Freespace 2 (1999) Longplay

WARNING: This video is out of sync on 480p and 720p (Thanks Youtube for screwing it up!).

This is a full longplay (including training missions) of Freespace 2 using the FSOPEN enhanced engine. What can I say? This is one of the best space sims to have ever been made, and to be honest hasn't quite been rivaled since. There are some great games out there in this category, and a lot of other games in similar genres with great stories. But nothing comes together quite as well as Freespace 2 did. Volition learned from the failings and mistakes of the first game and put together a masterpiece in gaming with a fantastic story, amazing graphics, great voice acting, impressive sound design and more. FS2 has some of the most intense missions to ever grace space combat gaming, and when things ramp up you really do get those sweaty palms! Hm, I feel like I keep repeating myself here! Did I mention how awesome this game is?

Anyway, this was not a 'perfect' play through as I hadn't done any prep work whatsoever other than a few tweaks with the controls; so you might as well consider this an honest play-through if nothing else. It's certainly not a blind play, as I was there back in 1999 when this was released - I received this game as a Christmas present! So suffice to say I've played the game a fair bit, but it has been about TEN years since I last played the campaign. I kind of drifted away from the Freespace community over the years, but I still maintain a connection with them through Hard-Light and Sectorgame (Freespace 2 Sector was one of my older FS2 sites before it was decommissioned a few years ago).

Although there isn't much to fault in FS2, there are a few nitpicks I'll have to make. The first is the training missions. I get that not everyone played FS1 before this game so they are kind of a needed thing, and I always include tutorials and training in my longplays. But after taking down the Shivan destroyer in 'Slaying Ravana' it felt a little insulting to 'Alpha 1' to give him/her a training mission after THAT. Next up is the single most annoying mission in the game - Proving Grounds. I HATE that mission! I had to play it several times just to be sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. When Delta wing attack that old Fenris, there is basically nothing you can do other than ram into them - because they are invulnerable and you cannot discourage them with your weapons fire. You cannot put them out of commission, you cannot stop them at all really. Pointless exercise! On high difficulties they ALWAYS destroy the Fenris, so you fail the secondary objective. Unfortunately that's not the worst part of that mission. The whole thing with the Tiamat really bugs me. I might have to go back and play classic FS2 (no FSOPEN) just to see if the mission behaviour is the same. It should NOT be that hard to get the Aquitaine to destroy that damn thing. I played it more than 6 times after just to see if it COULD be done. It could not. And yes, I know there are playthroughs that show the Tiamat being destroyed, but unfortunately I don't have unlimited time to work through that.

All command and mission briefings involving the Vasudan filter voice were awful. I don't mind the voice effects during missions, but having to listen to briefings (and in some cases, IMPORTANT information) through that filter was very unpleasant. It never bothered me in the past, but it does now. If it were up to me, I'd change it to something a little more pleasant sounding.

The only other nitpicks are pretty minor. After the Colossus battles the Sathanas (in my playthrough) it sustained exactly 0 damage, yet in the following briefing it is mentioned it took a lot of damage. Oops. And in the final SOC mission, I had to hang around for about 10 minutes at the end before anything happened (you'll notice I time warped here). I'm guessing this is because I destroyed all enemy waves before the game expected me to? Oh well. No harm done!

Anyway, a fantastic game overall and a very enjoyable longplay. I realize this might not be the most 'expert' of playthroughs, but my channel is more about casual gaming than expert walkthroughs - I just don't have the time to keep replaying missions for a longplay, so I have to take time constraints into a consideration when making these. This is basically an 'honest' longplay from a casual player. I hope you'll enjoy it either way! :) Here's hoping a spiritual successor to Freespace will come along someday.