Final Verdict: Alliance vs. Freespace

[Guest Ba'rad]

Well folks, I just finished beating Freespace: The Great War and Freespace 2 as well as all the companion missions. Here's what I say...I like Alliance better! While the Freespace games clearly possessed far superior graphics and eye candy, it didn't quite have the same immersiveness as the Star Wars universe. This is probably because I'm more familiar and comfortable with Star Wars than I was with Freespace. That's not to say that Freespace isn't weak...it's not. I was very surprised by the ending of Freespace 2, which pretty much left a 3rd sequel wide open. Freespace had a few things that I would've liked to have seen in Alliance, namely the terrific catastrophic explosions of the capital ships and their shock waves. Being hit by those shock waves was so realistic too. Probably the best eye candy of all was the supernova...wow! In addition to that, having support ships flying around ready to reload you was SO nice. While you can fly back to your mother ship in Alliance to reload, that takes precious time, and often time that can't be wasted. One more thing, I would've LOVED to have seen the variety of weapons in Alliance that I saw in Freespace and configure my ships accordingly (not to mention CHOOSING the ships) to each mission. If Lucasarts and Volition learned from each other...good God, we could have a game of epic proportions! Still, though, the story and the famous galaxy far far away still drew me to the game, which I replay more often than I will with Freespace.

 

That said...anybody know of any word for an add-on? There's plenty of unanswered questions in Alliance.

 

Ba'rad

 

Thank GOD they're making a DVD out of Phantom Menace! Now what about the rest?

[Guest Rogue15]

i think it'd suck if both companies made a sequel to xwa. why? because my computer would hate me and not let me play it.

[JR2000Z]

Well, there both united to THQ it think.

[Guest garyah99]

I felt the same way about the ending in Freespace 2. Unfortunately Interplay and Volition have had the falling out as Lucasarts and Totally Games, so Freespace 3 is virtually impossible .

[Keyan Farlander]

I like it so much better without afterburners; it gives more importance to energy management. And yeah, that Star Wars universe doesn't hurt either. I'll go with XWA as the best, but I do like both games very much.

[Guest Rogue15]

ooooohhhhh i remember what freespace is like. i only played the demo at my friends house. hmm...let me dload it i haven't played it in like 4 years.

[Admiral Zaarin]

XWA has a LOT of great features. The one thing I would complain about is the mission format. After seeing what was possible in the Alliance mission engine (mainly through AlliEd and a couple of others, though looking at raw specs comes into it as well), I was shocked at the limited possiblilites. Being an avid semi-programmer, FS wins in my book through sheer MODability. Just look at the great campaigns made for FS2 (eg Derelict). Nothing like that would be possible for XWA. If Lucasarts hadn't rushed deadlines, TG probably could have taken the time to program something as flexible as FS's logic-based structure, but, unfortunately, LEC is a company, and therefore, does not give a toss as long as people buy the game.

[JR2000Z]

I wonder what XWA would be like if [V] done it instead... It would be great.

[Guest garyah99]

Actually, TG did a pretty good job with the game build. If Lucasarts had allowed them to finish, instead of rushing it out the door to make room for Ep 1 products, it probably would have been awesome.