Ahead of its time, and it showes.
I then never played the game.
I don't know what happened to be honest with you. I ran through the tutorials and was very interested in the game but something happened while I was playing the tutorials, I lost interest in the game. Completely.
Years later I re-installed the game to give it a shot and was somewhat dissappointed by it. By then I had been playing SEIV Gold for a few years and found that the dept of game play in IGII was just not there. Albeit the game had some rather fantastic features that dominated SEIV Gold, but when it came down to the game play the game simply just did not have it. It was dated both graphically, and conceptually. Again though certain aspects, the 3d battle, the ground combat, ship design, and other things really set the bar high for any game to follow it, but over all the game itself was a let down. :(
Now don't get me wrong, it was a good game, I was just one of the few who simply found it to be lacking in the areas that I did not want it to be lacking in.