If anyone had told me a year ago that my favorite game in the year 2000 would be an RPG Strategy game I would probably have questioned their sanity. At the time I was a flight sim diehard, enjoying such gems as Jetfighter III, EF2000, Janes F15, Red Baron 3D and others. While I still love flight sims, my gaming preferences have changed over the past year or so. I still enjoy flight sims, but I can no longer summon up the willpower to put myself through the weeks or even months of training that are necessary to learn to fly a virtual fighter in anything even approaching a realistic setting. Because of this, I found myself gravitating (if you'll pardon the pun) towards my second love; space sims such as Descent: Freespace and Battlezone.

And then came Homeworld.

To many - including myself - the words "Space strategy" conjured up mental images of static pictures and lots and lots of menus. I couldn't have been more wrong. For those who have not heard of this game, a synopsis might be in order. After living on Kharak for thousands of years, the Kushans discover that they are not native to the planet, and deduce the location of Hiigara, their ancient homeworld. They then build a mothership, load it up with several hundred thousand cryogenically-frozen Kharakians and head homewards. In practice, of course, it is not quite that easy, and they have to fight every step of the way.

When I found out that Sierra Studios was releasing a sequel to Homeworld - called Cataclysm - I was somewhat interested, to put it mildly. Cataclysm begins fifteen years after the battle of Hiigara. You are now in charge of the Kuun-Lan, a mining ship constructed and run by Kiith (a word that roughly translates to "clan" or "tribe") Somtaaw, a minor and relatively unimportant Kiith who eke out a living mining rocks in outer space. This does not make for a very interesting game, and predictably things do not stay that way for long.

After a bunch of training missions and a few opening skirmishes, you discover an alien relic that you, predictably, bring aboard your ship for investigation. While examining it, the research team unwittingly unleashes a bio-technological nightmare that spreads throughout the ship. In one of the most chilling cutscenes I have seen in a game it is necessary to jettison the infected half of the ship in order to survive. This is the first encounter with what becomes known as Beast technology.  This is where things start to get interesting, but I am not going to spoil your enjoyment my giving way spoilers here, except to say that you have plenty of surprises ahead of you. If you have played Homeworld (you do not have to, nor do you need Homeworld in order to play Cataclysm), you will be pleased to know that the interface is just as clean and slick as it was in the Original, with some significant improvements.

* The graphics have been improved. Ships look a little less blocky than they did in Homeworld, and the game seems to run more smoothly than its forbear. I have yet to see the "chugging" frame rates that plagued Homeworld, though to be fair that is partly due to the fact that Homeworld had far bigger fleets, which meant more work for your CPU and video card, and hence slower frame rates.
* The old ship types are still there, but all of the ships under your command are new to this game, including the fast but lightly-armed recon, the slightly bigger Acolyte, the "Worker", an all-purpose utility craft and many other exotic types of craft.
* Unlike Homeworld, you can move your command ship, and it packs a decent set of guns, which means that you can use it as an offensive weapon.
* The sound is an improvement. Workers sound bored when you tell them to go harvest more rocks, combat ships make comments when you change their readiness levels and make appropriate noises as they die. There is far more emotional expression in the sound - for instance, in Homeworld, Fleet Command would say "The Mothership is under attack" with such calmness that you would think that she was reading the weather report. In this game, Fleet Command says "command ship is under attack" with a mixture of urgency and panic.
* All your ships gain experience - all start with a rank of Flight Sergeant and attain higher ranks (Flight Lieutenant, Flight Leader. Squadron Leader and Wing Commander) and become more effective as they gain battle experience - so fighters are no longer the cannon fodder that they were in Homeworld. This makes it possible to build crack squadrons of elite pilots, though it may make more sense to build mixed ones, as I found myself trying to preserve the lives of "hot dog" pilots at the expense of those with less experience.
* Certain ships can be upgraded as new technology emerges from the labs. Workers, for instance, gain the ability to salvage and repair other ships, and Acolytes gain the ability to link together in pairs to form slower but tougher Corvette-class ACVs.
* In Homeworld, the Salvage Corvette gave you the ability to steal enemy ships, and this allowed you to acquire ridiculously large fleets without having to build too many craft of your own. Perhaps the biggest difference in Cataclysm is that there is a limit to the number of support units - ie, ships - that you can have under your command. This keeps fleet sizes small and frame rates up. While salvaging is still available, it no longer the universal panacea that it was in Homeworld.
* You can now give orders from the Tactical screen, something you could not do in Homeworld, which will please the strategy gamers among you.
* It is now possible to "jump into the cockpit" for a pilot's-eye-view of things. This is a neat idea from the eye-candy point of view, but it is of limited use.
* Like Homeworld, Cataclysm supports Internet-based multiplayer gaming. I have not tried this out, but it sounds like fun!

Homeworld was widely acclaimed as a great game, but Barking Dog have improved on a winning formula. My advice to you is to check out the demo, and if you like what you see, Buy it! I will be playing this game for a long time to come.