Freespace 2 Gameplay

[Temika]

Thegame continues on the story from Descent: FreeSpace, once again thrusting the player into the role of a pilot fighting against the mysterious aliens, the Shivans. While defending the human race and its alien Vasudan allies, the player also gets involved in putting down a rebellion. The game features large numbers of fighters alongside gigantic capital ships in a battlefield fraught with beams, shells and missiles in detailed star systems and nebulae. Free multiplayer games were available via Parallax Online which also ranked players by their statistics. A persistent galaxy was also available as SquadWar for players to fight with each other over territories.

In 2002, Volition released the source code for the game engine under a non-commercial license. This code became the core of the FreeSpace 2 Source Code Project, which continuously improves it and enables new features. In cooperation with the FreeSpace Upgrade Project the game's graphics are kept up to date.[4] The improved game engine is also used by various mod projects, for example The Babylon Project and Diaspora which are based on the science fiction series Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica respectively.

FreeSpace 2's gameplay involves the player piloting a starfighter using mounted weapons to destroy enemy starfighters, performing reconnaissance behind enemy lines, or escorting other starships.[5][6] Its flight model is based on a looser interpretation of space physics instead of realistic Newtonian physics.[7] Hence, the ships are weightless and feel more responsive, though they require constant application of engine power to move.[8] The result is that the game plays more like a "WWII dogfight simulator" unaffected by gravity.[9] Although joysticks are the recommended controller for this game, the mouse is a viable alternative.[10] Single player mode is executed in the form of a campaign, which follows a story as a linear sequence of missions are executed.

The pre-mission briefing stage is where the player gets information on the background and objectives, and selects the ship and weapons.[11] The choices of ships and weapons increase as the player proceeds further along the campaign. Certain missions, however, will dictate certain ships and weapons to be used. Weapons can be classified into primary weapons and secondary weapons.[11] Primary weapons are kinetic and energy weapons, while missiles and torpedoes are classified as secondary weapons. Each weapon has its own specifications such as its rate of fire. They also inflict different damages on hulls (body of the ships) or shields (the protective energy fields surrounding the ships), or possess special effects such as shutting down specific electronic systems or propulsion.

The player flies around in a fighter with a first-person, in-cockpit view with a fully customizable fixed head-up display (HUD) as the visual interface.[12][13] The HUD displays video communications and relevant data on the ship's status and performance, weapons, objectives, and targets. It can also warn players if missiles are locking onto them and from which direction, thus becoming an aid for launching countermeasures or taking evasive maneuvers.[14] Players have to maneuver into position and shoot through both shields and hull to destroy enemy ships.[15] While hull damage is unrecoverable, shields recharge over time. With the game supporting force feedback technology, joystick players will find their controllers vibrating or putting up resistance when they engage the afterburners or collide with objects.[16] Similarly, certain events, such as engaging afterburners and firing powerful weapons, will shake the screen as a form of visual feedback.[14]

FreeSpace 2 has many helpful features available. The player can target enemies attacking a protected objective or match speeds with them. Power can be shunted between shields, engines, and weapons, thereby allowing faster recharge of shields, afterburners, and weapons at the expense of other subsystems. These features can be ignored without any detrimental effects on gameplay.[17][18] The mission parameters are not rigidly fixed, as there is an allowance for the failures of some primary objectives.[14] When the mission is concluded, a post-mission briefing will be conducted to discuss the mission, and the performance of the player, before the next mission can be taken on.

FreeSpace 2 allows multiplayer games to be played across a local area network (LAN) or over the Internet via the free services provided by Parallax Online (PXO).[19] The player can communicate with the other network players vocally through FreeSpace 2's own voice chat capability.[20] LAN play allows the players to play the standard player versus player modes such as deathmatch, or cooperate to complete multiplayer missions. They can even join in games which are already underway.[21] The same can be done over PXO but with the added incentive of having the players' statistics of kills and deaths being tracked on a ladder (ranking) system.[16] Players can also form up or join squadrons in SquadWar, an online persistent galaxy hosted by Volition on PXO, where squadrons fight each other for territories.

FreeSpace 2 takes place entirely in outer space. The playing area is vast when compared to the small starfighters piloted by the player and the effective range they have. This space is populated with interstellar bodies such as stars, planets, asteroids, etc.[18][22][23] The implementation of nebulae as an interactive environment is one of the most distinctive and crowning aspects of FreeSpace 2.[24][25] Flying through a nebula involves impaired vision, and occasional disruptions to flight electronics. Nebulae have become known as an eerie and suspenseful arena of play.[6][9]

FreeSpace 2's story is brought out via narrative pre-rendered cutscenes, the pre- and post-mission briefings, as well as in-game chatter between non-player characters, and scripted mission events.[16][25] The structure for the story is linear without any branching paths for alternate storylines, though there are optional covert missions which can further flesh out the story.[14] The story can only be continued by clearing missions and progressing through the campaign. However, players are given the option to skip a mission if they have failed it five times in a row.[17] This gives those who are interested in the story, but less skilled, the chance to continue on with the story without frustration.

Just like the player's pilot, most of the other characters are low-key. The non-player character Admiral Aken Bosch, however, plays a crucial part in moving the story. As a prominent antagonist from the start, he sparks off a rebellion which escalates the scale of action, and brings in the other antagonist force, the Shivans, into the story. The storytelling took on a character-driven approach with expositions taking the form of cutscenes in which Bosch gives out monologues, revealing the purpose and driving forces behind his actions. A few established voice actors were brought in to give a polished touch to the voices in the game.[25] Academy Award nominee Robert Loggia voiced the player's commanding officer, Admiral Petrarch, and Admiral Bosch was voiced by Ronny Cox. Kurtwood Smith and Stephen Baldwin participated in bit roles as well.

Seeking to stop the NTF from securing Deneb, the GTVA launch a campaign in the star system, though they are shocked to find Bosch within. An effort to stop him fails badly, and so the GTVA focus on securing the star system, with great success. Just as further engagements against the NTF are about to commence, an incident in the Gamma Draconis system leads to the 3rd Fleet of the GTVA being reassigned to the star system, where they learn that the Shivans have returned, along with the discovery of an artificial jump gate that leads to Shivan space. After securing the device and passing through it, the GTVA discover a nebula along with more Shivans, and a cruiser of the NTF, the Trinity. Despite efforts to secure and recover the cruiser, the Trinity is destroyed, and the GTVA fleet focus on dealing with the Shivans, before returning to Gamma Draconis for reassignment.

The Alliance Fleet soon resumes its efforts to track down Bosch, and discover that Bosch had built a device that enables him to communicate with the Shivans, which was the purpose of ETAK; the Alliance realise the jump gate was activated by Bosch, who had been stealing artefacts from archaeological sites looking into the Ancients, and had been hoping to meet and contact the Shivans. The Shivans respond to his transmission, and in turn board his command frigate, the Iceni, capturing him and fifteen other crewmen before attempting to destroy the Iceni. The GTVA manage to save the surviving crew of the Iceni and the ETAK device, but as they try to intercept the Shivan transport carrying Bosch, they discover a second jump gate in the nebula. The Alliance destroyer, the GVD Psamtik, attempts to secure the jump gate, but is destroyed by another Sathanas juggernaut shortly afterwards, forcing the GTVA to pull out. During this time, the GTVI and SOC launch a secret operation within the nebula, at great risk, to recover an operative and check the other side of the gate, discovering the threat posed to the GTVA by the Shivans is much greater than they had thought.[28]

The news of FreeSpace 2 being in development was confirmed in a chat on November 6, 1998. FreeSpace 2 was developed in less than one year. The Volition team revealed they had written up a story and will be targeting high-end hardware with dogfights for a greater number of ships and even larger and more deadly capital ships.[31] The team set themselves the goals of setting new standards for both single-player and multiplayer space combat simulations,[20] and started to modify the FreeSpace game engine for FreeSpace 2.[32] This team was the same team which had worked on Descent: FreeSpace, plus several new members. In order to flesh out the story, Volition hired Jason Scott as a full-time writer before work even started.[33][34] The linear mission structure was adopted as it was decided it would help the immersion factor of the story greatly.[11] As the relations between the Terrans and Vasudans dominated the first game, it was decided to scale the focus down to a personal level with Admiral Bosch and his decisions to rebel. Scott's close work with the designers, and co-ordination of the voice recording process helped to tightly integrate the story into the missions, giving a more sophisticated feel to the story.

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