Interplay’s 1999 sequel to the fighting hit Freespace came along at just the right time. With enough cushion between the instalments to leave gamers hungry yet still involved in the original, Freespace 2 lived up to its predecessor quite nicely.
Like the original, Freespace 2 is a single person space fighter game. There are over thirty missions to be completed to reach the grande finale, some of which include: flying stealth fighter jets, teaming up with Vasudan squadrons, and marking enemy targets. You begin at the command centre that contains detailed specs in encyclopedia format on the available aircraft from which you can choose.
Decide if you would like your pilot to be human or alien, and launch your game. Complete all the missions in a single campaign and move on to the next, more difficult, assignment.
To accomplish this monumental task, Freespace 2 equips you with a massive arsenal. Use it to target and eliminate enemy subsystems, disable the engines of oncoming rivals, wipe out defensive bays, destroy missile batteries, and light up enemy turrets. Enemy rival classes have been beefed up to include bigger and better fighters to match your cutting edge weaponry and provide more of a challenge. In total, Freespace 2 offers over seventy space fighters to fight from and against. You can command up to eleven of them in any battle. They can be instructed
to attack or defend, disable or disarm the opponents in any given dogfight. Customize your fighter’s payload and tailor it to suit your mission, or just choose your favourite weaponry and see how you do. A fighter has a choice of many gun systems including: long-range missiles, several varieties of laser, and bombs, and rapid-fire cannons.
Freespace 2 also offers other options to accompany the standard single player mode. A LAN or TCP/IP connection will get the player a multiplayer dogfight involving up to 12 other fighter pilots. PXO offers a multiplayer matching service and keeps track of player rankings. Through PXO, a player can also partake in SquadronWar, a player to player battle to control deep space. Freespace 2 also includes a mission editor to customize your scenarios in both single and on-line multiplayer format. These custom designs can easily be traded between designers to keep the game fresh for as long as you want it.
