Slashdot Mirror
FreeSpace 2 Gets Reissue As Limited Edition
Rastor writes "The PC space combat sim FreeSpace 2 is being re-released as a special Limited Edition via the Interplay Store! According to Volition Watch: 'There will be 2000 copies available, and only through the Interplay store. They will be numbered copies and will be selling for $49.95.' Why should Slashdotters care? Besides being a highly-rated game when released in 1999, the source has been released and a Linux port is available." VolitionWatch also notes "all the extra add-on campaigns and MODs available... literally hundreds of hours of gameplay time" - a limited-edition re-release is an interesting move in a world where games normally go from full-price to budget to bargain bin, and rarely return.
If you've never played it, it has the most impressive capital ships evar. They really convey the sense of scale - it can take a while to fly the length of a capital ship and they shoot beams wider than your fighter - without making you feel ineffectual (e.g. you can destroy those beam cannons if you can deal with the flak and the anti-fighter beams.)
And later on (MILD SPOILER) you're fighting in a nebula, so you can't see anything, which works wonderfully.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
when i can get it for 15$ on ebay?
i already have my copy (fantastic game, i really recommend it) but just curious, other than the numbering, what makes it worth the 49.95?
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
My original submission did not refer to this game simultaneously as "under-rated" and "highly-rated". That's the wonderful Slashdot editors at work. :)
This kind of thing needs to be done for other old DOS games that are hard to get working on new computers. X-COM (the REAL X-COM), Descent 1 and 2, Mechwarrior 2 (original, expansion and mercs), and TIE FIGHTER (the real deal, not XWA or XWVTF) are all games that need to get done like this. I mean, its easy to do, profitable and brings joy to everybody.
I can not begin to tell you the epic tale of how I have tried to make the DOS version of Mechwarrior 2 work in Windows XP and/or linux. I am soooooo close!! $)%*&%#%
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Freespace 2 is one of those great games which makes you wonder why on earth it didn't sell better.
In fact, I believe it is one of the only mass-produced American games to sell for more than the original MSRP on eBay several years after its release. It's not uncommon for a copy of FS2 to sell for $75.
But enough on the price of the game. The game itself is sweet. Gameplay is simply awesome. The graphics are amazing -- not even taking their age into consideration.
I've only played the CD-rip version of the game which didn't include the music, cutscenes, voices, or cinematics (which I am told are some of the best parts of the game). Even still, the gameplay is excellent, the storyline is pretty cool, and it's addicting as hell. (Word to the wise: Don't start this game the week before exams!). It's a pretty unique experience being caught in the midst of two capital ships battling it out, and has yet to be duplicated in any other game.
Plus, the engine's open source! There's a working linux port and a mac port! (The mac version is still under development and doesn't have a permanent website. You have to hunt around to find it). Even cooler is that a bunch of coders ported the entire Freespace 1 campagin to the FS2 engine.
So. In short, go out and buy this game! You will not regret it. It has much more longetivity and replay-value than most games made today.
Oh yeah. You can still download the CD-Rip for free. Chances are that HOTU will take it down in the next few days, as the game is now commercially availible once more. (Would somebody seed this as a torrent?)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
First, you say
I've only played the CD-rip version of the game
then, you say
So. In short, go out and buy this game!
hmmmm....Interesting contradiction
-Vib, videogame freelancer for news0r.com, videogame.net, and vnorby.tk
It's similar to quake.
The engine and all of the underlying code and tools are open source. However, the graphics and the levels are still property of whoever made FS2
I fail to name a company, as that is still questionable - however, it is almost certain that Interplay does NOT have the rights to sell it, and that the original authors will most likely never see any of the profits from this limited edition. This is why the code was initially released, and why you can easily get a semi-legal version of the game off the net for free. From what I remember, one of the original developers also gave a copy of the source art and levels to the community under the terms that the company's logo remain unchanged, nothing else. Of course, to determine the owner of FS2 would be more complicated than to determine the owner of Unix (a la SCO). That's why there's no FS3
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Not really, since the only reason the HOTU CD-rip is online at all is because the game is no longer available at any retail outlets.
They are really very different games, excepting the fact that both of them take place in some kind of ship in space. D3 is a lot like, well, Descent, whereas FS2 plays a lot like Tie Fighter or Wing Commander. I personally love the game (better than the first FS, which I still liked). Great story, great art, great tech (the nebulas are just amazing, and the framerate was great even on middle-power hardware when it was released), great music, great mission design, great voice-acting (especially Admiral Bosch), great fun. Easily one of the best PC games ever, IMO. How it didn't sell well is beyond my imagination - the only thing I can think of is that it really needs a joystick, and maybe not many PC gamers had one any more when it came out.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon