So the Freespace games are half price right now. I've never played either of them before. Is Freespace 1 still playable today with no nostalgia? Or would I be best off skipping it and getting FreeSpace 2? I have virtually no experience with the genre.

Thanks.

Both games are still very playable, especially when the stuff done on Hard-Light is taken into account. FS2 with the open source engine and the community-produced enhancement packs (also called mediavps) can look quite fresh.

Just to add to what The_E said: Both games look really nice and modern through the open source FSO engine and there are a lot of great mods too. That said the download size for the FSO engine is large (like several gigabytes even without mods).

You can see a "cinematic" video of what gameplay looks like through the FSO engine here (these are the in-game graphics):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhAR8rWPluQ

Here is the first mission of Freespace 2 in the FSO engine (this gameplay video is a little old and shows a slightly older FSO engine - so things look even nicer now!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMVDkwDb7kg

FreeSpace 2 is the better game, hands down, in every single way. If you're only going to buy one, buy FS2.

FS1 is still lots of fun, but it feels very small in comparison. There's less to do in battles, and battles themselves tend to be much smaller affairs than their FS2 counterparts. So you'll still have a blast, but it won't be as good.

Playing FS1 before FS2 makes your FS2 experience much better. The difficulty curve seems more natural that way, concepts that are just thrown at you in FS2 are slowly introduced in FS1, and the storyline of FS2 makes many references to the events and outcome of FS1.

They're both good, and they're both worth getting, especially at this weekend's incredibly low price. You don't need nostalgia to enjoy them, and its not nearly as "old school" feeling as something like Baldur's Gate. I love these games and I never played them or any other space sim when they were first coming out.

THere is no "action-space-sim" not even actually that can match the "gameplay feelings" that FS1 and 2 have.

Only FS1 is dated on graphics, FS2 a bit less, but if you use the hardlight mod for both in graphics the games are totally awesome.

Don't mean to necro this old thread but it's still on the front page and I just have to add to it.

I own either FS1 or FS2, can't remember, the original discs are on the other side of the world to me so it's hard to check. I'm starting on FS1 again and wow what game.

Yes the graphics and resolution are dated but it has everything else, a good story, all missions have good voice acting and good missions that don't get you lost roaming around looking for the objective.

I've not played something like this in years, why can't they make something like this in 2012?

Edit: Also notice it suffers nothing that the console ports suffer; it utilities the full keyboard and offers so much in the way of ship management.

Honestly with the hardlight mod, the game (even FS1) looks awesome and feels awesome with a good gamepad, I have a Logitech one and I found a total good surprise the force feedback is very strong and well made... there are veeeery few games that use force feedback in the right way, not even on consoles. But FS1 still rocks on this! rocks on graphics at higher resolutions with the hardlight mod, and rocks in it´s gameplay.

It´s awesome, i dont feel I´m playing an old game... I was trying to play I-War, but i left it as I didnt achieve a good configuration with any of my joysticks to play comfortable, and honestly the game even if awesome, it´s really dated... but FS? With the proper changes with hardlight Nope! it rocks!

As a person who didn't have a whole mess of experience and have played this game, I will say this. The genre feels dated in and of itself in terms of what can be done in the game. However, it's a seriously amazing game. I don't mind that the interface is pretty clear cut and simple. The game play is pretty straight forward too and it's not like there aren't new game that are limited in that sense.
I really REALLY liked playing through freespace 2 and I've never played a space sim in my life. It's been rewarding. So yes, I'd say that these games deserve their praise.

I just bought FS1 (Descent Freespace: The Great War) because I had never heard of GoG :(

I loaded it onto my computer which is running Windows 7 32 bit but it will not run. I get an error saying it finds -261 megs of memory (I have 4 gigs of RAM) and can not run.

What did I do wrong, or what do I need to do to get the game to run?

Thanks

First thing to try is running the game as administrator or setting the compatibility mode to XP.

Did you by any chance also buy Freespace 2?

OK, I am an admin on the computer but I did not set compatibility to XP.....I will try that.

I did not buy Freespace2 yet; I wanted to start at the beginning. Then, when I couldnt run it, I was glad I hadnt LOL Of course, that was all before I found this forum. Im guessing that you suggest buying FS2 -- will I have the same issues with that as with FS1, . compatibility mode to XP?

Being an admin on your computer does not unfortunately seem to have the same effect as 'running as administrator' - it's a security thing that says this program in particular know has access and privileges it otherwise wouldn't have.

I do seem to recall someone having an issue like yours and got it working, but can't recall atm what the solution was off the top of my head.

FS2 should have fewer compatibility problems, but it also carries a more unique advantage. Volition, the game's developer, released the source code for the FS2 game engine allowing people to create an open source engine. You can thus download an open source engine called the Freespace Open Engine, developed by a community of modders which completely modernizes the game engine, graphics, etc ... with the side benefit that it is compatible now with modern OSes, Windows of course but even Linux and OS X. You also can download a mod for the game, FSport, which recreates the FS1 campaign in the new engine - well recreates is an interesting word since much of what they use is from the original FS1 game, which is why I think it is good though not necessary to own FS1 on GOG if you catch my drift. :) However, the engine does require a retail/GOG version of FS2 since it uses a lot of the base game assets. There are plenty of mods for FSOpen that are total conversions to other universes that don't, but to play FS1 and FS2 through the engine, one needs at least FS2 from GOG. The modern engine does have some disadvantages as it makes Freespace essentially a modern game with system reqs of one, not particularly intense for most computers but you can't run it on a netbook - especially if you want the hi-res art assets the community made which are part of what make the Open engine look so great but takes up a lot of hard drive space. It is however, totally worth it. The game is beautiful with the new engine and some of the mods are extremely well made, even professional-level quality. The Freespace Open Engine and mods are also free. :)

That said, FS1 from GOG, should be playable its basic form. Unfortunately it is one that a lot of people have more difficulty getting working. Even after you do get it up and running, you may encounter more compatibility issues like weird and unreadable text, which also has a fix (you can find the solution on the here, for some even FS2 can have this problem). My recommendation is to download the FSO engine and FSport and play FS1 and FS2 through that. If we can't get vanilla FS1 started and you don't want to go the FSOpen route, you can always try GOG's official support - they're pretty helpful if a tad slow.

Remember also, that you can download mod to FS2 that brings you whole FS1 campaign . With enchanced graphics, sounds and effects.

This way you have a workaround for outdated graphics.

Well, get FS2 + the SCP and you can play the FS1 campaign with all the shiny new features.

FS1, since it didn't have beam cannons, focuses more on dogfighting. When a capital ship needs killing, bombers are more reliable than other capital ships. This means that you are more involved in large scale battles, because you need to worry about fighters, bombers, capital ships, asteroids, etc. In FS2, the bomber equation is lessened somewhat because capital ships have beam cannons that give them anti-capital capacities. While they are pretty to look at and awe-inspiring to see them rip enemies to pieces, it takes some of that gameplay out of your hands. You still are an important part, as fighters can disable capital ship subsystems and turrets, but most of the heavy lifting is now done by capital ships.

And just because it's fun, I'll throw some more of the latest SCP-upgraded screenshots at your face for you to enjoy. From this forum thread on the HLP forums.

Pew pew 1
Pew pew 2
Lovely Anubis
Warp in effects
Ominous
Bombing Run
Some beautiful beam piercing
Looming

Okay, that's it. I'm done.

Fanboy out.

To add my 2 cents, I actually found out about the series from F2 and played that one first. I later went on to buy F1 thinking it would be a nice addition but nothing great and I WAS WRONG. I won't lie and say that I think 1 is better than 2 but I still adore 1 and not only does it hold up I think it's stands above a lot of newer games in the genrea by a wide margin.