Descent:
Freespace 2 review
Posted by Adam Klein on
December 13, 1999 - Page 2/4
Publisher:
Interplay
- Developer: Volition
Story
(Continued)
…32 years later, the Vasudans and
the Humans are not fighting against each other, but still have the
same companionship that they had during the battle of The Great War.
There is a little trouble, however. Some of the Humans are at a civil
war with each other.
The Human government and a small band
of humans who think it would be best to contact the Shivans once
again. If you remember FreeSpace 1, then the name of the admiral in
command of the rebel group should ring a bell when you hear it in the
game. This is the man who is now trying to contact the Shivans though
one of the gates that was constructed thousands of years ago. Your
main mission should be to stop the rebels and to stop the new Shivan
onslaught.
Graphics and
Sound
The graphics are very scalable and
perform well with my system even at the highest setting. This leads me
to believe that the programming for FreeSpace 2 is excellent. It is
very rare for me to see a flight combat simulation move as smooth as
FreeSpace 2 does when every detail is maxed out. With the options in
FreeSpace 2 you can set the texture size, level of detail, amount of
particles and lighting quality.
I am happy to say that the graphics
for FreeSpace 2 are excellent. The texture detail is very clear and
sharp. I did find that the FreeSpace 2 engine was more of an
enhancement from the original FreeSpace engine. Which it is in
reality, but that doesn’t matter really since FreeSpace 2 does make
for a really good game being that the engine is almost like its
original. There is only one problem here. The only other resolution
selectable above 640x480 is 1024x768. I didn’t experience any
graphical problems with my GeForce 256, which is good. I just wish
that the engine had been able to handle other resolutions.
Texture detail in the game is really
good and can be adjusted to make play smooth on just about any system
and video board. One really good thing with FreeSpace 2 is the
supported APIs. On the video side, FreeSpace 2 supports Glide and
DirectX. In this case, all graphic boards should be supported.
On
the sound side, I was surprised that FreeSpace 2 supports Creative’s
EAX, Aureal’s A3D and Microsoft’s DirectSound. Sound effects in
the game are good and with the added 3D sound APIs; it makes the sound
even better. You can hear the rumble as you pass the engines of a huge
capital ship and the screech as one of the Shivan fighters zooms past
you.
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