A forgotten classic...

I despise paying 50 bucks for games, particularly in the sim/action genre. You know the type: you buy them for full price and six months later they're selling for 15 bucks along with a Prima strategy guide and three expansion sets included. The same game that wasn't worth so much money when it was released (often with bugs) is a wonderful deal just a year later. Therefore, I tend to look for these "classic" games that have seen a remarkable price reduction when shopping. Descent Freespace is one of the best purchases I've made in a long time.

First of all, I was concerned about being able to buy it for 10 bucks. After all, the Descent series wasn't an unknown entity to me. Having never played the original, however, I had no idea how good it was. In my experience, if a game sells for ten dollars or less, it was probably never good in the first place. If the game was that cheap, it must suck...right?

Wrong. This game is worth twice as much as its sticker price at least. Because these sims are so faddish, games that don't hit immediately seem to fall out of favor before anybody can really notice them. This game garnered wonderful reviews when it was launched, yet it never sold very well. Why? I dunno...I'm beginning to believe that the term "cutting edge gamers" really means "morons." Why buy something old when you can buy something new? Well, if this game is any indication, its because you get a lot more bang for your buck.

The structure of the game is familiar to anybody who has played the Wing Commander series (I am old enough to remember when that animated hand on the control stick of the original was breathtaking) and the X-Wing series. You create a pilot, fly a linear series of missions, win medals and promotions, and follow a story line that evolves as you move through the campaigns.

What's different about Freespace? Well, for starters it uses the Descent engine, which means that the battles in space are unique in terms of their feel and complexity. Unlike the Star Wars games, that often felt like glorified flight sims of yore, this engine seems to refine the idea of "3D" combat much more realistically. The dizzying, fast-pace nature of battles puts you on the edge of your seat from the beginning. The ships (both yours and the enemy's) look cool, with giant cruisers dwarfing your little fighters and bombers. The us of floating debris (rocks, wreckage, etc) give the illusion of motion against the relatively static background of stars, while a little "blur" in the star's appearance during turns gives you the illusion of pushing the envelope in the vacuum of space.

The HUD system looks complex at first, and it is, but you soon learn to use the features to your advantage. Like any space sim, you constantly find yourself looking for commands on the keyboard while doing a one-handed steer of your ship. This can get old, but I've never seen one of these games eliminate it yet. Like StarWars sims, collisions are a big element of this game, particularly when you are fighting for your life while a supply ship tries to dock with you. In the heat of battle, you often have wingmen chasing enemy ships right across your line of fire as you chase an opponent. Beware your wingmen! If they are firing on the same target as you, they seem to have no problem shooting *through* you to get to the enemy.

The AI in the game is superb. The enemy ships don't behave like idiots, which is probably the biggest strength of today's sims over the original Wing Commander. Enemies will always try to find ways to get you off their six, performing subtle and daring feats of piloting in order to turn their guns on your during a chase. Often, you'll be chasing down one enemy ship, only to have another chasing you. If you don't shift targets regularly, you can soon find yourself vaporized. The use of the supply ship during battles is crucial, because success depends quite a bit on your use of missiles. This is nice, because earlier space sims always focused too heavily on endless laser battles.

Attacks on enemy cruisers and freighters are also well done in this game. You can target specific subsystems with disrupters, missles, and lasers in order to disable and disarm ships. Attacks against such armed giants can be scary but not impossible. In fact, it is thrilling to buzz around a destroyer trying to take out its weapons systems.

The character development is crude to say the least. Not nearly the amount of time is spent describing your personal journey through the adventure as in the Wing Commander series. This is a weakness, but not a crippling one. The excellent cutscenes describing the war between the Terrans, Vesudans, and Shivans keep things interesting and provide some coherence between battles.

The battles tend to run together a little, although I appreciated the fact that many of them were relatively short and intense rather than long and boring, as certain Tie Fighter missions tended to be. The briefings are done well and give you all the information you need. The game is also clever in that your missions can sometimes be changed by unexpected circumstances. At times, this can be a little offputting, but you get used to it. I replayed a mission several times before I realized that it was possible for the primary mission to be *impossible*.

This game is a great value right now, and I'd highly recommend anybody who loves fighter/space sims to pick it up.