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PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

FreeSpace 2 Gets Reissue As Limited Edition 52

Posted by simoniker from the formerly-deceased dept.
Rastor writes "The PC space combat sim FreeSpace 2 is being re-released as a special Limited Edition via the Interplay Store! According to Volition Watch: 'There will be 2000 copies available, and only through the Interplay store. They will be numbered copies and will be selling for $49.95.' Why should Slashdotters care? Besides being a highly-rated game when released in 1999, the source has been released and a Linux port is available." VolitionWatch also notes "all the extra add-on campaigns and MODs available... literally hundreds of hours of gameplay time" - a limited-edition re-release is an interesting move in a world where games normally go from full-price to budget to bargain bin, and rarely return.
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FreeSpace 2 Gets Reissue As Limited Edition More

FreeSpace 2 Gets Reissue As Limited Edition

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  • Sweet Game (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheOnlyCoolTim ( 264997 ) <tim.bolbrock@ver ... t minus caffeine> on Friday January 30, 2004 @09:26PM (#8141300)
    If you've never played it, it has the most impressive capital ships evar. They really convey the sense of scale - it can take a while to fly the length of a capital ship and they shoot beams wider than your fighter - without making you feel ineffectual (e.g. you can destroy those beam cannons if you can deal with the flak and the anti-fighter beams.)

    And later on (MILD SPOILER) you're fighting in a nebula, so you can't see anything, which works wonderfully.

    Tim
    • Yeah the capital ships are impressive with their beam cannons... that is until you get caught in their crossfire and get killed. (Get hit by one of the main beam cannons basicly meant instant death since they aren't supposed to target you, only other capital ships.)

      As for fighting a nebula so you can see anything, don't forget the LAST mission where you have to run from (MAJOR SPOILER).

    • And later on (MILD SPOILER) you're fighting in a nebula, so you can't see anything, which works wonderfully.

      Which of course is another bit of space opera along with "constant thrust = constant velocity". A real nebula looks pretty much like outer space from the inside or even relatively up close. Maybe an actual protostar would be a little "soupy".

      Aside from that, it's a damn fine game... Don't know that I'd pay fifty bucks for it now tho.

  • why buy for 49.95.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @09:33PM (#8141338) Homepage Journal
    when i can get it for 15$ on ebay?

    i already have my copy (fantastic game, i really recommend it) but just curious, other than the numbering, what makes it worth the 49.95?

  • Please note... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rastor ( 8752 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @09:39PM (#8141370)
    My original submission did not refer to this game simultaneously as "under-rated" and "highly-rated". That's the wonderful Slashdot editors at work. :)

  • This needs to be done (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @09:42PM (#8141386) Homepage Journal
    This kind of thing needs to be done for other old DOS games that are hard to get working on new computers. X-COM (the REAL X-COM), Descent 1 and 2, Mechwarrior 2 (original, expansion and mercs), and TIE FIGHTER (the real deal, not XWA or XWVTF) are all games that need to get done like this. I mean, its easy to do, profitable and brings joy to everybody.

    I can not begin to tell you the epic tale of how I have tried to make the DOS version of Mechwarrior 2 work in Windows XP and/or linux. I am soooooo close!! $)%*&%#%
    • Freespace 2 was windows 98 dude...

    • Re:This needs to be done (Score:4, Informative)

      by hords ( 619030 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @10:11PM (#8141561)
      Check out dosbox.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]. It's an emulator that works great for old dos games. It even makes some of the games that were difficult to squeeze into the base 640K seemingly easier to get running with sound blaster, mouse, etc. All the support it automatically built in. Mount directories as a virtual hard drive/cd drive. All open source with windows/linux versions for download. Such nostalgia.
    • It WAS done for X-Com. I got both the first two running real well on XP with no hassle to run it, though there were some hacks I put in it to make it that way...

      I've love to see an updated Descent, though 3 isn't bad at all, IMO. Mechwarrior 2: Mercs used to be a favorite.

      But I would lick somebody's shoes clean if they could even replicate the quality of TIE Fighter. X-Wing was very good, it really was. TIE Fighter was just an improved version. Then XWVTF loses a lot with it's deviation from the establish
    • You know, they did release updated versions of these games, using the X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter engine. You just have to buy either this [mobygames.com] or this [mobygames.com].

      May require some mild tweaking to run under Win2000/XP. (Compatibility mode, software mode rendering, etc.)
  • Freespace 2 has long been my favorite game, and I hold that it's been something of a huge underdog. A re-release of such an amazing game is really refreshing coming from a company that has made so many boneheaded decisions lately.

  • Go. Get it NOW! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Friday January 30, 2004 @11:19PM (#8141928) Homepage
    Freespace 2 is one of those great games which makes you wonder why on earth it didn't sell better.

    In fact, I believe it is one of the only mass-produced American games to sell for more than the original MSRP on eBay several years after its release. It's not uncommon for a copy of FS2 to sell for $75.

    But enough on the price of the game. The game itself is sweet. Gameplay is simply awesome. The graphics are amazing -- not even taking their age into consideration.

    I've only played the CD-rip version of the game which didn't include the music, cutscenes, voices, or cinematics (which I am told are some of the best parts of the game). Even still, the gameplay is excellent, the storyline is pretty cool, and it's addicting as hell. (Word to the wise: Don't start this game the week before exams!). It's a pretty unique experience being caught in the midst of two capital ships battling it out, and has yet to be duplicated in any other game.

    Plus, the engine's open source! There's a working linux port and a mac port! (The mac version is still under development and doesn't have a permanent website. You have to hunt around to find it). Even cooler is that a bunch of coders ported the entire Freespace 1 campagin to the FS2 engine. [3dactionplanet.com]

    So. In short, go out and buy this game! You will not regret it. It has much more longetivity and replay-value than most games made today.

    Oh yeah. You can still download the CD-Rip [the-underdogs.org] for free. Chances are that HOTU will take it down in the next few days, as the game is now commercially availible once more. (Would somebody seed this as a torrent?)
  • So, its available for free download for Linux, but costs $50 on Windows? That makes NO SENSE! And if you go to the linux page, they talk about how the code has been released to the public, but you still need to buy the game to play? Maybe I'm missing something here, but if the code's free, why do you need to buy. free!=costs, if you get my drift.

    If this is somehow obvious, if everyone else knows why this is, then for god's sake don't mod me down, reply. :P

    • Re:The article doesn't make sense! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by moosesocks ( 264553 ) on Saturday January 31, 2004 @12:30AM (#8142274) Homepage
      It's similar to quake.

      The engine and all of the underlying code and tools are open source. However, the graphics and the levels are still property of whoever made FS2

      I fail to name a company, as that is still questionable - however, it is almost certain that Interplay does NOT have the rights to sell it, and that the original authors will most likely never see any of the profits from this limited edition. This is why the code was initially released, and why you can easily get a semi-legal version of the game off the net for free. From what I remember, one of the original developers also gave a copy of the source art and levels to the community under the terms that the company's logo remain unchanged, nothing else. Of course, to determine the owner of FS2 would be more complicated than to determine the owner of Unix (a la SCO). That's why there's no FS3
    • The source just makes the binary of the game. It can't make any of the support files the binary uses - there's no textures, models, sounds, levels, et cetera.

      Tim
      • Twice in the last two days you've gotten me all hyped at the prospect of free games. both times its turned out that only part of the game is free, the rest either costs or is binary-only. knock it off. use "somewhat free" to describe games that are not totally free.

        FREE AS IN 'COSTS MONEY' IS NOT FREE.
        FREE AS IN 'CAN'T SEE ALL THE SOURCE' IS NOT FREE.
        THIS IS NOT A DIFFICULT CONCEPT.
        GET IT STRAIGHT, DORKS.
  • And I resent the hell out of the fact that interplay is selling me back my favorate game, while refusing to make the follow up, Freespace 3. Oh, sure there is a petition [petitiononline.com]but this is interplay were talking about here, they canceled fallout 3 and disbanded Black Isle which was still producing incredible games. Volition [volition-inc.com] wants to make FS3 but Interplay holds the copyright. So yeah, I purchaced this, but I gave them a one out of ten on there feedback from, because Interplay has done some absolutly stupid, dumb
    • Like, apparently, getting you to pay again for a game that they did no extra work on.

      That's not stupid, that's unfortunately smart. I'm sure they care about your money more than the 1/10 feedback.
  • The website gives the platform as Windows 9x. I know there's a compatibility wizard for running 9x programs on XP, but there's no guarantee that the wizard will be successful (that I'm aware of, anyway).

    What are the chances of being unable to play Freespace 2 under XP, and is the price tag worth that risk?
    • I have the original FS2 retail version, and it runs just fine under XP. And it's great being able to play it on a fast current-day PC in it's full glory. Back when it came out I was playing it on a P2-450 w/ TNT2. Playing it on an Athlon XP 2600+ and GF4 ti4200 is awesome.

      I've played the Linux port... and it works pretty well. I haven't tried it for over a year, but I'm on the [icculus.org]
      freespace list (just lurking) and there has been some sporadic activity lately... but it's working pretty well. Compiling it is fu
    • Unless they repackage it (unlikely) it works like a dream on my Windows XP system w/ GeForce4. Much much better than it did on the system I ran it on when it came out (Win 98 w/ crappy integrated video)
  • ... to descent 3 which I believe is from the same company? I tried the fs demo a while ago but wasn't impressed and thought D3 was much better.
    • They are really very different games, excepting the fact that both of them take place in some kind of ship in space. D3 is a lot like, well, Descent, whereas FS2 plays a lot like Tie Fighter or Wing Commander. I personally love the game (better than the first FS, which I still liked). Great story, great art, great tech (the nebulas are just amazing, and the framerate was great even on middle-power hardware when it was released), great music, great mission design, great voice-acting (especially Admiral Bosch
      • FreeSpace is the last reason I owned a joystick.

        After FreeSpace, the joystick went into a box and I never bought another one.

        Sounds likes its time to find that damn box.
        • You will not be disappointed!

          Make sure you try and use the new Open Source version - I am not sure how playable it is (a little buggy when I tried it six months ago), but the graphics tweaks are really nice. Some of the nicer visual features were apparently only available on Voodoo cards (which I doubt you have :D), until the new OS version which reimplemented them.

  • THIRTY BUCKS FOR SHIPPING!? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From "Rates and policies" page:

    Each order to Canada will be charged $30 to include shipping costs as well as all tariffs, taxes, and other fees
    My god, are they insane? And then they probably ship UPS, so UPS will demand an extra $50 on the canadian side for "brokerage fees". No way, interplay.
  • you didn't mention the SCP the FS comunity's main open source expansion, forum located here [gamespy.com]. were getting close to makeing relese 3.6, wich will include full HT&L suport, spec mapping, glow mapping, 32bit texture suport, all of that for both DX8.1 and OGL, a whole bunch of new weapon options for modders. here [gamespy.com] is a good example of what it's capable of, with a start Trek conversion featureing 18,000 poly ships converted from the BC mod comunity here's some more [gamespy.com]

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