Descent: Freespace Battle Pack

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. 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.

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. 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.

So, first off the game is generally pretty great, but I hit a game breaking bug a few missions in and couldn't proceed. Essentially you escort a larger ship to a jump node, but once there somehow it isn't EXACTLY where it needs to be, so just ends up spinning around in place until you or it eventually dies. As far as I could tell, it's a common issue and doesn't have a remedy... EXCEPT... Freespace 2. There's a seriously dedicated group of nutjob fans out there that completely recreated Freespace 1 in the more advanced Freespace 2, music, story, voiceovers, videos, everything, AND it fixes the glitch. So.. consider this a good Samaritan PSA, this game might glitch out and the modding team for FS2 has remade it entirely along with other goodies like textures, lighting, custom resolution support, etc...

I thought it might just be nostalgia, the memories of when space sims were the genre to be. Its been how many years since more than one or two were released in a year? Even more since any of them were worthy of praise. A few hours in and its most definitely not nostalgia. This game (save for the graphics) has lost nothing. Were it released today with a graphics update and nothing more, it would probably be hailed as the rebirth of the space sim. You really fall into this game, feel the ship around you, feel the combat, the scope and size of the vastness of space. The don't make games as complete as this too often these days. Developers these days makes games and call them art, but back then, developers were making art and calling them games. This is a gem.