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You mean like say.. This?

Don't get me wrong, I commend Rockstar for distributing a great game like GTA free of charge, but why not give the source also while they are at it? Since the game engine is completely different than the one used in GTA3 and Vice City they really don't have to worry about competition arising from modifications to the source code of the original GTA.

One great example of how releasing the source brings benefits to fans of a game is Descent Freespace 2. Early last year Volition released the source code to the game. I know personally I enjoyed hacking around with it a bit for fun (and playing make believe that I coded games for a living instead of backend java apps :P ). The FreeSpace Source Code Project was formed and has made many enhancements to the game. They recently released FS2 Open version 3.5 which adds OpenGL support, the ability to add custom movies to mission briefings, many new weapons, damage decals, and ship trails just to name a few things.

Releasing the source to GTA would undoubtedly spawn similar projects to enhance what is still a great game, and who knows some of the ideas the community may come up with could help Rockstar out with new innovations for latest games in the series.

> why couldn't the author try out the code without having the game installed?

Like Quake, Doom, etc, the data files were not released, only the code for the engine/exe.

> I'm wondering if it is still available for sale somewhere

Yes. I bought the Virgin Interactive "White Label" edition, which includes FreeSpace 1 and 2 for under £10 a few months ago. You should be able to pick up a copy. £10's damn good concidering that's 6 CD's worth of game :)

> From the screenshots, Freespace 2 appears to be similar to Homeworld [sierra.com] and Terminus [vvisions.com].

Not quite. FreeSpace 2 is more like a space flight sim; you get to fly about in a fighter craft, often around big-ass capital ships you either get to protect, destroy, or run away from. Sometimes in quite yummy nebula's (quite a sight when you see the shadow of an enemy superdestroyer come into view, filling half the sky before melting one of the destroyers you're escorting in one shot :)

The beam weapons are lovely and substantial; get hit by an anti-fighter beam and you get knocked about like a tin can while you desperately try to get out of it's way.

There are a few very good quality mods too. I can personally recommend the truely excellent Derelict; VolitionWatch is down at the moment though.

The game still hogs hard drive space though, me and my friends still play it because of the Babylon Project mod. As is well documented, the official Babylon 5 game; "Into The Fire" was shaping up to be a very cool game until it got bounced from distributer to distributer and finally pulled (a real shame as seen as they got Joe Straczynski to write the script and all the cast in to film it, but hey ho :-( ).

This mod captures the feel of the series very well, sure it is rough around the edges, but small complaints against actually having a game based, IMHO on the most intelligent Sci-Fi show for quite a while.

Credit must be given to Volition for providing the mission mod as standard with the game as well, again it is good to see a company with the foresight to provide extra value with their products, many a stupid mission has been created with that tool! It certainly makes another space shooter based on a certain franchise look very poor indeed