Independence War™ II: Edge of Chaos

I still have my game play disk and external DvD drive so have no issues playing. This is an old game, However it is one of the greatest games you can play. Amazing graphics, all the mods you could wish for to enhance the game. The system maps are well thought out. The missions are brilliant when following the plot and being a pirate is very satisfying when your not, Espacialy raiding Maas transports. Your restricted to one star system to begin with.You will open up another star system to explore and raid. You will need to make allies so take it easy killing faction ships. You can customize your ship loadouts if you have the gear thats bought via your trade screen., Have fun and see what works for you. Personally im an all out combat freek but convoy missions need a bit of extra thought put into your loadout. This game has been in my collection for more years than i care to remember and i never tire of playing it. Add Privateer and righteous fire to your collection as well. Again a classic that never gets old.

I-WAR (1) was one of my favourite games ever, I-War 2 i never finished, even after three attempts I aways gave up. The reason is that the game does not have check points or the ability to save mid-mission so if you die or fail you have to start again from scratch at your base and this can involve travel time of up to 10 or even 15 minutes to get to the actual mission start point. Now some fights are brutally difficult, but that's sort of OK, if you're skilled enough and patient enough you can usually survive after maybe one failed attempt, but where I draw the line with this is the puzzle missions and knife edge stealth missions. Some of the puzzles are far from obvious and will either kill you or fail the mission if you don't figure it out first time. Basically it is virtually impossible to figure out some of these puzzles without repeated attempts and with a 10 minute lead time to get back to the location this becomes, at least for me, unplayable. This is also true of some combat missions that require a very specific approach to succeed that is only vaguely hinted at by your adviser. Some stealth missions require you to take a particular route at less than a particular speed. You can of course throttle down to 1ms, but then you can also watch paint dry. Which is a pity because in all other respects this is a fantastic game, totally engrossing. It's almost worth buying just to do the first act or so because there the missions are relatively near your home base and quick to get to and you can really enjoy the amazing space combat, travel and story lines. All that would need to be done to make this a must play for space fans is to put checkpoints into the missions.

EoC is a sequel in name only. Besides similar ship operation mechanics and lore, there's nothing else alike. This is not a linear mission based game. It's a free-roaming, open-world system, without any real sense of objective. Some people enjoy exactly this sort of experience, and if you are one of these, you should have a blast with this game.

This game is really nice but it's too hard and you can't save the game outside your base! The result is that you really need to be jobless to really enjoy it! So if you have nothing to do and have plenty of time to restart 20min lenght missions from the beginning, this is game is for you! It's really a very well maded game with great story and a true living world! But if you haven't the time it need to be played, throw it away because you'll find only frustration...

I wish a developer copied this game and extended it to an space RPG. It was ahead of his time and completely underrated. The combat and the controls were innovative . I remember playing it with one joystick and MS strategic commander as HOTAS.