Games you love at first, but then come to loathe in the last act

I edited my comment to clarify that my peeve doesn’t necessarily apply to Freespace 2.

Except I couldn’t imagine doing anything but helping the evacuation effort until the last possible moment so I just kept dying over and over again. . .

The burden of choice and free will, my friend.

Pardon: I very literally couldn’t fathom that the game would “let” you try to escape like a coward, so it never occurred to me to try to escape until I read about this years later. Like, that’s not what game heroes do, man!

It’s not about being a hero, it’s about survival, and you have to choose what matters more, yours or theirs. You figure, you saved all you can, move on to try and save more.

Phew! Faith restored!

I didn’t think it was possible to reach the jump point either, it was so far away. I don’t think anyone playing the game for the first time ever got away.

I liked that ending better anyway. I thought it was brilliant.

And then I replayed the mission knowing what was coming, and I liked that ending too, because it provides some speculation on what just happened, which you don’t get in the more realistic dark ending.

One of the best things about both Freespace games is that you are both: (a) given a way to stop the Shivans that seems plausible given the prior events of the game; AND (b) the Shivans are stopped without being suddenly diminished in a way that’s inconsistent with prior events, and there is no magic macguffin super-weapon.

The Mass Effect trilogy essentially told the same story except completely diminished the Reapers, used a magic macguffin super-weapon, and introduced all sorts of inconsistencies and narrative flaws. FreeSpace 2 did it right.

Maybe that’s why I never clicked with Mass Effect.

Now see, comparing to Mass Effect has intrigued me. I own the Freespace games on GOG, maybe I’ll finally give them a test drive.

Keep in mind they are pure space sims, not RPGs.

No I know, that’s mainly why I haven’t played them yet. Been trying to psych myself up to do so, because I’m not much of a space sim guy, not really since the days of X Wing and TIE Fighter. Are there cheat codes, like invulnerability if I suck?

I has difficulty levels. It shouldn’t be too bad on the lowest difficulty.

Isn’t Mass Effect more of a dating sim, really?

I’ll see myself out

Hang on, I know I’ve got it somewhere … wait, I’m positive I just saw it … ah, here it is!

IMG_0131

And unlike Sim City 4 it sounds like Freespace 2 was good out of the gate?

There were two things about Divine Divinity. (1) A glitch that actually required that I play with the editor, something I haven’t done very often and (2) a battle near the end of the game that was impossible until I went out and respecced. Adding a single spell made it pretty simple.

But overall, I did love the game and wouldn’t have gone the extra mile if I hadn’t.

Amazing out of the gate.

Really? The final battle or the actual ending?

Great. I might have to check it out. It definitely has a leg up on Sim City 4. That one was kind of empty when it came out and mods livened it up and kept it alive for… a long time. It needed the mods though.