Privateer 2: The Darkening

First of all: THANKS SO MUCH GOG FOR BRING THIS GAME BACK!!!!!!!!!! It's my always all time favorite Space Opera - Game. Played WC (III to V), Freespace I + II and some others. But this game is the (to me) the perfect mix of story, trading, space-fighting and a beautiful art design (menus etc.)... The strength is the mix! Definitively a MUST HAVE!

This game doesn't run properly on modern systems. This version is a dos version in which the on planet animations run way to fast making everything look either comical or creepy. in space if you get close to a ship or near a planet the framerate will drop to a crawl. According to the forums there is a patched win 95 version of the game that works well, when GOG provides a playable version I will update my rating.

Privateer 2 had a awesome predecessor to copy from, but it did every single thing worse. The story has nothing to with privateer and is set way in the future. You cant trade any more... well you can, but you need to hire a freighter because your ship wont hold a single unit of cargo, so you end up escorting your own cargo ship that is controlled by an incredibly stupid AI. Worst of all, trading will grant you almost no money and the prices for goods hardly ever change, not like they did in pricateer one. The worst aspect of the game is howefver: Money. While you were able to equip your ship to be almost invinceable in privateer 1 and to even take on military ships, in privateer 2 that is completely inane. Your enemys ships will be worth just as mich as your own ship, so increasing your shields makes theyr lasers become better. You never have that feeling that you are a level 90 just zerging through a group of level 5 enemies, because wherever you go, your enemies will be as stromg as you are. So it is basically useless to earn money, bevause it wont make you any better then your enemies.

This is one of my all time favourite games and it was a joy to see it become available on GoG. I bought it immediately but suffered some problems I remember battling with years ago when trying to replay it. The major ones being interlaced videos which make it hard to see what's going on, extreme lag in space whenever anything fills more than a third of the screen, and some sound glitches. It didn't take long searching online to come across the unofficial patch at http://www.wcnews.com/news/update/12379 It's an absolute god send and fixed everything, it's so good to be able to relive this amazing sandbox story again! Joysticks aren't as popular as they once were, so I've actually been playing using a USB Nintendo 64 controller which works great. There's also the added bonus that you can get an N64 emulator and play a whole bunch more classic games.

Over and over and over and over and over and over..... The horrible, incessantly used taunts from enemy fighters with bad English accents drove me nuts. The FMV cutscenes had some of the most ridiculous props and costumes I have ever seen. I hated trying to dock at a space station or fly near a capital ship, wanting to zoom in and admire the graphics like in Wing Commander 3 and 4, only to awkwardly bounce away from said ship or station when it seemed like I was still very far away. Overall, a very annoying, non-immersive game that hasn't aged well. I don't understand all the praise it's getting here at GOG.