Gateway II: Homeworld

The Good
Gateway 2: Homeworld is made in the same style as the Gateway 1, with a similarly involving storyline and acute attention to detail. All of the puzzles are clever and make sense in their context, and you never get "stuck" -- as long as you pay attention to the important conversations and remember to TAKE everything you come across, you'll always have access to everything you need to solve a particular puzzle, even if it isn't immediately apparent how to do so.

The Bad
The game isn't quite as impressive as its predecessor: it has none of the truly mindblowing puzzles of the first one, and the storyline is completely linear. At times the dialogue options are obnoxious or tongue-in-cheek, as if the designers felt they needed to make up for an uninteresting dialogue script. The graphics are primitive, but that isn't important, and the music didn't work on my machine, but I take it that's a plus :).

The Bottom Line
A very well-made and interesting adventure game. While you don't need to have read the Gateway books to play it, you should definitely play Gateway 1 first; it also helps to have a general background in science fiction, and being familiar with common science-fiction cliche's will help with some of the puzzles. If you're not a sci-fi buff you might not appreciate this game, but if you are it is a jewel... I thought the story was better than some of the Gateway books.