The heartless Shivans emerged through subspace near Earth, harboring technology light years ahead of anything seen before. They made no attempt to communicate. They did not respond to your heralds. They simply attacked and destroyed everything in their path.
As a pilot for the Galactic Terran Alliance (GTA) you are no stranger to war. But when racing through space to engage your new enemy for the first time, you sense something different. Suddenly, darkness blankets your craft. Your stomach sinks as your eyes pan across the Shivan flagship's massive body. Then it begins. Swarms of fighters pour from the belly of the flagship and scream towards you. You are about to discover everything you thought you knew about space combat just changed.
This is the beginning of The Great War...
This edition of Freespace includes the Silent Threat mission pack, a whole new chapter in space dogfight sims.
Take fighters and bombers on attack, recon, escort, and sweep missions against enemy units. Fight with the help of the Vasudan Empire against your mortal enemy to determine the fate of the two races.
This game has been patched to the latest official version: 1.06
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1 GHz Processor (1.4 GHz recommended), 256MB RAM (512 recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), Mouse, Keyboard.
Freespace is only outdone by its sequel Freespace 2. If you want some incredible space sim action with an incredible storyline and some pretty amazing graphics that hold well even today. You can't go wrong with Freespace.... full review
The missions are varied, there are plenty of ships and weapons to work with and the sense of scale is impressive. If you thought games like X2 or Tachyon had scale, you can thank Freespace for pioneering it.
You'd be missing out on one of the best of all time if you didn't pick this one up.
But this game really stands up todays space sims. The mission design in compelling, the story is really well told, and the way upgrades and new ships are handled make these additions feel really integrated into the game world.... full review
Downsides? 640x480! Ack! Pro tip: Dig into the GOG.com folder and find the Freespace.exe launcher and turn off hardware rendering (my Nvidia card gave me a few graphical glitches, also, pull of the "Properties" view of FR.exe and turn on Win98 compatibility mode. The game plays a whole lot more naturally with these tweaks.
Hadn't played any space shooters in quite awhile before picking this one up. Did manage to miss it on original release back in the day.... full review
Excellent basic ingredients: good controls, HUD can be customised, nice ship & weapon designs. Missions are nice and variable, although sometimes events forced by scripting are somewhat annoying as they railroad the plot along no matter how you fly. The plot itself is engaging, although the generic wingmen lessen the immersion. It's pretty hard to care whether that faceless bunch of cannon fodder lives or dies... Campaign ends on a real high note as the final mission is pure gold.
On the downside, the graphics are a bit crude by modern standards, especially the capital ships up close. Hard to think of anything else.
K387)
8bitDesigner)
MrRizik)