Freespace 2

This is quite simply a brilliant game and one of, if not the best, space combat simulations ever made. A cool story coupled with great gameplay and awesome amounts of fun. The ships handle pretty damn well, obviously not Newtonian but more in the vein of the classic X-Wing/TIE Fighter, Wing Commander vein yet feels somehow more appropriate. The scale of battles can be quite rather huge with giant capital ships duking it out and you in a smaller fighter or bomber in the midst of some pretty epic battles and this really immerses you in the game and it's universe. It has all the classic tenets of the genre, a lot of targeting controls, power management, weapon grouping controls, communications and the like, and a fair few hefty buttons. It did take me a few trial and error runs to find the perfect setup up my ancient, but still great, Saitek X35/36 Throttle and Stick but once I got that nailed down I had everything at my finger tips and rarely needed the keyboard, which is always nice. The game itself can be pretty damn tough and I had to retry some of the missions a fair few times before I nailed them. Tough but fair, makes a change from all the damn easy games of today. As others have no doubt mentioned there's still large modding scene for this game. The Source Code Project makes all of this possible and then the Upgrade Project which improves the visual quality a lot amongst other things, and dozens of other mods including full conversions and massive new campaign arcs. In conclusion, if you're a fan of the genre and do not own this game then get out there and bloody buy it!

The still latest space sim shooter with the epic feel you would expect from anything space related. It's not really that long but the joy of dogfighting guarantees high replay value. In short - get it. If this already isn't the reason you are buying Freespace 2 on GOG, search the web for mods, they are plentiful and vastly improve the look and feel of the game by upping the graphics high enough to make running Freespace 2 a hard job for your PC.

One of the last great titles of a forgotten game genre, the space sim. Along with the Wing Commander series, Independance War, and even Starlancer. Unfortunately before a 3rd installment could be done, Interplay was sold to THQ who had no interest in continuing in the space sim genre and thus a saga ended abruptly, despite Volitions desire to continue. The simplified interface coupled with intense on the fly story telling really set this game apart. It proved that a game didn't need CG animated mission briefings to get you into the action of a game. Unlike its predecessors and successors (which became very few) Volition (taking some cues from Valve) provided the fan community with mod tools which are still largely used today. The fan mods from missions to total conversions are still being played today. The only real sad part about this game was its limited online code (being that online gameplay was in its infancy then) thus fighting battles with players across the world was never realized. The single player game is imersive and intense and worthy of the "Game of the Year" status it once earned. The price on GOG is truly a steal for this outstanding space sim. Go get it and enjoy!!

Ok so this with the free addon's (community provided) is really a current game. In the absence of Wing commander 5 or FreeSpace 3 this is it. If anyone can point me at a better looking current spacesim then please do because I don't know of any. Till EA give WingCommander a new look this is it!

Everything freespace 1 did this Freespace 2 does better. It really made you feel like you were apart of an epic space battle, especially when your a small little ship flying in between two GIGANTIC Behemoths firing off HUGE laser beams that can incinerate you if you get a little too close. Needless to say its simply exhilarating and I heavily recommend it. The only flaw I can think of is that the map/mission editor is convoluted but I was never good with those anyway.