Homeworld (PC Games, 1999)

Homeworld.

This game is utterly brilliant. A unique, moving plot, great gameplay, and pioneering design come together in unique fassion to create one of the best, if not the best, computer games ever made. Your people have been exiled to a blasted waste of a planet for generations. After an archeological dig uncovers the crashed remains of the ship that brought you there, you have built a mighty starship to reclaim your place among the galaxy. The hopes of your people go with you as you activate an experimental hyperdrive... and then everything falls apart. Though I don't want to spoil the utterly brilliant plot, I would like to assure you, dear reader, that it is one of the best I have ever encountered... and this is coming from a gamer whose first space opera was Star Control 2.

The gameplay is innovative, with a true 3D environment and utter freedom to explore it. The game encourages and almost requires combined arms tactics, and clever manuvering can pay off in spades. The two sides are almost mirror images of each other, though there are subtle differences. While each side has 2 unique ships, the unique ships are of little use under most circumstances (only one of them has the capacity to be anything other than an annoyance, and even then it dies too quickly to be decisive) the real difference lies in the ballance of the 'mirrored' ships. The Kushan have superior fighters and corvettes(the fighters by a slim margine, the corvettes by a slightly wider one) while the Taidan have better frigates. The Taidan Destroyer hits slightly harder than its Kushan counterpart, but the Kushan missile destroyer is slightly superior to the Taidan version. Both sides' heavy cruisers are dead even, the Kushan version is harder to kill but the Taidan version hits harder, and the differences are slight. The carriers and motherships of both factions are fairly equal.

Despite the complexity of the 3D environment, combat is fairly easy to keep track of(your ships will keep up a running comentary of how they think the odds are running- a nice touch), with each ship design distinct enough for quick identification(particularly the hammerhead of the Tiidan Assault Frigate and Missile Destroyer) The range of ships is great enough that a player can use any number of tactics, especially in multiplayer, and the design strongly encourages combined arms tactics. It's a great challenge.

And then there's the levels themselves... from the awesome majesty of the the Cathedrel of Kadesh to the deadly splendor of the Supernova Station, to the gritty scope of the Ship Graveyard at Karos, the levels have a strong sence of location, rather than the blandness of deep space. The action is well paced, and the AI is strong enough to be a challence- though it has some perdictable habits that can be exploited by a canny player.

Though it looks a bit dated by todays standards and the controls are a bit tricky, this is a great game and well worth adding to your collection. I would heartily recomend it to any fan of either strategy games of science fiction.