The customizable interface of Descent: Freespace is outstanding - easily the best yet seen in the genre. It's a shame you don't get a similar warning when one of your maniacal wingmen decides to gleefully launch a spread of missiles at a target inches in front of your ship. One handy feature is that you'll get a communications warning whenever an enemy ship is attacking you from behind. You have unprecedented control over your wingmen, and they'll capably respond to an order to take out the weapons system or engine of a capital ship, but they also won't hesitate to mow you down if you happen to fly in between them and your target. Wingmen AI is excellent in some respects but poor in others. Tie Fighter, which constantly require you to juggle those settings, the ships in Descent: Freespace appear to be admirably powered, and you'll rarely feel the need to adjust settings to boost power in a particular area. You can adjust the power levels of your shields, engines, and weapons, but unlike games such as X-Wing vs. Afterburners can only be utilized in short bursts, requiring you to tactically reserve them for when they are most useful. Descent: Freespace is probably the most missile-intensive game yet seen in the genre, but fortunately single missile hits aren't usually too destructive to your ship. It's a nod to realism that increases the immersiveness of the game, especially if you're using a force-feedback joystick.Ĭombat in Descent: Freespace also more closely resembles the fast-paced, missile-blasting, afterburner sliding frag fests of the Wing Commander series than the World War II style of combat favored by the Star Wars sims. You won't have time to stand around and admire the fireworks, however, as the shock waves from exploding capital ships are particularly deadly in this game. The graphics are particularly impressive in later missions, when immense capital ships patrol through colored nebulas and asteroid fields, swarmed by hordes of attacking fighters and bombers until they are wracked by massive explosions. In many ways, the graphics closely resemble those used in Wing Commander Prophecy and make especially good use of colored lighting, shielding, lens flare, and engine blast effects. Everything from the "sink the behemoth" branching plot to the stylish interface, mission briefings, and graphics appears to be plucked from other games of the genre, but improved. Very little about Descent: Freespace is entirely original, but the developers did an admirable job at extracting the best features from previous spaces sims. In fact, there's a real X-COM feel to the game, as you uncover the mysteries of the Shivans and constantly improve the technology of your ships and weaponry. At first you have to avoid direct conflicts with the superior Shivans and instead embark on missions to steal their technology in order to improve the capabilities of your ships. When you first encounter the Shivans, you won't even be able to target their jet-black ships, and the weapons that seemed so impressive against the Vasudans will barely make an impression on the Shivans and their seemingly invulnerable shields. From the opening animated cutscene, Descent: Freespace does an excellent job at maintaining the aura of the Shivans as a mysterious, unstoppable force. Although a rebel Vasudan faction continues to harass the new Vasudan-Terran alliance, the main threat comes from the Shivans and their monstrous capital ship, the Lucifer. While the Vasudans and the Terrans are fairly evenly matched, they quickly put aside their differences when a third race appears, the technologically superior Shivans. When the plot of Descent: Freespace begins, the ever-warmongering Terrans are in the midst of a 14-year misunderstanding with the Vasudans. But while MicroProse's X-COM Interceptor is a fading memory, and little anticipation has developed for Accolade's Star Con (formerly Star Control 4), Volition has carefully crafted Descent: Freespace to provide a welcome mix of compelling graphics, plot, and gameplay. Descent: Freespace is one of a number of recently released or announced space-sim titles from developers who are better known for creating successful gaming series in other genres. With the enticing capabilities of 3D graphics hardware support and a general resurgence in science fiction themes, it was only a matter of time before gaming companies would, once again, try to break LucasArts' and Origin Systems' collective stranglehold over the genre. Over the years a variety of space-combat simulations have been released, but none of them has been as polished or even remotely as interesting as LucasArts' X-Wing series or Origin Systems' Wing Commander series, both of which are still going strong.
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