Although there have been many Space based games on the market ever since the first two color screens came out. e.g. On my Heathkit H-89, Star Trek was a word game. I created graphics for some of the action scenes which proved that my high school Algebra really was worth the effort. I had to work it out in Assembly Language, so if you're old enough to remember what that is, you'll know it was difficult for a beginner.
When I got my first 4 color display, Elite was the game of the day. With turning space stations that you had to match rotation to land; and energy scoops to collect fuel from the nearest Sun, as long as you didn't get too close.
My 16 color display allowed me to play ProtoStar, which was much like the games of today with a few exceptions. It had a good storyline and missions. One of the better features was the adding of crewmembers to make missions and combat easier. Medic, Engineer and others helped you complete missions. You still had to go into bases and hunt for clues and ask questions, but not so many that you got bored. I always hoped that the adding crewmembers feature would be copied by other game developers, but sadly, that was not to happen.
Wing Commander! What a series. Killing those big Cats was a chore alone with special missions.
When Privateer came out, I made a map and posted it on the bulletin board for other players to download. Only, I added an extra system named after me. I got a lot of mail about how to get to that system and it drove the kiddies nuts. Jump gates and worm holes were few so the bad guys always knew where you would pop out. Privateer was a DOS 6.2 based game and Privateer 2 was a Win95 game. I still keep an old Windows 3.1 system, and a Win95 system just in case I miss the old days. Really old days for some of you, maybe most of you. I played Privateer with every ship and every gun type until I won with each. Not an easy feat I must say, but it kept me from fighting with my soon to be ex-wife.
Between Privateer and Freelancer were many games. Some good, some great and most just aimed at the mentally challenged (my opinion). I never tried StarLancer and from what I heard, that was my loss. But Freelancer started something that was too awesome to ignore. I think I played through the original single player game more than a dozen times. Then I found the MODS! Wow, what a time I had playing them, sometimes all night long - just to finish another one. I settled with two mods, one on each of my two computers in my Man Cave! I was playing both the Frontier and Crossfire MODs because each had something I liked. After a while I went all out with my triple screen set-up and over-sized computer case (for easy upgrades).
With Crossfire 1.8, the writing was on the wall...Freelancer w/ Crossfire MODs were aiming for being the best of the best. So far, I've completed single player versions more than 15 times, each with a different ship and gun load-out. I hope the developers of the future MODs will look back to see what made the old games so good and incorporate those features into new MODs or version updates.
I heard so many good things about 2.0 that I'm drooling, but then I drool when I eat my oatmeal in the mornings and my prunes at night.
I know that 2.0 will be here when it gets here, but the developers have to excuse our impatience and excitement. If we were not so excited, then many folks wasted a lot of their time. From the previews I've seen...no one has wasted one second on the Freelancer / Crossfire 2.0 MOD.
Comments are always welcome, even the ones from the preschoolers.
Best Regards,
Franco428
