It’s a really good game. What they got right was the fundamentals: The combat model and ship designs were excellent. What wasn’t as good was the story (Freespace came out around the same time, had a very similar story, but implemented it better). But I didn’t care about that as much because after I was done with the campaign, I played those simulator missions for hours and hours. Then I played harder simulator missions that the community changed by applying mods. God, that game was fun. I especially loved the ships where you could maintain momentum by pressing a button while you swiveled your ship around and pointed your nose where you wanted.
No one said that Prophecy sucked, it’s a great game. It’s just…IV is better. :-)
BDGE
6324
My old sidewinder joystick was retired at the turn of the millennium though.
“Fantastic” news coming in a live announcement tomorrow.
Razgon
6326
I’m calling it right here! Valve bought them and will integrate them into steam!
Reemul
6328
I’d love Privateer 2 please
No new publisher hinted so expect big games from current publishers, vote for System Shock, and more current indies announced. Is possible that The Witcher could be the gift for users.
Hey, free game, whatever the announcement is. ;)
Seriously? Do you also enjoy getting kicked in the face repeatedly, because I’d say that’s on par with playing Privateer 2. ;)
Privateer 2 - Bumper cars in space! Yeah, it was a huge let-down. As a matter of fact, I think that Privateer 2 was my introduction to epic sequel failure in gaming.
Right? I looooooooooooooved Privateer, so I bought this the day it came out and went…WTF? I mean, yay Christopher Walken, David Warner, John Hurt and so on (and I thought that new feller at the time, Clive Owen, was pretty good) for the video part, but the gameplay was…just horrendous. Ridiculous ships, asinine and meaningless combat…sigh, one of my biggest personal let downs in my gaming history.
Same here, huge disappointment. Bumper cars in space pretty much perfectly sums up its gameplay.
Sold to EA. Site will be relaunched as GOGORIGIN.COM May 1st.
That didn’t annoy me anywhere near as much as the one simple fact that you couldn’t jump unless ALL enemies were destroyed. I mean, running away is an integral part of early space trading games wherein you have a crappy ship and can only handle so much. This game took that option away from you, and even when you got a better ship, sometimes I didn’t WANT to fight, I just wanted to finish my mission. Pain in the motherfucking ass.
You know, I played the game once upon launch back in what, 1996? And I’d totally forgotten about that.
One of my favorite Privateer memories is my ship limping toward a jump point, the metallic clang of enemy fire hitting my hull, setting my repair bot on my damaged jump drive, and repeatedly, frantically hitting the J key as those metallic clangs got worse and worse. I made the jump and sat there while the repair droid did its job on a long list of damaged subsystems. Actually that’s probably one of my favorite electronic gaming moments, period.
EXACTLY! Stuff like that was AWESOME, and the sequel ripped it away.
peterb
6339
I read this and thought “Uh oh, i’d better go buy all the games on the site TODAY before they go away!”
Yeah, all of it made a lot more sense once I finished the game and learned that it was not developed as a Privateer game, but the branding was put on it later in development.
BDGE
6341
If anyone is curious, I snagged WCIV and outside of a small codec problem that did not allow audio to play during FMV, the game is running great on my W7 64-bit machine.
I am using the Xbox 360 gamepad, which works mostly fine once you ‘Alt-O’ in the game proper and select joystick(defaul is keyboard). There is no way to properly calibrate or map buttons, but the most important functions(targeting, shooting, throttle, afterburner, and maneuvering) map automatically.
On default Ace difficulty though, the game can really kick your ass. There are like four extra difficulties above that too. Yikes! Not sure if that is just a factor of me getting the hang of things again, or there is a slight game issue with the port(speed seems a bit high), or maybe it’s just that brutal.
