The basics are still the same, but now players can't see anything outside of the range of their ships' sensors. This makes defense tougher, because it's hard to predict where attacks will materialize; also, it requires the effective use of a small screening force to avoid nasty ambushes. Your new mothership is a lowly mining scow, so it isn't possible to build anything but the most basic ship until a captured vessel is towed in and researched. There's also a new limit on the number of ships that you can have in your fleet at any time, which means that it's important to build the right ship and make it count. There are a lot of new things to learn in Cataclysm, and all of them add to the game's fun.

One of the best things about Cataclysm is that you don't need a copy of Homeworld to run it, and the story line is completely self-contained. An excellent tutorial is included that will help players come to grips with moving their ships in a fully 3-D environment. The graphics haven't been upgraded much (but they didn't need to be), and the game runs smoothly on even low-end PCs, as long as you have a capable video card. This is a must-buy for fans of the original, although newcomers might want to start with the original (or wait for the inevitable Homeworld/Cataclysm combo pack), so that they can feel the full effect of this polished series. Then again, no real-time strategy fan will want to miss the multiplayer mode. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• More challenging and deep than the original game
• Doesn't require Homeworld
• Absolutely beautiful, especially at high resolutions

• Missions are large, but you only get 17
• The cutscenes can be somewhat lame, but this doesn't affect gameplay