Project Freedom(aka P2) demo out!

K

Karthik@KANE

Spaceman
That's right folks Project Earth 2.....er.....I mean Project Freedom, the sequel to the notorious, horrible, cheap, jabroni, Razzie award winning Project Earth/Starmageddon, demo is released. Instead of making a Homeworld knockoff, they changed it to a space flight simulator.

And man, does it have so many alternative names. It started of as Project Earth 2/Starmageddon 2 then changed to P2 and then renamed to Project Freedom and remodified as a space flight simulator. But it's renamed again for other markets as Space Interceptor. All in all this game has so many names that not any game in the current market can rival it. I mean even Nexus went through 3 name changes!
 
A bit of background... Project Earth was apparently supposed to be a space-sim as well, originally. The developers were told that space-sims had no future (true enough, it seems :(), and they re-worked it into a Homeworld knock-off. For some reason, the game published as Starmageddon here in Poland (the developer is Polish) - which is why the sequel is both Project Earth 2 and Starmageddon 2. In both cases, Project Freedom is just a subtitle, not a title by itself. No idea where the Space Interceptor name came from, though.

Anyway, name changes aside, the game has already been out in Poland since May. I've even got a copy of it lying around somewhere, although I can't play it (sigh... I really need a new PC). From what I've heard, the game is fairly average - so don't count on it to revive the space-sim genre or anything like that ;).
 
I just played the demo. It has a bit of a Freelancer feel to the flight and controls (mouse aims the weapons, there is no radar display, only arrows indicating the direction of hostiles, etc...) The visuals are nice, I'll say that. The game play is somewhat average for a space sim, but enough to keep me interested during the demo, at least.

There is a bit of an arcade feel to the enemy and friendly AI. (I think I smoked 27 or so bandits in one mission on the easy setting, and my wingment didn't seem to do much). While I have smoked about that many in some WC missions, it was much harder. I suppose if I try it on the harder settings, the individual AI will put up more of a fight (and, hopefully, so would the wingmen, but you never know).

From what I've seen of it, I think it's probably good enough to buy a copy of it (that is to say, it is much better than Bang! Gunship Elite, which I sold at my soonest possible opportunity). The combat experience was better than some of what's out there now (for example, the combat in X2:The Threat. I sold that one, too. It just wasn't what I was looking for in a space sim). So, while I don't think this game is a WC or a Starlancer ( or dare I say it.... for those who like the Freespace series... and let's not argue about it killing a genre. Some people like it, some don't, that's fine) that will engrave itself on the hearts of its fans, it looks like it is still a pretty decent little sim with some fun moments and good visuals. And, at the very least, its a space combat sim. If it sells well, maybe other developers will start working with that genre again (high hopes, I know. If not this one, hopefully some other, sometime soon).

Just some thoughts. Feel free to make your own judgments on the matter.

Sphynx
 
Dyret, please don't complain about Freespace 2 in threads not specifically created for that purpose - I don't like it when people hijack a thread so soon after it was started.
 
Got a copy on Ebay for 11,50 Euros - still waiiting for it to arive however. But it will probably try Yager first. Both seem to be rather arcadish for space sims however.
 
cff said:
Got a copy on Ebay for 11,50 Euros - still waiiting for it to arive however. But it will probably try Yager first. Both seem to be rather arcadish for space sims however.
Click to expand...
Yager?! Never heard of it!
 
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