Privateer 2: The Darkening

i never really considered Privateer 2 a Legitimate piece of the Wing Commander franchise, theres just no feel of the wing commanders in the past, not even the story is close!! but the gameplay is alright and the story is fine. Just not up to proper Wing Commander status

I was realy keen to get my hands on "Privateer 2" at GoG something like 20 years after I played the first part because I loved that game. But sorry, I don't like the game as much as the other WC titles and Privateer I. It's not the same. Everything is too short and too flat. It's still nice but no comparison to the real good games from the "series": Priv I, WC 2, WC 3 ... Anyways: I played Wing Commander Saga afterwards... that one is fantastic.

I really wanted to like this game, but the fact is this game has awful fmv quality, overall worse player control than the wing commander franchise, crippling frame rate during space battles, non-stop meaningless combat, unable to save between jump points, and to make it worse, random crashes after being stuck playing between planets and jump points. It is a mystery how they could ever get this released in the first place. I think the majority of the budget went into the fmv instead of making a game. I tried to give this game a chance, but I am giving up. I think I would settle for watching the cutscenes on fan websites. The only redeeming quality about the game is the fmv. And they had to use terrible video compression that make it near unwatchable.

It's a good game. Not necessarily a great game, but a good game. It took a step in the right direction with sandbox games when few were to be had and the world of MMO didn't exist. The taunts and scan lines were poor components, but the large world and equipment choice does something to keep you intrigued and aiming higher. As for the story, it's a wonderful blanc et noir detective story. I won't say it aged like wine and is better today than it was then, but it's nice to relive the memories and still has its merits. As for performance, one simple improvement is to go to the desktop shortcut properties and change it from playing in fullscreen mode to maximized. It speeds up. For better color, you have to run it windowed. Some things just don't port well.

Title? It's fine. I played the first Privateer when I was on the Fire Department.