I came late to the party with this, only getting a hold of my own copy of Master of Orion 2 through GOG - but, I have to say, I've never played a 4x as well done as this, before or since. It has truly survived the test of time, and while the graphics have aged considerably, they retain their charm despite the years. This game is worth every penny. As a bonus, you get the first one too, but I can't really state my opinions on it. The original Master of Orion just couldn't grab me.
I know I might be burned at the stake for this, but I don't find Freespace 2 to be a superior game to Freespace 1. They're both great, but Freespace 2 has some logical problems with the main story (particularly the ending), and... well, this is a personal gripe - I hated chasing bombs. Absolutely hated it. Freespace 2 recaptures the awesome thrill of Freespace 1, and the gameplay is almost identical. The missions are more varied and interesting (particularly the Special Operations ones), the story is well done, and the new weapons and tactics used to employ them greatly enhances Freespace 2 and prevents it from simply being a rehash of Freespace 1. The very last mission gives you a choice. A choice I won't spoil - but it's worth playing Freespace 2 all the way to the end just to experience it. If you're a fan of space sims, you owe it to yourself to experience the Freespace saga.
Having just come from completing Kingpin: Life of Crime, I have mixed feelings about the game. I purchased both Kingpin, and Redneck Rampage during the Interplay sale, and I have some positive and negative feedback about the game. First off, I noticed in both titles (both by Xatrix) that the music cannot be turned off or having the volume lowered in any respect. That lack of functionality in a post-Quake era game is a glaring and irritating flaw - especially in a game with dialogue. How can we enjoy the wit or humor of the writing, if we can't hear it? This is especially bad in Kingpin, where the cutscenes don't have subtitles (even if you enable them in the Options menu - all it does is subtitle the enemies in the game, so you can read them calling you names!). My next gripe is the difficulty. I'm not a post Modern Warfare FPS player, either. I cut my teeth on the likes of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Heretic. But Kingpin is punishingly hard, so if you're looking for a challenge, that will be a bonus - but it didn't help my enjoyment. The game's graphics are provided via a modified Quake II engine, and it looks good even today, though it is starting to show its age. While Half-Life might be graphically inferior, Kingpin's gameplay is nowhere near as polished or engaging. However, you see in Kingpin the stepping stones to greatness. Deus Ex would be released a year later, and it would change FPSs forever. The NPC interaction, as well as the option to buy equipment from the Pawn-o'-Matic stores was a definite revolution in gameplay - and I noticed that the AI for the goons whom you can hire is actually quite good - better even, than some game released more recently (looking at you, Oblivion). Still, even with the good, Kingpin falls short somewhere. By the latter third of the game, they've done away with Pawn-o'-Matic, and there are far fewer (or none, depending on how bloodthirsty you are) NPCs to hire. Kingpin falls back on the same run and gun action that Doom was (rightly) lauded for. The story the game tells isn't particularly interesting either. It's a revenge story with a criminal bent, which serves as an excuse to throw a ton of profanity at you. Now, I use profanity on a daily basis, but this game inundates you with it. I should mention the gore - the textures on the enemies in the game show where they've been hit, and while that was probably pretty outrageous twelve years ago, it's cartoony and pointless in 2011. In other words, don't get worked up about the gore. Compared to today (what with the Gears of War franchise), it's practically non-existent. You can blow heads and limbs off, which is something that got further delved into with Soldier of Fortune a year later, but even there it was more of a gimmick than a real gameplay enhancement. I'm rather glad I got this game on sale, and finally got to experience this piece of FPS history - but history is where it belongs.
My first foray into the space fighter sim genre wasn't Freespace - it was Wing Commander 8: Prophecy. While I enjoyed that game, it left me hungering for more; when I came across a budget jewel case bundle (which I still have) of the original Freespace and it's expansion, Silent Threat, I was hooked. This game has it all. Smooth controls. Mysterious and sinister aliens. Humanity at it's worst (the conspiracy of Silent Threat) and at it's best (the GTA's assistance and rescue of the Vasudan's after the destruction of their homeworld). I replayed the mission where the Galatea is brutally destroyed by the Lucifer something like twelve times, I was so determined to save that ship from it's fate. Freespace has never been topped in my opinion. I've played a lot of space sims, ever since Wing Commander whet my appetite, and Freespace raised the bar - but none have ever quite captured the mix of story, action, and sheer thrill that Freespace gives me every time I strap into the cockpit of the Valkyrie interceptor. If you've never played it, you owe it to yourself to give this a try, even if you're not normally a space sim player. Freespace might just change your mind.
