Haegemonia

- They could actually trick you into thinking that what you were seeing is a computer generated FMV sequence.

- The fire effects and explosions more generally actually look like explosions! Not just shoddy yellowey blobs. Whats more, the ships actually come apart sometimes in a very realistic manner. Not just rubbishy polygons loating about for a while. The reality engine really makes alot of the stuff look very real indeed - which is always cool. Everyone loves great graphics.

- The scenery of deep space is extremely real

- So are all the planets. The sometimes look like photo's on the higest settings

The gameplay is good although I do have one problem with this game and just about all others like it -

The acting. I just cant fathom why 95% of games have such awful voice overs. I mean, even the worst actors could do better than what they've got in this game (and others). I'm being completely serious when I say that i could do better myself - and so could you more than likely. I just dont see any excuse for it. Pay a couple of your mates from the local drama club a couple of hundred each and you would have a decent setup. As it stands, a lot of these games make me cringe with just how bad the acting is. I dont know how the person in charge of sound could ever show there face in public again. Having said that, the rest of the sounds are nothing to complain about.

I cant be bothered writing a conclusion. I suppose the bottom line is give it a try. You could do a lot worse until Homeworld 2 or freelancer comes out

On one side, the game is very much like the classic space RTS Homeworld. It's all in spinny-rotaty, go-anywhere 3d, but it still is mostly moving your ships up, down, left or right, and you just adjust the trajectory up or down a but to line up with your target. They could have made this easier to do, but you get used to it. There are much fewer tactical options, no formations, you just build squads of various ships and basically get them to attack the enemy. The variety of ships is okay, there's fighters, corvettes, cruisers, battleships and military bases, plus there are special ships like spy ships and mining bases.

On the other hand, it's a lot like Imperium Galactica 2. There are several solar systems linked together with wormholes, and you can colonise dozens of planets. There are nebulae and asteroids, which you can mine, you can deploy military bases (big space stations which blow stuff up) and you can manage your planets by building improvements, charging taxes, diverting workers to research or just building loads of space ships to blow everything up. There's a great research feature with hundreds of inventions, you can even build cloaked spy ships which can sabotage the enemy, steal technology, assasinate enemy heroes and others. You get heroes, which give your fleets unique skills and all your ships gain experience through combat, which makes them better at fighting.

It's basically all just Imperium galactica 2 which has been scaled down to several solar systems which are fully explorable. In many ways its a lot better than IG2 but in the single player campaign there is a slightly more restrictive storyline, as it gradually teaches you the ropes of the game as you rise through the ranks. You start just controlling a fleet, then you get a planet, then you get the opportunity to research, then you colonise planets, and after this you get a lot more freedom and the game is a whole lot better then.

All in all, a great game. Nice graphics, a lot of depth but it still should appeal to fans of more straight-forward RTS games.

I've only got one problem with the game (and it's the reason I only gave it 4 stars): some of the missions have targets that are unclear, and time-based (i.e. you run out of time before you work out what you need to do to succeed).

Generally though, very good stuff, lots of cool technologies and weapons and stuff, and has a _big_ advantage over Master of Orion 3 - it's actually out!