Conflict: Freespace
| Conflict: FreeSpace - The Great War | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Original title | Descent: Freespace - The Great War | ||
| Studio |
 Volition
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| Publisher |
Interplay Entertainment Hyperion (Amiga)
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| Senior Developer | Adam Pletcher (concept) | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
March 19, 1998 | ||
| platform | PC ( Windows ), Amiga | ||
| genre | Space flight simulation | ||
| Subject | Military science fiction | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard & mouse , joystick | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | CD-ROM , download | ||
| Current version | 1.06 | ||
| Age rating |
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Conflict: Freespace - The Great War (US title: Descent: Freespace , shortly Free Space ) is a 1998 from the US game developer Volition for Windows PC produced and Interplay Entertainment published computer game . It belongs to the genre of space combat simulations and describes the war of mankind, united in the Galactic Terran Alliance (GTA), against the alien races of the so-called Vasudans and Shivans . The game received an expansion that same year called Conflict FreeSpace: The Great War - Silent Threat . In 2001 the Belgian developer Hyperion Entertainment published an Amiga version of the game under the title Freespace - The Great War . In 1999 a direct successor appeared under the title Freespace 2 .
action
It's the 24th century. For several years, humanity has been at war with the humanoid alien race, the Vasudans . The fighting always takes place in the same areas, but the end of this conflict is not in sight. Suddenly an old, apparently overpowering race appears, the representatives of which are called Shivans . The new enemy overruns the colonial systems of the Terrans and Vasudans without great losses. Their technological superiority is characterized in the beginning by shields, which at this point have neither GTA nor Vasudaner , later in the game by a high number of troops and superior shipbuilding. Humans and Vasudans ally against the common enemy who operates from a huge capital ship, the "SD Lucifer", which can depopulate entire planets with its weapon systems.
Gameplay
Conflict: FreeSpace is a mission-based game with around 30 missions in single-player and 20 missions in multiplayer, in which the player competes against computer-controlled or human opponents. He controls a previously selected and equipped with weapons spaceship from the first person perspective , whereby the screen is prepared with additional information such as a radar, status of the weapons system and the like. Which information is displayed can be determined by the player to a high degree.
The armament is broad and ranges from lasers to missiles to bombs. The playable ships are available in several variants: light reconnaissance ships , light, medium and heavy fighters, interceptors and bombers are available. In one mission, the player also flies a Shivan hunter.
Between the missions there is an overview of the current course of the war and sometimes computer-animated videos can be seen. This is followed by the briefing, in which the mission sequence and objectives are described (only spoken in the English version of the game). There you can usually select a hunter or bomber and the models commanded swarms (for themselves wingmen , computer-controlled wingmen exchange) and change the weapons placement.
Once in space there is the possibility of distributing the ship's energy to the weapon, shield and drive systems via three regulators. Anyone who is currently under heavy fire increases the shield energy at the expense of propulsion and weapons. The player can have his missile and decoys supply replenished from a supply ship if there is a break between battles.
An extensive mission and campaign editor is also included in the game.
Ship naming
A special feature of the game is that almost every name of a ship class comes from a mythology, culture or other. The Terran fighters, bombers and capital ships have names from Greek mythology ( GTF Apollo , GTB Medusa , GTD Orion , ...). The Vasudan ships are given Egyptian names ( GVB Osiris , GVF Anubis , ...), as their home planet consists largely of desert.
The designation of each ship includes its class and species in the first letters. For example, the ship GTD Messana is a Terran destroyer. The first three letters ( GTD ) stand for Galactic Terran Destroyer . All ships with GT are Galactic Terran, all with GV are Galactic Vasudan, and all with an S are Shivan. The last (possibly the last two) letter (s) indicate the type of ship.
- A = AWACS (AWACS ship)
- B = bomber (bomber)
- C = cruiser
- Cv = Corvette (Corvette)
- D = Destroyer
- F = fighter
- Fr = Freighter (freighter)
- I = installation (setup)
- J = Juggernaut (Juggernaut)
- T = Transporter (Transporter)
- etc.
This system is also applied to the lasers and rockets of the hunters, which accordingly bear the designation GTW for Galactic Terran Weapon or GTM for Galactic Terran Missile (Galactic Terran Missile).
Examples:
- GTW-5 Prometheus
- GTW-66 Maxim
- GTM-4 Hornet
- GTM-19 Harpoon
development
Conflict: FreeSpace - The Great War was the first title of the developer Volition, which emerged from the separation of the development studio Parallax Software. After the two Parallax founders Matt Toschlog and Mike Kulas decided to share the company that had become known through the development of Descent and Descent II , Toschlogs Outrage Entertainment took over the work on Descent 3 . The Volition team under Kulas, which was to develop Descent 4 only afterwards , therefore began work on a new title. In the course of work on Conflict: FreeSpace , the company's workforce doubled. In the United States, the game was released under the title Descent: FreeSpace , with a strong reference by Interplay marketing to the successful Descent games , and the team's connection with the corridor shooter was highlighted.
technology
Conflict: FreeSpace supports a resolution of 640 × 480 with a color depth of 16-bit. The game supports Glide and Direct3D , but also offers a software renderer so that no 3D graphics card is required. The mouse, keyboard and a joystick with or without force feedback are supported as input devices . Also supports Conflict: Freespace after installing a patch EAX .
Network games are also possible. This requires either a network for LAN games or a modem for Internet games. Conflict: FreeSpace supports the TCP / IP protocol as well as the IPX protocol. Under Windows XP , the game can usually be played with the Windows 98 / Me compatibility mode.
reception
Conflict: FreeSpace received mostly good reviews (game rankings: 80.39%). In the opinion of the tester Stefan "Desslock" Janicki from GameSpot, the game prepares well-known and proven elements of earlier competing products and a number of its own innovations into a successful mixture. The game offers a “welcome mix of captivating graphics, a plot and gameplay”, even if the developers could only come up with a few original ideas. He particularly praised the lighting effects of the graphics and compared these and the more action-based gameplay with the competition title Wing Commander: Prophecy , published in 1997 . The customizable interface with its numerous configuration options, which Desslock described as "outstanding", received special praise. The AI of the accompanying pilots, on the other hand, is changeable. While she reliably implements orders, she does not show any consideration when attacking if the player is in the immediate line of fire. The plot of the game is altogether captivating, but seems a bit incoherent due to the fragmented narrative style with a few cutscenes and has little depth, since, for example, accompanying pilots remain nameless characters with no recognizable identity. There was clear criticism for the multiplayer part, which does not allow any meaningful use, especially over the Internet, because two players would already have major problems with synchronicity. Due to the very sophisticated single player campaign, he made a clear recommendation for the game.
PC rating table:
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Amiga evaluation table:
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Conflict: FreeSpace - Silent Threat (Add-on)
| Conflict: FreeSpace - Silent Threat | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Original title | Descent: Freespace - Silent Threat | ||
| Studio |
Volition
|
||
| Publisher |
Interplay entertainment
|
||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
October 1998 | ||
| platform | PC ( Windows ) | ||
| genre | Space flight simulation | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard & mouse , joystick | ||
| medium | CD-ROM , download | ||
| Age rating |
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Silent Threat is an end in 1998 published an official mission pack for Free Space . This is a new campaign with special missions during the Great War . The Mission Pack has an independent storyline that is not directly dependent on that of the base game. There are four new spaceships (two player controllable, a Shivan and a Terran capital ship), four new weapons and additional multiplayer missions . The playing time of the single player campaign is only a few hours.
Rating table:
Web links
- Freespace series at MobyGames (English)
- FreeSpace Wiki (English)
- Drifting Souls 2 (a browser game based on the freespace computer games)
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Stefan "Desslock" Janicki: Descent: FreeSpace - The Great War ( English ) In: GameSpot . CBS Interactive . July 22, 1998. Retrieved July 8, 2012.
- ↑ Ben Hanson: The Secret History of Volition ( English ) In: Game Informer . GameStop . March 30, 2011. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
- ^ Descent: FreeSpace - The Great War Reviews . Game rankings. Retrieved November 12, 2007.
- ↑ http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/conflict-freespace-the-great-war/36042.html
- ^ Martin Schnelle: Conflict FreeSpace - The Great War . (Article scan) In: PC Player . August 1998, pp. 138-141. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
- ↑ Richie Shoemaker: Conflict: FreeSpace - The Great War ( English ) Computer and Video Games. August 13, 2001. Archived from the original on December 3, 2007. Retrieved on November 13, 2007.
- ↑ Michael E. Ryan: Review: Descent: Freespace ( English ) GamePro . November 24, 2000. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved November 13, 2007.
- ↑ Mark Cooke: Descent: Freespace - PC ( English ) Game Revolution. June 5, 2004. Archived from the original on November 23, 2008. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 13, 2007.
- ↑ Jürgen A. Theiner: Descent: Freespace - Nobody hears you screaming in space . (Article scan) In: Amiga Future . No. 35, February 2002, pp. 24-26. Retrieved July 6, 2012.
- ↑ Mick Sutton: Descent: Freespace . (PDF) In: South Essex Amiga Link (Ed.): Total Amiga . No. 10, Essex, England, February 18, 2002, pp. 30-32. Retrieved November 14, 2007.
- ↑ http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/conflict-freespace-silent-threat/wert/36250.html
- ↑ Martin Schnelle: Conflict Freespace: Silent Threat, in: PC Player 2/99, p. 121.
