I rarely watch movies a second time. I almost never read a book twice. And I've never replayed a game or played an old game.

Until now.

"Homeworld 2" by Sierra

"Company of Heroes" was such a good game, it got me in the mood to play RTS games again. It has been years.

But I have also been in the mood for some good science fiction. I read "Redemption Ark" and started watching Battlestar Galactica again but that wasnt enough. I wanted to play a sci-fi RTS...

And as fate would have it, in my pile of old games, I found "Homeworld 2". I had a great time with the original Homeworld which was one of Relic's first games.

But how a 5 year old game hold up?

I had some problems installing it but I got through that.

Unfortunately it looked like crap on my monitor. Happily, the release notes indicated that you can launch the game at any desktop resolution using a command line argument. Which I did. And the game looks FANTASTIC at 1900x1200. I cannot believe how well the graphics and even the HUD hold up after years.

The gameplay held up too. An RTS in space is the most basic RTS there is. No terrain or buildings and such. But this was the first game to really nail and interface for moving ships in 3D. And by the end, I finally knew the difference between a corvette and a frigate.

The story was fantastic. I love the Middle Eastern theme and the cut-scenese are still good looking and plenty theatrical.

I dont know why it took me so long to actually play it but I sure got my money's worth. The game was a blast and it ran with no bugs or problems.

One of the things that surprised me was how well the Middle Eastern theme worked. More so because BSG did the same thing years later. Were they fans of this game too?

Relic has a whole stable of RTS games out there now but if you are in the mood for some good sci-fi, you wont go wrong with Homeworld. The games were orginally published by Sierra which is now defunct and owned by Vivendi. I really wish they would update the games a bit a re-release them for Mac and PC.

I also wish they would do a sequel and take us to the Age of S'Jet.