Freespace 2

Probably the most perfect space combat game ever made. The coolest looking ships, the most impressive looking battles, one of the best soundtracks, and probably the most interesting, gripping, well-paced and well-told stories of any game ever. It's such a shame that we will likely never see a sequel, but at the same time, the story kind of feels complete even without one. I strongly recommend playing this with the freespace 2 open mod pack.

Very shortly: -Great game, great sim, good story, lots of twists and add some political cabal, realistic characters (in the sense that you think people could actually do exactly *just* that), add some old old enemy and great action in space. Hands down one of the best space games ever, period. Freespace 2 is essentially what Freespace wanted to be. It essentially is what any other space combat game since has wanted to be. Actual story and background that makes sense, characters that are what one might expect in such circumstances to be, factions are believable and so on. In short: if you have EVER wanted to play a space sim but haven't, pick this one for your first. Freespace 2 is challenging - and even more so if you up the difficulty slider to the max. It has extreme rewards for extreme challenge (like trying to save Trinity, when you have no radar lock on the enemy with ill-equipped ship against overwhelming odds - I did it *once* back when the game actually launched. Never managed again!) and black ops, some political stuff embedded in the theater of war. You can choose your ship and loadout more or less - at times you are with worse equipped group so your choices are more limited. Other times you are simply trying to scramble for it under surprise attack with whatever you have. Then there's those black ops that I mentioned: fly duo behind enemy lines and try to figure out what's what and where and so on. Technical side: Flight physics are easy and nice, just the right amount of sim and arcade in the mix. Weapons are very different; some are more to drain enemy shields where others are better for hammering down their hull etc. There are specialty weapons like bombs and such on for the capital ships. All ships are distinctly different with their own strengths and weaknesses and pretty much everything in FS2 is thought out well.

I am aging myself, but I played this game when it was brand new. I revisited this game and it is every bit as wonderful as I remember. There are no space combat sims that exist today that can hold a candle to this title. A must play for anyone who loves games. The FSO mod is a good update to the visuals of the game.

Sorry WC, but FS2 is that best game. Why? Because of the gameplay, mechanics, dark story and realistic storytelling where the plot does not turn around you - just another cog in a giant war with the enemy you don't know, don't understand and ultimately - can't beat. FS2 is a masterpiece, a gem what was preserved for 20 years by the faithful modding community at Hard-Light Productions portal. Make sure to visit their website if you want to play FS2 and dozens of other fan generated campaigns with modern graphics and screen resolution.

I remember playing this on a Compaq Persario 2240, i saved up and bought a brand new Voodoo3 2000 PCI gpu and the game got even better, yeah that's how old i am, now fast forward to 2016, i still love playing this game (have it on Steam). I Love this game, the controls are awesome and very intuitive, the graphics, for its time, are freaking awesome, the story is SICK AF, specially the 1st time you see the C........... sorry no spoilers here. i will add this, i suggest you mod it to bring it up a notch, took me months of trying to learn how to mod, and fail, till i came across this gem http://www.fsoinstaller.com/ simple installer, though does take a while due to size of some mods and your speed, it even includes a story where you play prior to the great war against an ancient race that has some sexy asp ships, if you do get stuck modding the community around fso installer are really helpful and some are super patient with noobs like me. will i ever stop playing this game, nope, because i suck but want all the medals. will i force my kids to play this, you bet your bottom dollar i will will my kids force their kids to play this, they better or else "that's a paddlin"