Star Wolves

Star Wolves eschews Homeworld's epic fleet conflicts between hundreds of fighters and carriers, instead focusing on more manageable battles between small squadrons of intergalactic raiders as they go about their business in deepest darkest space. You're the leader of one such band of brigands, the eponymous Star Wolves, and your task is to choose the right missions to ensure you can earn enough money to keep your small group of mercenaries in guns and ammo for the duration.

To ensure Star Wolves isn't mistaken for some cheap imitation of a game you may have played before, the developer has added a twist by enabling you to upgrade and equip your fighters and mothership whenever you see fit, as well as spending hard-earned experience points on furthering your pilots down one of four skill-paths (pilot, gunner, missile expert and electronic warfare). The result is a game that offers far more depth and replayability than it might otherwise deserve.

Certainly it lacks the pace of other sci-fi strategy games (Nexus, for example, offers a far more tactical challenge), but Space Wolves has a sedate charm that's hard to resist, so much so that if you're hungry for a new deep space challenge, it's worth taking a risk on.