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Rating:  -
Nothing out there comes close to what freespace 2 did. This game was and still is the best sci fi space sim. Its a shame that there was not a part 3. This game was and still is EPIC.
Rating: -
Freespace 2 is an amazing game - but take note: it was released into the public domain on April 25, 2002, when Volition released the source code to the public as a noncommercial license. The engine is now the basis for the (also free) Battlestar Galactica based game "Beyond the Red Line."
If you are a collector, you're gonna pay a stiff price for that box. If you are a player, the game is available for gratis.
Rating: -
Freespace 2 is, hands down, the best space fighting sim I have ever played. The fact that it still has a vibrant community and a plethora of people making custom missions for it attests to its greatness. But even more so, the Source Code Project, undertaken by the community, has worked to bring the graphics of the game up to modern standards. Wow. Really, buy this game, it's worth it.
Rating: -
Freespace 2 is in a nutshell, a Freespace 1 with all its faults fixed. If you don't like flight sims, you wont like Freespace. But, if you've ever enjoyed X-wing, Ace Combat, Wing Commander, or anything to do with fighter planes, this is for you.
Freespace 2 starts off several years after Descent Freespace. Over the years, technology has improved, and Volition accurately shows that. The GTVA fleet is made up of new fighters, though the best of the last gen fighters are still being used. (Though they too, are being phased out)
Volition does a great job of showing the traits of the different factions. The NTF uses older fighter designs, and generally does massed attacks. NTF pilots seem to be more aggressive than GTVA counterparts. Terran fighters continue to be more all-purpose, and their mission styles reflect that. The Vasudans however, have more single purpose ships, normally having lighter armor and increased speed over Terran ships.
One other enhancement is the beam canons and flack guns on Capital Ships. No longer are they just gunboats with a tendency to miss. The huge, Lucifer like Beam Canons look and feel powerful and great. Its fun to just sit and watch a duel of destroyers.... Flack canons are also a welcome addition. They're pretty much anti fighter canons, and they're deadly in this aspect. They can take down flights of bombers with ease, and they also shoot down incoming bombs. These make destroyers rightfully feared of, and the huge battles look majestic overall. It reminds of Star Wars battles, and it never disappoints.
The campaign itself is wonderful, with branching missions and a great plot, which leaves you wondering about the end of the conflict until the conclusion. There are now some new optional missions too, and these grant you elite materials for use later in the game. There is also a more difficult extra campaign, called Templar, which shows the destruction of the Hammer of Light.
What's also included is an enhanced FRED editor, so you now truly have a great mission editor. The instructions are fairly easy to understand, so it's possible to make great single player (or multi player) missions or even campaigns.
This is my favorite flight sims of all time, and it rightfully deserves its flight sim of the year.
Rating: -
I remember getting an ad for the original Freespace just before it came out back in 1998 and mentally dropping my jaw at the "life-sized" starcruisers exhibited in the glossy fold-out I'd been sent. I bought the dramatically titled "Descent: Freespace - The Great War" and enjoyed it immensely. Not since the release of the first two Wing Commander games had a computer game blown me away in quite the same way.
A couple years later, I was in the minority in hearing about the release of this, the sequel. The same amazing graphics (updated to accomodate Moore's Law, of course) with added features like nebula effects and beam weapons -- something for which sci-fi sim fans have clamored for ages -- are instant buying incentives. But most importantly, these games have a plot worth paying attention to, which, keeping the short attention span of the game playing populace in mind, explains why Freespace 2 sold as poorly as it did. That Interplay (FS2's publisher) barely promoted it probably didn't help much, either (I never got a glossy fold-out about Freespace 2).
It's honestly bewildering to look back on how badly this series apparently fared; the original's main competition at the time was Wing Commander: Prophecy, a shameless and despicably cartoony co-opting of the franchise name that most closely resembled an ugly, speed-addicted old hooker wearing too much makeup. A "Moulin Rouge" to Freespace's "Return of the Jedi." For many, Freespace 2's failure marked the sad end of an era for the genre.
More recent contributions to the field of space sims include Starlancer and Freelancer, two games from the original creators of Wing Commander. Starlancer is the gaming equivalent of the Wing Commander movie (you know, that endlessly terrible suckfest starring Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Chris Roberts's ego), taking Chris Roberts's strange obsession with World War II in space to an illogical and tedious extreme.
Freelancer has breathtaking graphics going for it, but its plot and gameplay leave something to be desired. It's overreaching goal of creating a living, breathing universe fails since Digital Anvil's idea of a "living, breathing universe" is apparently synonymous with a big game of Madlibs in space, turning Freelancer into a mildly amusing diversion a couple notches above a screensaver. And as far as repetitive shoot-the-monster role-playing games go, Diablo II has it beat quite soundly in terms of both replayability and sheer fun factor.
As a political footnote, Volition (FS2's developer) was forced out of their contract with Interplay a while back. In lieu of being able to make a Freespace 3, the source code to Freespace 2 was made available to the public. Since then, an outpouring of freelance talent has created such interesting projects as "FS2_Open" (largely a graphical updating of Freespace 2 to take advantage of advances in video card technology and processor speed) and the "Wing Commander Saga," a Freespace 2/Wing Commander mod. If the included FRED (FReespace EDitor) wasn't enough to keep one occupied playing user-created missions, the near-unsettling drive of the FS2 mod community is sure to create literally endless replayability for this series.
As far as space sims go, the duology of Wing Commander and Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi will forever sit as kings of the hill in my view, but Freespace 2 takes an entirely respectable second place. It's well worth the lofty prices one is forced to shell out these days in order to get a full, working copy, especially considering the thriving mod community surrounding the game.
Freespace 2 artfully balances style and substance. Volition made a visually-stunning masterpiece with a pulse that, while not as intimately cinematic as the Wing Commander series, skillfully sets the "suspension of disbelief" button in the gamer's mind to "On." This is the real deal. You can't go wrong with Freespace 2, no matter how you slice it.
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