The story begins like this. Due to a malfunction, a survey satellite orbiting the player's desert planet turns its attention downward. It detects a large object buried beneath a great desert; the object turns out to be a gigantic spacecraft, one that landed their ancestors in time immemorial. When it becomes clear that they are not native to their world, the entire population collaborates towards returning home. It takes nearly 100 years for the mothership to be completed, and one of the world's leading scientists is embedded in its core to monitor the fleet.

In the custom of science-fiction serials like Battlestar Galactica, the player is put in command of a ragtag, fugitive fleet on a lonely quest for their forgotten home. Along the way, the mothership will exit hyperspace a total of 16 times to complete missions. These include answering a distress call, trading technologies with other spacefarers, exploring a junkyard patrolled by scavenging robots, and lots and lots of fighting with the fleet's ancestral archenemy.

Powering the story is a 3D graphics engine with great breadth of detail. The player can rotate the camera around any ship or squad, zoom in to examine the paneling on a single scout, or zoom out to view the entire star field map. Squads can fly in 3D formations and even guard other ships by surrounding them in a sphere arrangement. When ships dock with each other, they join with a slow Kubrickian patience, and mesh with pixel accuracy. The colored exhaust left behind is a spectacle that helps to distinguish friends from foes.

The added third dimension means players can attack their enemies from above or below, as well as all four sides. Large-scale space battles, engaging hundreds of small fighters, corvettes, and capital ships, look like intricate dances of fireworks. Other reviewers of Homeworld have already drawn comparisons to the final confrontation with the Death Star in Return of the Jedi. In fact, the developers at Relic probably had this in mind. Towards the bottom of the credits, George Lucas is thanked for inspiration.

Multiplayer games are adjustable, giving players control over resource injections, objectives, and starting fleets. Players may form alliances, with the object of destroying or capturing the enemy's mothership. A major addition to multiplayer games is the ability to hyperspace any or all of your units across the map. This expends a bundle of resources, but there's nothing more satisfying than seeing an ally warp his fleet of capital ships in just as you're getting your ass whipped . except, of course, for the cries of agony from across the room as your attacker makes a feeble retreat.

In both single and multiplayer games, players may choose one of two races. The only complaint we have is that these races could be a little more varied. With the exception of two craft, the fleets differ only cosmetically. This makes the choice an aesthetic instead of strategic one. However, the complexity of the single-player game may justify this limitation.

Homeworld is a stylish game, epic in plot and groundbreaking in gameplay. It proudly ushers in a new generation of 3D real-time strategy games. If this is a sign of what's to come, we're titillated by the possibilities, including a potential sequel from the good people at Relic Entertainment.