Descent: Freespace Battle Pack

Not as great as Freespace 2 (what is?) but still better than 99% of games in this genre.

I love space games. From Elite (and Elite 2: Frontier) to Freelancer, and from Colony Wars to X3, I snap them up like candy.. and there have been far too few attempts at them that this is immediately an attractive game to me. It's exactly what it says on the tin: A space combat sim. The controls are friendly, the combat is what you'd expect, and the story is adequate... but I don't love it. The story isn't what you'd get in Wing Commander, and in those you get a similar combat experience too. It reminds me of a less-polished Colony Wars, in fact.. or a hybrid of the two... but perhaps I was weaned and different games, and Freespacers would think the reverse. :) I wasn't, though, and this is my review. It fights to a four because damn it, it's got pep.. and even if it isn't quite up to either of those in my eyes, it doesn't deserve a three!

You have the gall to sell me a game as a Mac OS X version which is essentially just the Windows version running on Wine? GOG, I'm done with you guys.

...and thankfully GOG made that clear, but you know the story right? When it came out the game was clearly called 'Descent: Freespace' (and Conflict: Freespace in some places) so when you see it in a store you're probably thinking 'Oh boy! a new Descent game!' and in my personal experience, if it had an ad for Descent 3 on the back of the box then that would of made it even more confusing in the end. What this little confusion has done is expose many to one of the most innovative space fighters of all time, so all was not lost and particularly not on me. If you like Descent, then go play it! all the games are available here already! But if you like high speed dog fighting action, exciting anti-capital ship operations and more, in space, don't jump out on this one!

I remember when I first picked this game up. I never heard of it or knew what to expect, but I was immediately wowed. Before it I was a big wing commander fan, but this raised the bar so fricken high that nearly forgot wing commander existed. I still dream of doing bombing runs and panicking with the shield controls and getting that same thrill. I can't recommend it enough.