Lan was present during the remastered beta, and some parts of it are still in the game files.
Lorewise, Cataclysm fits really nice with Deserts of Kharak anmd Homeworld 1. Homeworld 2 is the actual black sheep of the saga.
@@igorokinamujika2073 Yeah I discovered that some time ago (it was in part still being mad at them for screwing up Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens Colonial Marines). Also HW2 isn't THIS bad, but the way it was presented with certain units and the lack of tech progress (The war with the Beast caused Somtaaw to create some really neat ships and tech, so why the hell Hiigarans as a whole didn't ask them for some of them, like the Multi-Beam Frigate or Leeches?)
I also like the scientist's voice. Great voice acting.
He's like "What? Something's bad? We don't know, we were just..."
And you know...those screams...they were the best in the history of horror. You don't need to see that, it's just their scream you feel that makes you understand how scary it is...I mean I always tried to imagine what happens in there, but still my ideas weren't as scary to be compared to their scream
I come back to this every so often just to see this scene. The power of simple voice acting and ingame cutscenes.
I wouldn't know what was going through my 9-11 year old head when I saw this but I was sure I had goosebumps, what was put into the scene was enough for the imagination to run wild with it. (and not in a good way)
shame what happened the source code.
still have the disk for it though :) (never did find out what the "Ground control" ad was for on the back.
@@matthewkiernan4390 Wait really?
@@matthewkiernan4390 You right. I feel like old now.
@@matthewkiernan4390 good on yah :)
Ground Control? Isn't that the (also good) RTT game by Massive Entertainment of World in Conflict fame?
@@michaelandreipalon359 Something like that yeah. Only reason I know of that is because it's on the Box art on the disk case.
Still get goosebumps..... scary as hell
They never do explain just HOW the Beast controls ships designed for use by Organic crew. I like to imagine severed hands icky-green-glued to the consoles and control panels, still working away though the rest of their bodies are splattered across the ship's innerds like Meat Moss.
It actually was explained. While the Beast cells spread through and over the structure of the ship, the cells graft themselves onto the crew, and use their bodies like circuitry to connect the cells together; essentially creating a network so the entire mass of Beast cells assume complete control over the ship.
@@gcHK47 It can also repurpose inorganic matter. So no need for manual manipulation, it's like a giant biomechanical drone.
"CUT US LOOSE!"
Oh man!
This Campain was INTENSE! I have NEVER bevore (and after thatt) seen a campain THAT scary...okay I was 11 at that point, but alone in the dark and it scared the living s**t out of me!
"a campain THAT scary"
IncapableLP Yea pretty much all the Homeworld games excelled in creating an atmosphere. In cata they did this so well.
I was never a huge fan of the ship design they went for in Cataclysm, but the story... the story was its major selling point. A true Homeworld expansion.
Absolutely terrifying the beast is a nightmare compared to other monsters or entities in games and sci fi
Closest you'll get is the Flood from Halo. The games don't do them justice, the books really convey just how terrifying they are to face as a average marine.
Homeworld: Cataclysm, for when you absolutely, positively need some lovecraftian cosmic horror in your RTS.
I love how you can picture what's going on down there. You can imagine when they hear the sounds, the crewmember sticking his head out into a corridor to see where the screams are coming from...then calling for them to be cut loose
Since I'm someone who has a crazy wild imagination, and I played this game when I was 11, my imagination went wild as to what went on down there. I couldn't sleep for three days and had nightmares on and off. No other game has scared me this bad since.
Played Carrion, instantly reminded me of The Beast. Still eerie to this day!
The most unique enemy ever created, the Beast. This is how it all started... It came back to hunt them.
This is pretty similar to the R-Type series story line actually.
The Borg and The Flood are both pansies. When it comes to aggressive infection and assimilation nothing is scarier than The Beast.
The Beast is in fact the only enemy I've ever faced in an RTS game that's genuinely scared me.
Nah, flood is more terrifying as it too can infect ships and AI once it has a grave mind, but unlike the beast, there is no and never will be a proper sterilisation method other than out right wiping out all life in the galaxy
That was, for me, one of my most terrifying game moments ever. And that game was the last who really made me uncompfortable. Yes, Slenderman scared, yes Dead Space Jumpscared, but this one made me uncompfortable. Will play through that again together with his other 2 Homeworld game's. :)
no shit, .... watching this scene after i played this like ten years ago still gives me the same goosebumps. you cant help imagine those crew of those ships being horribly "converted" alive by the beast. propably what comes closest is John Carpenter's The Thing. ...i definatly value my life, but being in an ship with the Beast about to get me i'd definatly be willing to space myself out an airlock to spare myself ...well, THAT death.
and i got the same as you, no other game even matched the psychological terror this game brought, or implied by pure audio alone really. and the ship's intelligence officer in desperation yelling at the Bentusi when you try to prevent them from escaping is some of the best story-writing ive seen in games after they kill an cap-ship of you. "you are killing us!, you and your precious story's....or are our "flicker-lives" not worth remembering!?".
hopefully they remaster this part of the homeworld-franchise in the future as well! ;).
Well, let's Hope the remastered Versions on Steam sell good, i went there first day screaming:" SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!!!"... if they do, they might consider redoing Cataclysm as well.
Btw. Even the Cataclysm Menu Music still gives me a feel of desperation.
Tao Cataclysm's source code was lost, rip in peace.
Sensator really?. cant they just get an Copy of Cataclysm and rip it apart its coding?. i know they had the same problem with remastering Homeworld 1 and 2 where they basically had to re-write parts of the coding to make it work on the new features/engines as the old engines did not allow it. from what i heard and correct me if im wrong, homeworld 1 and 2 remastered run on an improved HW2 engine thats largely re-written for additional modding options and features.
whats stopping them from doing the same with bringing Cataclysm into this format?.
specopswolf Nothing's stopping them from ripping it off, but without the source code of a game you have to reverse engineer the game from scratch, it is quite a task. An example would be the folks over at SWGEmu that are trying to reverse engineer a certain patch from Star Wars Galaxies, 7 years later and they still haven't got it 100% right.
the best horror scene in any non horror game ever if you ask me.
What really sells it is the voice acting, and the fact that we don't see it happen to the crew, we just have to imagine it.
I am honestly curious HOW it does the infecting in-ship. Does it zombify people to make combat forms? Is it meat tentacles coming off the walls? Is it infecting the mind, causing people to kill/do horrid things to themselves? They never even so much as HINT in the story how it does that and I think that's a great writing choice. No doubt some of you guys can think up something even more gruesome that what I've just suggested.
@@thebighurt2495There are very small hints to it if you really pay attention when playing the game. The beast infects the ships with micro sized techno-organic robots that rapidly absorb any compatible surface (weather that's a ship or a person, it matters not) and inflitrate it until it can no longer absorb anything. Then once it has control of that mass, it warps it to suit the needs to the vessel that was infected. It doesn't zombify people as you might think the flood does, instead it breaks the organic material down, sometimes merges the biomass into the ship itself and sometimes it leaves the body in place while wiring parts of broken down biomass into the ship itself for maximum control.
@@thebighurt2495 As what it does to the mind is pretty fucked up: According to the Bentusi (and multiplayer gameplay) the beast rewires the brain just enough to serve their needs, leaving conscious, memories and intelligence of the victim intact but completely destroys their sentience. The victim may even be conscious of what he/she is doing but no longer has control over his/her actions or inactions. Similar to a state of extreme depressions or giving in to a human's basic primal instincts to feed. They're not alive, but they aren't dead either. Death would be preferable over this twisted existence.
any sensible person would have run off the moment this cutscene happened.
Crewman: sir...all our friends have suffered a horrible death...should we run?
Captain: No...lets go poke that stuff with a stick! science vessul GO!
Well they needed to see what they unleashed and gather data on it to sound the alarm to Higarra. And if possible to contain it before it got completely out of control.
@@tidan4575 That is true, but honestly I wouldn't have blamed them for just running away.
@@Tenacitybrit Neither would I. Most Higarans probably would've.
@@tidan4575 They weren't expecting bullshit plague lasers.
That's not radio static once it gets sent flying. That's their screams becoming a constant hum of unending pain and suffering, bonded from stripped and melted flesh to technological metal by the consumption of the Beast.
...that..Scientist...
i...think i would have wanted to know him. he ... he was a good man.
Gosh I loved this game, the feels, the horror, The Beast itself. Everything about it felt right. even the Voice acting-everything to the Command ship to cut scenes, to even something the other Homeworld's don't have, personality for the ships... (Beyond the same 2 VO's)
The recon was overconfident.
The accoulat was the by the book solider.
The Worker was tried of doing their job.
The processor was some nerdy caption with a clusters of machinery blocking Comms
(Or at least in my mind) Just adds the bit of extra depth to the game...
Still the best villain of the series. Makaan just can't compare with it even.
Also, 1:15 has a familiar alarm.
After all these years, still gives me a damn chill every time.
You can't beat this.
This was so amazing... I still get chills on my skin... Amazing...
If Gearbox caves in and finaly decides to remaster or even remake this game (Implementing the Beast into HW remastered's combined multiplayer owudl require some work to make infected versions of all the ships from the kushan, Taidan Higarrans and Vaygr) The first thign they sohuld do is remaster this.
Then after it fades to black play the Beast's "We liiiiive" and fade in the title. Perfect teaser trailer.
LordDarthHarry It's not a case of them not wanting to do Cataclysm, it's a case of some bonehead losing the source code making a remastering of Cataclysm impossible.
Even without the source code its not impossible in this case. Just harder. The Audio assets can be acessed. The models andeffects are too but theyd redo them anyway jsut liek with HW1. The game is also on the same engien as Homeworld 1. The onyl thing they might truely need the osurce code for are the features that are uniqeue t ocataclysm like mimicks, crystal harvesting infection beams etc. Those owuld probably have to be redoen from scratch anyway to integrate them with the modified HW2 engine and interface the remastered collection uses.
The osurce code woudl give them an easier time but i doubt its 100% essential. Some unique cataclysm fetures liek composite strike craft could be partialy recreted in older homeworld 2 mods so i doubt Gerbox couldnt handle it.
LordDarthHarry You are asking them to reverse engineer and redo all the mission scripting, spawns, animations, special abilities, maps, etc. from scratch, using only video footage (and possibly virtual machines running the original game) as a reference. This would be on top of remaking the models, sounds, and voice work to be more up to modern standards. On top of all this, they'd need to hammer out an agreement with Rockstar Games, a (former) division of which made Cataclysm in the first place. (They were called Barking Dog Studios at the time.)
In summary, yes, it is possible. It would, however, require enough work put into it that it would probably be priced as DLC, and a pretty hefty DLC at that. Feel like paying $25 for it?
(I would.)
nothing is impossible only improbable at the current time. NEVER GIVE UP HOPE!!! *crosses his fingers and starts to chant a luck charm for a remaster version of Homeworld Cataclysm
+Cronocke This game is easily playable on Windows 7, don't know what you're talking about
I must've played this for the first time when I was eight years old. I became completely engrossed in the game after this, thinking about it all the time during school, probably dreaming about it too, talking obsessively, rushing home to get to the next mission Didn't even know there was a prequal at the time.
Good times, games are always better when you're young, before sheer gaming experience takes hold, and the magic disappears.
Homeworld Emergence is a full re-release of Cataclysm. Get it here: www.gog.com/game/homeworld_emergence
The beast is back boys... Kharak forgive us... it's back.
I have the disks on my desk, but I bought it within the first hour of it being posted anyway.
I guess the vastness of space, the uncanny nature of fleet command, and the hopelenssness often present in Homeworld's campaign wasn't spooky enough to me as a kid. Where was this expansion all my life?
That is something I've been wondering as well. During the cinematic before Mission 9, Tactical states that, in the event that the Imperial research base is infected, the Somtaaw fleet would have to run the hell away.
If planet-wide infection really did happen, the Taiidan still have their atmospheric deprivation weapons to turn to. Those things work really, really well.
Honestly when something is THAT BAD then no measure is too great...
It's like some worlds in 40k, the situation is so bad that destroying the planet is the best course of action.
Fuck... childhood nightmare all over again.
1:51 Shivers down my spine.
I really wish a developer would try to take on a space RTS like the homeworld series again. I just can't find anything like it out there. It's mostly the atmosphere that modern developers get wrong. they try to establish a sense of AWESOME power and expansive empires but what really matters is what is directly around you and your ship. The rest of space is nothing but empty blackness.
great game really reminds me of the Dune universe in some aspects.
It was like "Event Horizon" and The Borg had a baby together. Not an original adversary but the game was still very good.
i love how you edited the title nearly 9 years later to honor the gog re-release
i.imgur.com/gN2XON8.jpg I'm a fan, and the video still gets daily views.
I come here everyday:)
I'm very passionate about Homeworld.
Gog has released this great game for ten dollars!
I wish more people played this series.
The music also DEFINITELY mentions a compliment too
Basically the guy is trying to work out what is happening as the beast is subverting the crew. When it detaches, the radio is left on.
Still get a shiver every time!
God damn I miss this game! Trying but failing to get it running on newer PCs
You must have it patched for V1.01 (or is it 1.04?) it will run without comp on windows 7x64, just takes a few attempts to get it off its butt.
Works fine for me.
HW1 & 2 are getting HD makeovers and are coming out in the near future. Unfortunately Cata won't be getting the same treatment it seems though I am not sure on the reason as I have heard different ones given (rights issue or the source code being lost with the closing of barking dog studios).
Barking dog = rockstar Vancouver iirc, which was closed down and merged with their Toronto office about 5 or 6 years ago, but yes, they lost the source code for the game there, relic claims on their site that cataclysm was their game too, last I checked.
if you still try, look up the folks at GOG.com, they got one that works fine on win10.
The voices, so damned eerie... Makes my mind run wild about what is actually taking place...
It is the best part!Finally someone has the same feeling!
This was somehow rated e.
Sierra must have had pictures of someone at the ESRB doing things with farm animals.
I enjoyed the first homeworld really much, but i remember playing this for a time i was sick in bed, and i was really trapped by the plot...Sometimes sequels equal the original and this is one of these games that doesnt really need to rely on the original one. Its a story about the humble Somtaaw miners turning from scratch the heroic slayers of the galaxy-menacing Beast from beyond time...
The scene when somtaaw logo is redrawn as a sword piercing a open maw got me feeling shivers for days :)
awsome game a classic ,.. i got shivers playing it too i anxiously await the newest installment
You said it!
I've NEVER seen a RTS that scary!
this redefines "all your base are (soon to) belong to us"
quite possibly the best cutscene and voice acting i've ever seen..... "CUT US LOOOOOOOOOSE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
I feel sorry for the guy who was standing right next to the beacon.
Good times. Best of the series.
YOU DIDN'T TELL ME I WAS PLAYING A HORROR GAME! I THOUGHT IT WAS AN RTS! WHY YOU LIED TO ME!?!
Favorite phrase out of the entire game.
Homeworld Cataclysm was my Favorite of the 3 HW they made I hope they do a remastered or updated to work on Modern OS...
chills just went down my spine
This cutscene disturbed the hell out of me when I was a kid.
Weeeee live!
Just imagine it killing a crewmember and assimilating his innards along with muscle fibers, bones, into its mixture of flesh that has been optimized to control a ship.
Imagine it, a pile of muscle-stuff, beating hearts, eyes, and veins that covers the entire ship controls, stirring wheels and hitting levers without a person-pilot.
the flood in a nutshell
@@codybuckler6027 More than just the Flood as the beast can also warp metal and circuitry, and blend them with flesh.
@@CareerKnight oof
haha The master go brrrrrr
actually, it's wired directly to the hardware.
i agree, if the beast got onto a planet there is nothing you could do to stop it.
@weylin6 If they are in the same radio frequency, then yes.
i think this one was the best homeworld game and the darkest one^^
Yeah man, even for like 2 years afterwards I still got creeped out by those screams and distorted voices
It is meant to be that way. Bland I mean. Cataclysm on the other hand is a relic in gaming history, best game I have ever played.
My Reaction:
*watches videos*
*SCREAMING*
*frowns*
*finishes watching*
"That's horrible."
apparently, in space, EVERYONE can hear you scream
God this game gave me chills...as an RTS, it shouldn't do that. But GOD the Beat creeped me out.
Almost sounds like Caboose was the operator of the infected ship.
Haha, you too? D:
Had shitloads of nightmares, but I got rid of them when I finished the game. Damn over reactive subconsciousness
Gods, the screaming really get to me. I don't want to picture what is happening to the crew.
bets part in the game man gives me the chills tho
yeah, that guy is awesome.
@cocacolacompany1 Simple, the transmitters from he lower section was still active and broadcasting. All the screams were coming from the com of the guy talking to the bridge.
The scary part is that the rings wouldn't have stopped the Beast since it's also mechanical in nature. The rings might wipe out the squishy part of it, but it's still in the code of the ships it's infected and probably capable of restarting as soon as it gets an opportunity. Plus it's REALLY patient.
@weylin6 It's over the radio. Do you seriously think the lower decks are shouting reports to the commander through air vents?
i freaked out so god damn baddly during this also that a glitch on mine has the reserch frigit spinning like it had no power
i dident want to sleep aneways
His name... is Kuun Lan - KHARAK BORN!
KITH SOMTAAW!
this is one of my favourite scenes of all games pure EPIC! i miss the good all days where real games like HW(all 3) real alert, cnc(not cnc 4 that's pure shit)commandos, star craft,age of empires, cesar, zeus, and soo far... omg
"Kiith Somtaaw ... needs ... DISadvantage..."
This game.... Good remembers!!!! Oh man, i wish there would be a new homeworld now :) (i mean homeworld 3 or something)
One thing i never figured out about this cut scene; is that device they have, the cylindrical structure ... is that their scanner? or is that a part of the beacon theyve hoisted out?
My thoughts are that it's their scanner. They were trying to completely analyze the beacon as it was, and to record and capture the data it was sending before tearing into it and analyzing the hardware. They never got the chance to open it before the beast awakened and consumed them and half the ship.
@SASardonic
I still remember when I was like a kid and this came up :) I mean I really didn't expect this to happen. Hardly slept that night :)
couldn't sleep for three whole days when this happened. And since I had a very reactive imagination it was hell. No other game did this to me before or since.
Well, thanks.
Yeah, I agree with You.
@tf08js2
Damn I was about 8 when I started playing cataclysm and had nightmares about the part when they were screming: "We LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!"
(I had the german version which was even more scarier because of the voice acting which was pretty good but somehow disturbing) (Im german btw)
Atleast now we can tell, where the inspiration for the flood was from.
Damn that still freaked me out....
the first time i played that scene i was scaaared :|
ps: "Kiith Somtaaw needs this advantage...": lololol
The screaming can be heard...through the silence of space.....
radio
thats a good intro
Yeah, I think the thing that 'got loose' is probably just the cookie monster looking for cookies and has really bad withdrawals.... :P
whats the difference between this and homeworld one? besides the campaign of course
1:16 That's the same sound that MW2 used when someone launched a tactical nuke.
That sound was used in other games before mw2 I believe.