Freespace 2

Ah, the space simulator. Unfortunately, it's an almost forgotten genre in our time, hardly being held alive by the occasional game being released every few years, e.g. Freelancer, X3 or Darkstar One. Still, it's one of my favourite genres, and the Freespace games are probably the best representatives to ever exist - at least if you can live without trading and flying around in an open universe. Freespace 2, like its predecessor, takes the more linear and action oriented approach to space simulators, which is exactly what makes it great. Sacrificing the freedom to drift aimlessly through an oversized universe makes room for something that more recent space sims often fail at: telling an interesting and exciting story during and between the missions. Speaking of missions: they are fun, they are diverse and, maybe most important of all: they make sense. Unlike some other games, it's not like "there are bad guys at point A, go shoot them". You'll find yourself patrolling sections of space, checking out unknown structures, escorting transport ships which carry prototype technology that you might be able to use at a later point in the game, defend important ships, attack strategic positions or vessels of the enemy and so on. This may not sound revolutionary, but Freespace manages to make you feel that your mission is important and to make you understand why they are. Another important thing is the preparation phase of the missions: You not only get your briefing, but you are allowed to chose what kind of ship and weaponry you want to take - restricted to things that are available at this point in the story, of course. But unlike many other games, most of the time you can't just chose THE best ship or THE best weapon. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages: You get primary weapons which damage the hull or the shield of the enemy, for example. Or missiles that destroy only the selected sub-system (e.g. engine, weapons, communication systems) of the enemy, which is especially important in missions where you have to disable large battleships without destroying them, or where you just have to prevent them from fleeing. The same thing is true for ships: there are fast and agile interceptors, which in turn have weaker shield or hull or don't have as many slots for weapons as the average attack fighter. Taking on a big one? Take the slow bomber with heavy shield and extra missiles. Also, you can make the same choices for the other fighters in your squad. The list goes on, both in weaponry and ships, those are only examples. The point is, there's a certain tactical depth added to the game by this, offering different strategies for achieving your objectives. Combine all that with perfect controls and you have what, in my opinion, makes this game (or better: this series) stand out and so fun to play. On top of that, it's one of the games that has aged rather well, visually, so you won't have to put your nostalgic glasses on to protect your eyes when you play it today. Considering that it's only $5.99, it should be illegal not to buy this game - unless you own it already.

Freespace 2. Leaving behind the legacy of the claustraphobic Descent series which inspired it, this game leaves you really in the agoraphobia wastes of space, with floating jetsam, flotsam, and pulsing ion clouds. It also rears it head back with a good few years of control fine tuning and brilliant game mechanics already under its rather sizeable belt. The campaign mode is epicly long and more than enough to keep someone happy for a ages at a time (not to mention numerous fan-made campaigns; shorter but oh-so-good), the missions are difficult in places, but it's a rewarding difficulty; sure, you'll fail the bombing runs about five times near the end of the game, but that one time you get it right, you'll see a three kilometer flagship go up in billions of amazingly rendered particles of debris and smoke (And for a pre-2000 game, the graphics looks astonishingly tasty). And the scaling is awesome too; the three kilometer long flagships really ARE that huge. I could recount tales of weaving through a flagship's flak fire, beam turrent blasts and sizeable missile armaments, all in the pursuit of a single fighter craft, in a desperate dogfight, but it's really something that one has to experience for themselves. As I mentioned in the title, this games yearns for a joystick's control; for the most part, everything that can be done by the keyboard (weapon swapping, shield dispersment, and counter measure launching) is all easy to do and easily becomes second nature very quickly. With a mouse, the game is playable, but to truely play the game, a joystick with as many buttons as you can manage will make the experience that much more enjoyable. It's one thing to push the after button on the keyboard and shift the mouse upwards; it's another entirely to hit the trusters on you stick and slam it backwars in a desperate attempt to dodge the screaming missiles behind you. The range of ships for most of the missions might irk some (usually only 2 or 3 are available) but this is explained by the story; usually you won't be able to access the highest level weaponry, simply because it isn't there, and there's no way it could get there. As payment for this, there is an amazing amount of weapons and ships available throughout the game, and paying attention to the breifing and selecting the right weapons will make all the difference. Taking that extra load of fire-and-forget mass warheads might make it easier to deal with the fighters, but taking along a "spotter" for your captial class ship will make the mission overall a lot easier...and more fun (there is NOTHING quite like telling a cannon three times the size of your ship to blast an enemy warship to tiny bits of space fluff, in my opinion). To close, this is an amazing game; before playing this, I never was all that into flight-simulators, or even flight combat games. After playing this, I feel in love with it. This is a game you need to own, especially at this price. If you haven't already done so, scroll back up there and hit buy. Do it. This is a classic game that does almost everything right, and deserves to be played.

It's a simple thing to say, but Freespace 2 truly is the best game of its genre. There hasn't been a space combat sim since that's truly captured the atmosphere and epic scale of the combat. The gameplay model is just the right side of "simulation" to give it some real depth, whilst being accessible to newcomers, and for once, your wingmen are actually useful (giving your wingmen orders is ESSENTIAL in order to be able to survive the later missions). The combat is fast paced but deliberate, with much thought to be given to the overall situation if you're going to complete your objectives. There's nothing quite like dogfighting in-between two MASSIVE capital ships, dodging the exchanging broadsides of beam cannon fire and flak bursts whilst trying to get a lock on your enemy. It can be a pretty heady experience. It's a real shame that the genre has since died out (although may be on the verge of a resurgence given the number of space combat sims coming out of Russia at the moment). For the time being though, this decade old game, combined with the graphical updates from the Source Code Project, will more than see you through your desire for one more space combat game. A classic that's definitely stood the test of time. Hit your burners pilot!

You are sitting in a cockpit of your tiny ship, flyin around huge cruiser with your wing of fighters prepared to fulfill any of your orders, even at the cost of their own lives. It was supposed to be peaceful mission: Just to escort some transport ships from point A to point B. But something went horribly wrong. A bunch of fihters just jumped out of nowhere, followed by some kind of capital ship. You need to keep your head clear and stay focused: Of course, you were trained for this! At instant, you target bombers and divert all power to the engines. You are enclosing, as fast as you can, burning your afterburners to their limits... And than it happened. Bright ligt blinded you, as huge beams of energy discharged from huge cannons of enemy capital ship, ripping appart hull of one transport. No training could prepare you for this... You see bodies of refugees, flying from wrecked ship. That's what war is like... We'll show our enemies it's not fun for them, either! You fire several rockets at one of the bombarders. First one is repelled by shields, but second flew right trough that bastard. You leave him in explosions and intercept another. His shields shine like a strange baloon, when suddenly, enemy fighters somehow got to your tail! You are trying to outmaneuver them, but your fighter is no match for them. Two explosions appear behind you. Two enemies were blown to pieces. And your squadmate is screaming "You owe me for this!" Well, yes, something along those lines. I know I can't write, but something which looks so real cannot be just described. Freespace 2 offers fantastic atmosphere and fantastic gameplay in one package - as well as fantastic visuals with the right MODs, great music, sound and, best of all, story so great, that half of hollywood production can kneel before it and beg for some inspiration. Freespace 1 brought us interesting experience, with big battles and nice storyline. Freespace 2 surpass it in every single aspect: It's twice as big, twice as interesting, and much more absorbing! Do you like sci-fi? You just -need- to play this. I really don't see any real disadvantage in this game, maybe with exception of ending. Story is non-linear, well written. Battles are just huge, you are just a small squad in the fight of titans. Controls: Intuitive. AI: very good. Experience: Great. Buy this game... If you are fan of sci-fi, you won't regret it. Ever.