I so bought the game just now.
The editorial pushed me in its direction, but what really convinsed me was the awesome looking mods I found.

I won't be rebuying the game from GOG.com (I have the original CDs, still in mint condition, which work just grand with the SCP) but there is only one thing I can say to this game and its this...
\o/

I've played some of the mods, and some of them are freaking amazing. A few even have voice actors (like Derelict) that were pretty well done.. anyone looking to pick some up, I'd highly recommend Derelict, Blue Planet (a little unusual storyline), Transcend (a little supernatural plot), and Inferno. The stand-alone mods like Babylon 5, Wing Commander (in progress), and Battlestar Galactica are also awesome. The Beyond the Red Line demo of BSG is very, very well done. I'd almost buy this game just for the mods, the fact that the main game is also awesome doesn't hurt.

Should be :)

I tried the demo for the first one and found it too tedious for me (I've never really been into space sims but have wanted to be since finding GOG), but this made me want to give it another go. Well done. Great to know you guys are as passionate about games as us! :)

Hey, I just wanted to clarify something.
'I've Found Her' is not a Babylon 5 mod for Freespace 2. It's not affiliated with Freespace.
'The Babylon Project', on the other hand, is a superb Babylon 5 mod for the Freespace 2 SCP engine.
I strongly recommend this game -- one of the best I've ever played. Even with games like Crysis, Call of Duty 4, and Supreme Commander on my PC, I keep coming back to this one.

Freespace 2 is not as "tedious" as the first, and plays more like WW2 naval conflicts in space.

It's not too sad that the Freespace license hasn't been picked up.
Remember that Derek Smart was seriously considering buying it for a while.

Hmm, would it be safe to skip over the first, then, or a crime?

The second is the best Space Sim ever made, while the first is simply a very good Space Sim. It still had great writing, good cutscene direciton, and great voice acting. I think you should try it again, but it's not essential.

Not sure if anyone has said this, but the best jumping-off point into the (fairly amazing) world of SCP projects, huge graphic updates and new campaigns is probably Hard-Light Productions (hard-light.net)
They weren't mentioned in this article and I feel like they should get a shout-out for keeping it all together after all these years

Freespace 2 is one of my all time favourite games. It was a nice editorial to read, now get interviews from designers and developers that worked on the game!