Homeplanet places you in the shoes of the individual combat space fighter. You'll engage in a variety of missions including escort, patrol, defense and precision attacks on capital class ships and installations. You start off in the beta as a cadet for the Troiden clan. These clans are various groups that have seceded from Earth and the Confederation. The Troiden clan, however, is operating in exile, similar to the story in Homeworld. As they drift in space on limited resources, you'll participate in more significant missions in a bid to help save the clan and its prized intellectual material. This makes for a greater attachment to support ships and capital cruisers. Without them, you'll have no home to go to. That certainly made the difference in a "defend while we repair" mission I undertook.

There is a significant change in Homeplanet's treatment of communication though. Instead of radioing friendly ships, you will be directing them from an overhead map. How this will translate in the fast and frenetic missions will be something to keep a watch out for. I particularly remember how Ghost Recon's one screen removed command interface created a schism between the commander and the actual grunt doing the action. The same could potentially apply to Homeplanet's command implementation.

While I didn't attain the level where I could actually command the half a dozen fighters that could potentially be under my control, the artificial intelligence is helped by a lot of timely scripting and good base routines to begin with. I didn't see any fighters looping around aimlessly, and at times they exhibited enough brilliance to dispatch entire wings of enemy fighters without my help. To be honest, I didn't think of the need to micromanage my fellow cohorts until I read about the command interface later on.

Another rough spot that will require polishing is in the controls section. The controls heavily favor a joystick configuration. Failing that, a gamepad, I found, provided an enjoyable experience but the earlier betas didn't have much support for the keyboard and mouse combination. Fans were livid when X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter was released with the diktat that a joystick (or game controller) was required for operation of the game. Homeplanet is finding itself go this route.

In actuality, it makes little difference to the player because the HUD is well designed and intuitive. We've seen virtual HUDs before and I prefer them over the physical ones anyway. The one in Homeplanet is slick and informative. I particularly liked the 3D radar spinning around at the bottom. In terms of maneuverability, there's a lot to like about the feel of space travel here. Aids flash intermittently to warn you of impending gunfire, missile launch or collision. Furthermore, there's a great function that automatically helps you slow down to turn on a dime, so you can focus on the turning instead of throttling your ship up and down. All in all, there's a lot to the flying model here.

Right now, Homeplanet has the foundation to become an epic space simulation in the footsteps of titles like Freespace 2. It shares at least one thing in common: both have great soundtrack pieces. For the action fans amongst you, this is one of those space action games where you'll be able to take down tens of fighters instead of a handful, as it was in X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter. You're also looking at a product that is conscious of all its predecessors. Those LucasArts, Volition and Origin titles are even mentioned on the developer's website.