Privateer 2: The Darkening

This is one of my favorite Space-Sims. I player almost all of them and this one has soul. The cuscenes are way better than those in WingCommander imho (you even get to choose although it does not make much of a difference, it does feel nice). The game mechanics work fine, the uinverse feels "real" and unique. For me this is the best trading-dockfighting version of a Space-Sim (together with X2 which had way better economical details butno real story).

This game has some great points, but it fails to take five stars because of the repetitive and almost frustrating game play. The backbone of Privateer 2 is the good story with fine acting, even though it is quite linear, is nevertheless interesting, probably the only reason to play this game now. The characters are great, but your interaction with them is rather limited. The universe is also captivating, with enough planets and places, each unique and memorable - ranging through artificial super clean planets to super polluted ultra industrialized planets and remote mining colonies. Earth, now Anhur, is like in most games, a post apocalyptic doomed world. (sad) However, most of the time you will spend in space, fighting pirates and trading commodities between places. You start with some credits, enough to buy the weakest ship and some cargo, and with time you can buy better ships and weapons or equipment. However, there is a downside to this - the game difficulty will increase with the amount of money you have (ship value + remaining credits), meaning you will encounter more and more pirates in space. After a while it becomes harder and harder to trade, because your cargo will often be destroyed by ambushing pirates and traveling becomes annoying due to all the repetitive fighting. The game also has bugs, like if you chose to pay Taffin in a main plot mission, the next mission and the whole main plot will be broken.

I love this game... but why was this game not tested before market? I'm very sad to say that this was a waste of $6... please tell me there is some kind of fix for the frame rate issue? Please oh please fix this or at least provide some information on a work around.

Not as good as the Pivateer ! but still good to play.

The OG of space trader games. The cast of character actors is quite surprising. It's the quality of the world buidling that makes it, though. Each planet has a certain flavour and style that ties in with the goods you trade there. Also, 90's games didn't hold your hand, you need to work it out yourself which is so much more satisfying.