The answer is complex. In many ways Cataclysm is a success; in others it seems to fall flat on its face when compared with Homeworld. For instance, the tweaks to the interface have improved gameplay and the compression or speeding up of time is a major bonus. But the story isn't as gripping, new units don't jibe with the story and the level design is much more limited.

Homeworld's story told of a race almost wiped from the universe by a cruel empire that continued punishing the losers of a galactic war some 3,000 years after their loss. The remnants of the Hiigaran race, less than 700,000 people across the galaxy, defeated the empire and did the impossible -- reclaimed their home world. In every level, players knew that the Hiigaran people's future rested in their hands.

Cataclysm starts 15 years after the Hiigaran people have reclaimed their home world, and the player will control one fleet from Kiith Somtaaw. Somtaaw is a smallish clan, only numbering some 25,000, within the overall Hiigaran culture. The clan chooses to go out into space as a mining group rather than deal with the power brokers back on the home planet. The player will control this fleet as it comes into contact with and battles a cybernetic viruslike organism called The Beast. As the game progresses, the player learns more about The Beast and continues to battle it and its allies. The story this time around seems a bit more like typical sci-fi; we've seen this technovirus before in other books, television shows and movies. The man versus hive technology theme is a bit cliched. Supposedly the rest of the Hiigaran people are dealing with battling The Beast around the home planet, hence the very limited reinforcements you'll receive along the way -- though, strangely, your fleet ends up being the only one tracking down the cause of the virus and learning how to stop it. The result of all this is a storyline less compelling, less immersive than the last. Every time the Game Over screen popped up, it was a shock -- not because the Hiigaran people had been wiped out, as in the first Homeworld, but because we didn't care if Somtaaw failed. Couldn't the rest of the entire race and/or galaxy help out? Hell, these folks took out an entire empire, and now everything is up to a mining kiith? Suffice to say we weren't as jazzed about the Cataclysm story as we were about Homeworld's, though the ending was nicely done.

The best new feature in the interface is the ability to speed up time or slow it down, from eight times faster than normal to 1/4 speed. This really helps wrap up the ends of missions in which you're just harvesting, something that could be punishingly slow in the original Homeworld. Another nice touch is being able to control most aspects of your units right from the sensor manager. The disappointment in the new interface is the workers and their AI. A combination of salvage ship, harvester and repair frigate, the worker should be a fantastic improvement; unfortunately it isn't. For instance, it's now not possible to repair an entire group of vessels by dragging -- each worker has to be assigned to repair. If you use the AI workers to search out a damaged vessel, you're just as likely to get them aiming at each other, or at an undamaged ship, as you are the next damaged ship. Salvaging has been gimped as well -- the workers won't even try on a ship that isn't damaged enough. So long to the good old pirate days of Homeworld.

Even if you could pirate your way through the game you'd be limited in how much you could take. In the biggest negative change to Homeworld, the resource system has been radically changed. In the original Homeworld, piracy and conserving units was rewarded. Every unit was important because there were limited resources in the game. Piracy got you units without the resource cost, and keeping folks alive longer meant more troops on the front line for a mission. Cataclysm turns that notion on its head.

No longer will players be limited by resources; instead they are limited by "support units." When you hear SUs, think barracks, houses, etc. Once you build enough ships to use up your available SUs, that's it. No more ships. So instead of trying to save your units, it's better to do as much damage with a ship as possible, and if it dies, replace it quickly. In fact, in what amounts to jarring conflict with the story, there are two types of suicide ships. The mimics can look like asteroids or ships, even enemy ships, and their only attack ability is ramming into a ship and exploding. This SU-based system gets rid of the levels of long harvesting found in Homeworld, but the cost, in our opinion, is a much worse system. The fact is those long levels were already solved with the time adjustments.

When we asked Barking Dog about this during the preview stage of Cataclysm, we were told it's a benefit to multiplayer gameplay because it makes for smaller fleets and more balanced play. Mostly we don't give two craps about multiplayer Homeworld. The best part of the game was the single-player, so radically changing it for the multiplayer seems a waste.

Because of the SU system of gameplay, the levels are that much more difficult. In fact, in the first half of the game, the first time through a level is basically impossible, partly due to such small fleets and partly to the levels being on rails. Forget finding alternate solutions to a level. Do exactly what the objectives want you to do; any variation will not be rewarded. The rigidity of this scripting can reach laughable levels: For instance, one late game level calls for a mimic to infiltrate an enemy area and dock with a ship. The scripting requires the player to sneak in before docking. If you're a badass and can defeat the surrounding enemies to the point that they don't resist anymore, then send in a mimic, it won't work because your mimic transformed in front of the enemy. Instead you'll need to send the mimic away from the enemy, transform and then dock. Absurd situations like that exist in many of the levels. They also are included in the in-engine cinematics -- no longer in-game, by the way, just in-engine. Often you'll see ships in the in-engine movies that aren't in your fleet, another small thing that pulls away from the immersion.

In the end, the player is left with more Homeworld. The story isn't as good, and the levels aren't as good, although they do get much better in the second half of the game. The graphics are the same or better and the interface is much improved. You'll have to take the good with the bad if you're itching for more of the Homeworld universe. We did like the ending, the time compression and the second half of the game. We recommend Cataclysm for Homeworld fans, but if you've not played Homeworld yet, grab it first and play that -- it's a better game.