Freespace 2

I don't know how I missed this game, but I'm glad I found it now. If you loved Elite, the original, Colony Wars and X-wing vs Tie Fighter then you will love this game. Even though it was written in 1999 it has aged remarkably well, but if you want to have the ultimate FS2 experience you have to checkout Freespace Open. The 2014 mod makes this game like watching a TV show. Epic space battles that make you feel like you're in an episode of Babylon 5. Be warned though, while you can play with a mouse, I highly recommend you get a flight stick, it adds an even deeper level of immersion to an already incredibly atmospheric game.

Review is based on playing using SCP, get it here: https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Source_Code_Project_index Also, read up on FS2_Open. In this game, you pilot various spacecraft and accomplish various objectives. The story is a continued war between the Galactic Terran Alliance and the Vasudans. The Shivans are back, and it's up to you and your wingmen to stop them. Pretty much everything in this game is awesome. Using the aforementioned mods/conversions, visuals are stunning, audio is awesome. The base game is great. There are detailed briefings for each mission, sometimes you fail objectives as part of the plot... it's a reminder that things don't always go your way. The difficulty level is adjustable, and is useful, because some of the missions suffer from poor design. There are capital ships of various classes that have various subsystems that can be disabled or destroyed. This can hamper a ship's speed, reduce the effectiveness of its weapons or knock out its sensors. Brilliant design. The campaign left me longing for more, at which point in time I played various mods. I can't recommend the Blue Planet mod enough: https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Blue_Planet It will blow your mind. Note that beam weaponry and EW is much more important in this game than in the previous one.

I believe that Freespace 2 is the best space-sim series, and one of the best games ever made. While Freelancer had many good qualities too, I believe nothing can beat the epicness of what Freespace 2 achieves. With the SCP upgrade, around 300 vessels now are allowed to be in the game at once, giving many more options for mod development and amazing missions. I'm experimenting and playing with the editor to create good quality battles, but it's definitely not hard to pick up, but hard to master. ;) If anything's worth your 6 bucks, it's this game. - JC

Here is a game that, after all these years since it came out, still makes me play it! It's awesome, the voices, the graphics, the gameplay. Enemies shooting you left and right. Your squadron buddies asking for your help, the heat of the battle! The incredible momentum of a true dog fight in space. Sometimes you can almost feel it's real (your heart races so much you almost end up with a heart attack)! One of the best games (in it's category) ever made for sure. Of course the ships aren't detailed like the ones we see today in more modern games. But that's part of it's charm. I think. This game had a lot of known voices of Hollywood: Robert Loggia (Independence Day), Ronny Cox (Total Recall), Kurtwood Smith (Robocop), Stephen Baldwin (Backdaft, The hunt for the red october)... Just to mention a few... About making a movie out of Freespace, well, why not, even if it's only to see how this story ends... At the very least, a Freespace3 Game. I'd Buy it even for as much as €50!

This game is touted as 'the' great space flight sim, but I would go so far as to argue it's 'the' great flight sim, space or otherwise. Few games can really pull me in like this one and provide such a rewarding play experience. If you really want to take this to another level, get your hands on the work the Freespace 2 SCP guys have been doing. Running this game at 1920x1200 with high res textures, it's easy to forget this game is 10 years old. The gameplay just holds up that well.