Let me get this straight, this got two starts from me only because with darkfix (see the GOG forums for more info) is more or less functional and the FMVs are full of great actors (the plot is also nice overall), the problems come when it comes to the basic game design of the thing. Even the FMVs though full of people like John Hurt, Christopher Walken, Cliwe Owen and BRIAN BLESSED have a weird audio mixing that makes dialogues often really difficult to understand if you aren't a native english speaker (no subtitles of course). With Darkfix I was also able to use the throttle axis of the stick which is always good for the hotas crowd out there (though you'll need to recalibrate it in the options every time you launch the game). But the worst part is the game design of the thing, where to start? From the fact that to move from a waypoint to another you have to kill every hostile ship but often said hostiles keep spawning? From the obnoxious sound effects and animations in the trade interface (fortunately they can be partly disabled) and how simplistic trade is compared to the first Privateer? Trading also requires to hire a ship, because you are confined to fighters as your personal ship goes. You will need to grind money through trading because the missions are often very inbalanced pitting you against insurmountable odds. There are a bunch of randomly triggered sidequests that can be rather amusing at times (they all have their FMVs) but some of them can be rather esoteric (I failed one without noticing). There is also the tendency of the game to send you mission updates during combat halting the game whether you want it or not which is quite disorienting (and also preceded by a grating beep sound). This is probably the first really bad spacesim I ever tried, not just a case of "not my cup of tea" but a really, really mediocre game, even with the crashes and a bunch of glitches fixed it's not really worth it unless you are fixated on spacesims like I am.
This is the last installment of the series and well, it looks good but some problems typical of the series as a whole tend to show in force plus a couple of new ones. The story is simple, with a few nice touches reminiscent of what was in Wing Commander IV even though they don't influence the overall plot much (which is more or less the first Freespace without the lovecraftian dread but with a b-movie vibe, alien invaders come through portal and shoot everybody and so on), the FMVs are good quality, the production values are similar to WCIV, and it's nice to see Mark Hamill playing a wise mentor guy twenty years before the new Star Wars movies. The graphics are nice and colorful with early 3D accelleration support, very nice to look at even now in its simplicity thanks to the ability to up the resolution on modern machines. The game has throttle and rudder support, though only on one device (which can be remedied nowadays with plenty of utilities either first or third party). While there are a few interesting innovations (like an interceptor with a booster for emergency interception and cluster missiles) the gameplay is VERY repetitive, it doesn't help that the enemy fighters are very hard to kill (they take a lot of hits even from the most poweful weapons), liberally abuse the afterburner and come literally in droves which is a problem since in these games afterburner fuel is limited and it's easy to run out of it. In general the game feels very padded: many missions have you go to a series of navpoints and destroy wave after wave of fighters before moving on, I came out of many missions positively tired, it felt even more repetitive than WCIII which was already really repetitive. There is also a personal pet peeve of mine: if you want to regulate shields, weapons and engine energy you have to use a weird triangle icon that monopolizes your stick, rendering almost impossible to use it in combat. It's a good game overall but it's no Freespace or Tie Fighter.
This game as an open world spacesim is a bit barebones compared to more modern titles. You start by doing smalltime sidemissions and cargo hauling inside your starting solar system to buy a few weapons and a FTL drive, then you work your way up to buy a new ship, there are three models: a cargo hauler (that does only that, so not really good for story missions), a heavy fighter and an in-between model. The sidemissions are procedural and are usually straightforward (patrol that, haul cargo there, etc) and fun, though I'd have appreciated if cargo haul sidemissions let you stop at space stations along the way, but can getting ship and upgrades can get grindy at times. There is a faction system that while simple keeps things interesting, killed too many pirates? They will hate you and attack you even when they would normally leave you alone, but feds, hunters and militia will be more friendly. Story missions aren't varied but the story itself is interesting enough and the protagonist's snarking made me chuckle a few times. The expansion adds more story and new upgrades, though only the in-between model supports all of them, probably to compensate the relative lack of weapons with the possibility of giving it stronger shields. The game uses the Wing Commander 1 engine so expect it to look good while being impractical for any gameplay outside simple dogfighting, with asteroids that materialize right in front of you unless you go really slow (which is NOT GOOD if you get attacked and you will) or use a few counterintuitive exploits, the fact that many bases for the story missions are inside 'roid fields gets annoying really fast; luckly landing is easier than WC1, just get close enough and you will land automatically, and most enemy capital ships are gone so the perspective problems of the engine rarely are an issue. NOTE FOR NON NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKERS: this version has a speech pack, that means no subtitles, not a problem for me but can be problematic for many.
