O.R.B. (Off-World Resource Base)

O.R.B. is a 3D space real-time strategy game in the same vein as Homeworld. The game features two competing races Malus and Alyssians, battling for control of the solar system and it's bountiful bounty. While the two races play a deadly game of hide and seek in the asteroid belt, they are unaware of a predatory alien menace that threatens the entire solar system The Malus are a tough and aggressive race. They see conflict on a daily basis in their own society, so this war is a natural evolution to them. The Alyssians are more scientific and intellectual, and they see themselves as being forced into fighting a dangerous and savage child-race. Both use the cutting edge of their technology, and can steal tech from each other by capturing ships. The whole fight revolves around control of the mineral resources of the asteroid belt. These rocks contain higher concentrations of metals than they could possibly find on their own home planet. This would enable them to build huge fleets in record time. It's a race to out build but also to outfight the enemy. Each race has its own single player campaign and you start as a newly trained pilot officer for one of the races.

Basically, O.R.B. is similar in many ways to Homeworld. You must harvest resources, research new technologies, and participate in countless space battles to survive. But I really don't want to compare O.R.B with Homeworld in full details instead there are some pros and cons:

Pros

3D real-time strategic gaming action with full freedom of movement is space
lots of good movement options (auto-scan, shadow....)
you can easily modify a ship's or group's automatic behavior (formations, attack and defense priorities)
multicolored galaxies that are filled with stars, planets, and asteroids
you easily can switch between a 2D and 3D perspective
good mixture of various fighters designed for specific situations
story can be boring at first but I recommend you to wait for the final level!
ORB resourcing is pretty OK (comparison with Homeworld would be silly idea - they both are what they are)
AI works pretty OK - cap will target bombers first and gourd will attack the biggest threat
many options in the doctrine menu
slower pace allowing more time to view battles
16 missions in the two campaigns, 22 available skirmish scenarios
controls are OK, of course if you are used to Homeworld's camera controls, not O.R.B., so it is a little harder for you
extremely challenging
multiplayer through LAN, Internet (there's in-game GameSpy client for matchmaking purposes)
campaign editor and tools, complete with the ability to script your own scenarios, event triggers, campaigns and cut-scenes

Cons

it takes some time to master
some bugs - your ships tend to ignore you far too often
defensive structures are almost worthless
there are not enough voice-overs (not to mention the incredibly lame alien voice when you issue orders to ships) + the voice in the cutscenes is weird
in Homeworld it was much easier to zoom into ships (the ALT+Click only focuses on the ship and the wheel often does not accurately pick the object you want to zoom into) Sorry for this comparison, but Homeworld is definitely the grandmaster of perfect camera controls in this genre
most asteroids do no have any useful materials, nor can you build on them unless they do + it takes too long to pull minerals out of them
sometimes the AI can make bad decisions (those bad decisions can be avoided by not letting AI control my ships)
destroying the structure has no impact on the asteroid itself
too short manual

Overall, this game takes some time to master, understand and be played through. I like this game a lot and it's the only game I play now (that's why this website has no one new review for a couple of days :P) but the game could be improved a little. Anyway, O.R.B. is a must-have for all fans of real-time strategy games set in space. You can try this playable demo (242MB).

System Requirements
Minimum: Pentium III 600 MHz, 96MB RAM (128MB for Win2k/XP), 500MB HDD Space, CD-ROM Drive: 8x, Video 16 MB TNT2-class, sound card, Multiplayer (not required): 56k Modem

Recommended: Pentium III 1.0 GHz, 128MB RAM (256MB for Win2k/XP), 500MB HDD Space, CD-ROM Drive: 8x, Video: NVIDIA GeForce 2/ATI Radeon with 32MB, Sound card, Multiplayer (not required): Broadband Connection recommended