This is my first serious attempt at content like this. It was an enormous amount of work so let's see if I can influence a couple more nerds toward this old classic.
This is absolutely not a perfect game, but I'm hoping to show people why it is that I've played this game most of my life. Lemme know what you guys think of this, seriously. It's my first real attempt at this kind of content.
Glad to see people still showing their love for and creating FreeSpace content! The Hard Light Productions community gets together every Sunday for an ongoing stream series I'm doing over on my group's channel, Ill Fated Gaming. Would love to see more fans of the series over there! ru-vid.com
Dude. Things are afoot. Check out the playlist and come to the discord. Aside from the mod you see in the channel, I'm the current multi organizer and there's big news there too.
FS2, or maybe FS2 open, also lets you use shift and ctrl as modifier keys, so I had all of my targeting options keybinded forward and back cycling. Then you get into the newer games and it's only "Target nearest" or something and it's so limited.
This is a great fucking video about what is possibly my favorite video game franchise of all time. I've been playing and replaying FreeSpace for about 25 years, since I was 10 years old back in the late '90s, and it never stops being fun, never stops being a Lovecraftian horror story, it never disappoints. And this video clearly hits those points and hopefully can bring in some new fans. Keep up the great work! I especially love your bit about "caring about the NPC nobodies" in Freespace because they're so actually useful. Often I play, I get into it to the point that when one of my wingmen is red on my HUD, indicating more than 50% damage I order them to depart back to base, preferring to lose their support rather than keeping them around to help for a few extra minutes and potentially getting them killed. That's one of the great beauties of this game, that it really gets you to feel for these nameless callsigns flying alongside you, and you genuinely do want to protect them as their commander.
I absolutely loved freespace 2. Great story and gameplay with no micro transactions 🥲 those were the days. I actually think I wouldnt want a new freespace game. No studio could make a game mechanically sound enough to do it justice and it would get monetized af anyway. It's a fond memory and I'm thankful I got to play it as a kid and sometimes today. Great video 💯
I've played this game (series) ever since someone from my dad's workplace handed me a burned pair of FS1 CD's back in 1998. I've been a bit out of it for a couple years, but it always pulls me back in.
this is what CIG and Chris Roberts need to think about for Star Citizen and SQ42. They want WW2 flight mechanics, but seem to stuff it up every year with new systems on top of existing system to "balance" things.
Oh, if only, ONLY, you'd mentioned Blue Planet. The AI for your NPC pilots (and the enemy pilots) is cranked right to the max, but then, for your side, deliberately gimped UNLESS you actively give them the correct orders. So you really can have a pilot who might well be named 'Paingod'...who actually lives up to that name. Except you forgot to give them the right orders, in the proper sequence. Do it right, and they can/will decimate anyone fighting you - there's one whole mission near the end of BP2 where you're actually in control of an entire fleet, from fighter support all the way up to controlling when/where your capships fire at targets. Again, do it right, and you almost can sit back and watch it play out cinematically (you're in a stealth fighter, so yes, that literally is possible). Do it wrong, and you can see your entire fleet wiped out and then you hunted down via sheer numbers. Oh, and the enemy fighters? They make the rare 'aces' in canon FS1 & FS2 look like fools. The enemy pilots in BP use Shivan style tactics, and generally outgun you entirely to the point its nuts. On the other hand, your side went massively into having 'YES' as their choice of missiles & bombs you can carry on, well, anything. Stay still, and you WILL DIE usually faster than it takes to read this sentence. Oh, and both BP1 & BP2 (which is split into 2 parts)? Have full voice acting, in-game cutscenes (yes, really), and even full intro sequences that are incredibly well done. Then they go even further and actually designed actual visible models for every weapon available so that when you swap them out, you actually can see it on your fighter or bomber + a few of them have permanently attached cannons for specialty work (there's an anti-subsystem railgun on one that literally unfolds under the hull before you can fire it). Its also one of the few full campaigns where you actually get to pilot - not just command externally, but pilot - a full-up capship, defensive turrets, bomb/torpedo salvos, beam cannons, and everything. There's a video from a few years ago showing just how brutal the game engine pushed graphics cards from around 2016ish, in BP2's 2nd half opening sequenece - again, its all in-game stuff/its actually a setpiece mission you can't access - where even a top of the line custom PC with the best graphics card back then goes from 60+ fps during a seemingly boring flightover, to as soon as the beams & flak start going off, slams right down to 30 fps and stays there for nearly a minute, in one case dips to 21fps, and has a constantly updating frame counter going, up in the the top corner to prove it as it bounces up and down. Blue Planet, even if it was released back in like 2012 or so, is widely considered the absolute crown jewel of FS2 modding. And it has been updated itself several times to include further updated graphics and even swapping in new hulls that 'fit' the campaign better (this actually made a few missions slightly easier if you listened to where the weakpoints are in the briefings, and in two cases, a helvalot harder due to the new models being even MORE heavily armored or manueverable)
Indeed, I should have mentioned it for sure which was a bit of an oversight. But I did plan on putting out a separate video on BP 1&2 because as your comment shows..... There's a lot to go over to do it justice. This comment does help me want to do that video more though, so I appreciate it.
Even if one didn't like the 'direction' or 'story' of BP, the overall production value is on an entire other level. The fact the main writer of the project is a Career Writer with several award-winning (published) novels under his belt, is impressive too. [The little corner of the internet known as The FreeSpace Fandom, actually made an impact in the larger world. NEAT!] Another AAA-quality 'Mod' for FSO is Wing Commander: Saga. I'm pleased that EA *let* the team make the mod, *however* they were barred from *any* financial gain. Which, is a huge shame. [WC:S unironically left my jaw hung open through the whole credits, and had me immediately make an account to leave a thank you to the devs.]
>I'll go into the factions at a later date Still planning to do this at some point, or have you moved on to Halo now? I'm new to Freespace and yours is the first overview I've found.
It's amazing the SCP community is still pushing the game past the original intent. They have done some amazing things with an old engine. I need to reinstall and play again
Great job my man, I’ve been watching your other channel since 2014. Your progression in how you conduct reviews and assessments has come a long way. Being a fellow nerd who games a lot (or at least used to) and watches a lot of reviews and video essays on games, your presentation and video structure is on point. Keep up the good work, I look forward to seeing more content from both channels. 👏
Colonel Dekker of Hard-Light, AKA Orestes Tactical from blue planet, AKA Alpha one from Battle of Nepune approves and endorses this video. Two decades by the way 😅 Regards from an English Sapper to boot. Military organisations across the pond also suffer from fuckery 😉
my older brother introduced me to freespace 1 and 2 on some ancient intel186 pc. these games still are one of the best i've ever played and I love them immensely.
Opening w/ a flat out decimation of SW:Squadrons immediately earned a subscribe. That game was Free.99, and I still felt scammed and taken for a ride...
2:00 Funny stuff happening with audio there. Not exactly sure what it is, but it sounds like it is 'wandering' from speaker to speaker. Other than that, 2 minutes in and I'm already interested in this game.
I started with free space 1 and liked it more than free space 2 because of its original story. I’ll have to try out this custom shivan campaign as I have never played modded free space. In fact I haven’t played these games in about 2 decades, but they are running now on my modern PC with a gamepad to fly, it is fun. Going to try it out more today
Star Wars is set in a universe that is hyper advanced but has essentially reached a technological dead end. Think about it, you have combat fighters that are so self contained and versatile that they can also serve as personal transports. You have spacecraft that can fly in both atmosphere and space, while also having the ability to travel ftl across thousands of light years, and can land on planetary surfaces. Blasters are direct fire artillery, that can decimate any target in any medium. Shields force close knife fight ranges. But yeah, free space is awesome. You feel like just another pilot, who happens to have the drive and skill to pull off extremely difficult missions. Play Xwing alliance if you want to play a good star wars game. Free space is better, but alliance is really good.
Best game ever made. My life's best achievement was finishing FS2 being dumb as fuck bout basically all of it (power management, ship deploy, squad commands). and I loved every second of it.
Another aspect - none of the ships were abjectly beautiful. Their forms followed a lot of function... they had a consistent style and design cues that made them feel robust. Also the voice acting was great, but to this day the best naturalistic dialogue delivered has been in Mech Warrior 3 in any game ever.
The "Descent" Series 1, 2, & 3. were and still are my favorite games of all time... I never did get into the FreeSpace model though... I like it better down in the mines...
Man, I jst recently fond this game, and I'm seriosly hoping i can get into it as well, from what i've seen online it's like to those who know it it lives in their heart, and being sed to so many games that feel like yo didn't even really do anything bt spent so mch time in it, I really want to love this game, thing is somehow I'm so nsed to this kind of game that jst beginning to play it feels like I'm working, I can completely nderstand being a child and finding this game and slowly growing into it, bt as an adlt now, I'm almost logistically trying to figre ot how am I gonna have the motivation and how to go thro playing sch a different kind of game and not get brnt ot before I start to get sed to it. Honestly, it's like i gotta pt aside all other games when playing this and sally i play abot 4 5 games at the same time, it's like a dedication this game, and I trly love that and the last game that felt so flfilling was ksp for me, bt I feel like as im older now im missing some like freedom of mind or exploration or something, it's like everything is a headache and since then all things that take even minimal amonts of effort brn me ot in mintes, it's really sad man, I wish I was a child again so I cold enjoy this pyorely and experience that incredible feeling when yo start to nderstand something, and that thing of how as a child yo never placed expectations on how well yo can play game, that was never really even a problem since all yo cared abot was the experience which itself was so enthralling that it was like a life jorney when yo fond a good game or something interesting. I have been on a long meditation\ spirital jorney looking for something and often find myself at extremes of pyore childlike energy and criosity and the other side of being brnt ot by everything and jdging everything becase of how something feels, bt is actally on the inside of me that it feels constantly bllied and the experience of life scarred and corrpted almost by the ego. It's so bizarre I know it's a 100percent correlate that when I'm in the pyore state I am fll of life and joy and everything is like shining new, and 100 percent when I'm in the ego state everything is dll and I have no energy and my perception of reality gets so twisted simply from not being able to see the fractal beaty of everything at that moment. Yet still it occrs that I come back to ego state, even tho all I want is to be pyore and see everything in life as the infinite joy that it is .
Someone really needs to make a video on how to play this game at higher resolutions, like in 4K, or something. There are no proper instructions on how to do this.
"Why do I need to roll then pitch?" -- Because the control authority is maximized along a given axis parallel to your weapon aspect, to reduce weight, granting a superior boresight aspect rate in a turnfight. This is basic engineering, and the backbone of dogfighting is turn-rates vs kinetics. In space, you don't have an atmosphere to push off of, so if you're rotating and doing curved motions either its because dampening is used so curved trajectories are harder to pursuit lead with gimballed weapons or because you've found something else to push off (eg, space itself some how via some sort of space-time wing or something idk) to cut down your propellant consumption by creating asymmetric forces to generate torque for free cheap turns thus reducing your propellant and therefor your weight therefor your inertia. Your bs about inclusion pissed me off in the beginning btw. The fact marketers choose to try and appeal to us doesn't mean we feel included, we feel pandered to and its incredibly goddamn condescending, reductionist and two dimensional when they do it: We don't like it any more than you do man.
LOVED this game when it came out so so long ago. Games now are focused on folks with serious attention and cognitive dysfunction sadly. Run, kill, get killed, respawn. No thought, no plan, no skill. Just twitch skill. Thats it.
