Upon passing glance, you might think of this as sounding like a title that would bring to mind images of a huge space armada raining wave after wave of attacks on helpless planets that you would seek to plant your imperial flag on and call your own. Electronic Arts' The Sims is probably not even remotely close to what you were thinking about, now was it? Hmmm? Space Colony is a very unlike the former and much like the latter, only it's smarter than its forefather because it's in the second generation of a new genre that The Sims created. Only now, the creators of Stronghold are taking a shot at that market and have managed to succeed in taking the people, environment and relationship building software to the next logical level: people-sim meeting world building.

Space Colony puts you squarely in charge of a group of misfits, usually, that perform functions for a huge corporation. You are the hand that guides these gentle, and not so gentle, souls through the days of their lives. You'll handle rudimentary tasks, such as eating and sleeping, as well as trying to maintain or improve their relationships with those that surround them. See, you're in an incredibly small community of biospheres that can be interconnected and usually come at a premium price with a severely limited amount of space. Within these walls, you'll have to regulate oxygen, gather nutrients to make food, maintain a continuous flow of power, and many other functions. You'll even have to clean the place or the residents (you know, those people that you're controlling) will become mightily unhappy and under perform or just plain bitch and moan.

Some of your cast of characters will be natural enemies and serve to put an anchor on the morale of your small community. It will be your job to make sure that these two have a conversation in a social area (which you'll have to install, by the way) to patch things up for the sake of everyone else. Unlike it's older competition, Space Colony's inhabitants actually speak English (not Simspeak) and you'll find yourself smiling wryly at some of the clever commentary and witty remarks that will make their presence felt on your unsuspecting ears. "Yes, me and Uhuru will get right on it, Mr. Spock", you'll hear with a hint of sarcasm when you tell one of your personnel to clean up the joint.

Oh, did I mention that there are aliens that you'll encounter (and have to get rid of) who'll be aggressive towards your base? Now, now, get those shooter visions out of your mind, this is a different animal here. You'll have automatic sentinels and laser cannons to vanquish those infiltrators, but you'll have to build them and maintain them or your base will be toast. You'll have an repair apparatus that will have to be manned and this will provide much need repairs to the exterior of your base. You'll be asked to raise space chickens. Yes, space chickens. Did I mention that this title involves the American Way (you know, money is everything) as a major aspect of its missions? You see, you'll have to earn your keep to grow your colony. You want to buy a jacuzzi, premium bar, disco, running machine, exercise bike, or even a mess hall? You'll have to mine iron, silicon or even do the space chicken thing to make ends meet and keep your characters happy.

Each character has multiple aspects of things that you have to maintain, ranging from basic stuff like hygiene and food to more intricate things like the need for human contact and their happiness with the wages they are getting. All of which have to be monitored by you, supreme being of all that is. You can even try to get two particular people to fall in love (though, don't be surprised if the girl tells you to "Eat shit and die" if you ask her to be yours too soon) and must try to keep everyone on an even keel or morale will drop lower and lower and many missions require a certain morale to be successful.

Space Colony offers multiple modes of play, all of which are quite strong. You can go through a story based mission mode, which will follow the antics of specific characters along a story in which you'll have to accomplish tasks to advance to the next chapter of the story. You can also play the Galaxy mode, wherein there specific missions on a group of planets that you can choose from or Sandbox mode, which consists of planets that have specific challenges inherent to the planet that you choose. This is more a "free will" mode where you can basically do whatever you want. There's also a fourth mode that will allow you to download user-contributed scenarios from online contributors. Between those four aspects of the games design, it's readily apparent that there are plenty of challenges here and many rewarding scenarios in which to endeavor.

The title has polished graphics, ranging from cleverly detailed pseudo inventions such as power plants that draw their energy from volcanic lava vents to uniquely detailed close ups of characters and their inherent traits. The sounds are equally satisfying and there's even a provision for you to upload your own MP3's to serve as background music while you play the game. You'll be greeted be mission briefings, character remarks, and even the boss will chime in once in a while to tell you that you could be doing better. The voice acting is excellent and the delivery of many of the amusing one liners is spot on and non-annoying. That's really saying something.

My only small beef with the title is the level of difficulty involved with getting characters to become romantically involved with one another. Even getting the two to sit down together can quickly become a tedious chore that offers little entertainment value (aside from getting blown off, of course) in that it becomes old quite quickly. Otherwise, the missions are varied, intelligent, and humorous. In summation, Space Colony is an excellent step up for existing Sims fans and it's an even better place for those new to the genre to start. Just tell your friends and family that you bought the game - they might not see you for a while after you install it.

· · · haohmaru