Missions are absolutely packed with these character moments, off-topic banter, arguments between different viewpoints and flavour about current news and upcoming sporting events, and it takes very little time to sink into and connect with this corner of the universe. No, you don't get to drink with your comrades between missions, but you do quickly get to know them, their quirks, and the relationships going on behind the scenes - Kettle for instance trying to be the authoritative commanding officer while leading a wing, despite the more laid back Greywolf having no shame about teasing him in front of newbies and puncturing his ego at every opportunity. What matters far more is what is there, from pre-rendered cutscenes at key moments, animated briefings, and most importantly, a ton of audio chatter during missions.
#Freespace 2 fighters series#
Not to mention one trying to pick up from a staggeringly high-budget series on a budget of roughly zero. At times, you can even feel the games grinding against each other, especially when it spurts out page after page of overwritten story that it wants you to digest, all displayed in a deeply unfortunate reading font.īut that's largely to be expected of a game wearing another series' coat. The Freespace engine wasn't designed for series stalwarts like branching campaigns or wandering around the ship between missions, as wonderful as that would have been. Wing Commander Saga doesn't go that far, largely because it can't. There were other shooters, but none with anything like as much heart. It was a series that let you hang out on your carrier's bar between sorties, and which bothered to take the time to develop relationships between its difference characters through fights, betrayals, late night poker, and in-flight chatter. Wing Commander was always a series of two halves - honestly weak space combat (especially compared to X-Wing and TIE Fighter) and a sense of story and character that papered over the cracks and made you feel part of a living, breathing universe. The Darkest Dawn has 50 missions to play through, and the kind of name that doesn't promise much in the way of sunshine and roses on the long path to victory. Either way, it's going to be a long fight. Instead, you're a rookie pilot with the call sign "Sandman", helping to hold the line on the TCS Hermes, and quietly praying that your beloved Terran Confederation has some kind of planet-busting superweapon hidden quietly up its ass that might prevent the kitties turning Earth into their litter tray. That tomato is humanity's collective balls, currently being not so much crushed as mopped up by a hostile race of cat aliens called the Kilrathi.Īs for you, you're not series hero Christopher Blair for this one. Place it delicately in the palm of your hand. If you played the earlier games, you'll know exactly how bad things are for humanity at this point in the war.
Saga's new campaign, officially called "The Darkest Dawn", is set during the Wing Commander 3 timeframe. There's absolutely no reason not to do exactly that. Just download, install, and you're good to go. While it uses the Freespace 2 engine, it's a standalone version. The greatest space combat series of all time? The best space combat engine of all time? Of course Wing Commander Saga is terrific, and a stunning achievement. But can it live up to its name? We jumped in to find out. No, it's a huge, spectacularly ambitious fan-sequel that's been in development for the last ten years, which combines burning love for the franchise with the Freespace 2 engine to create a brand new, old-school instalment.
#Freespace 2 fighters plus#
Wing Commander Saga isn't the long-awaited big budget continuation of Chris Roberts' epic space combat series, but on the plus side, it's not some Facebook bastardisation of it either.
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