Yes, but that was before the advent of digital download. And it was poorly marketed, at least here in Europe. I can remember having read the review and not finding the game in the shops...
I can guess that FreeSpace 2 was quite hard to find in some countries. I still have the box but I could only find it as second-hand and it's a US import box...

Now, FS3... Isn't Volition now one of the "console supremacist" dev teams? I'm afraid they would come with some console port , exactly like Lucasarts coming with "secret weapons over normandy" as a sequel to "secret weapons of the luftwaffe"

Nice article. But I hope that if 'the unspeakable game' is released one day, it won't be a crappy console port ! Besides, user-made campaigns have set a fairly high gameplay standard, Volition will probably need to work pretty hard to do better. And I guess that quite a few FS1/2 devs have moved out of the company, which clearly won't help a potential development of FS3.

Anyway, I would really love to see Volition end its scenario. There are so many things left unresolved in FS2, it would be great to see a canon end to the story.

I have to agree with you, Nnexxus. It needs to be on the PC and they really, really need to include the user community with the content.

The source project has been working away for awhile now, and I believe they should include that community in the development and/or testing phases. That would be very cool, and I'd feel a lot better with die hard fans having significant input. Never heard of that happening, but this series is LEGENDARY in my book, and they can't afford to screw it up.

^Better yet, Starlancer. X-Wing was the first space sim I ever played, but Starlancer was the first one I ever loved. Freespace is great, Freespace 2 is better, but Starlancer is my all time favorite.

There wasn't a Freespace 3 because the guys who made it screwed #2 up.

The cutscenes were no-cgi or anything. It was all ingame graphic stuff, and not very well done. It was clear that they were rushing it.

I've personally bought 3 copies of the game.

Hey, that means I've purchased .012% of all of them sold in the US. Isn't that funny?

Freespace One was groundbreaking, and add in the fact that it could run on a 133mhz computer with the cgi styled graphics that it had, and the fact that years later the intro can STILL send shivers down your spine really says a lot about it.

Freespace Two didn't get the cutscenes it deserved, the intro it deserved, the ending it deserved, the voice acting it deserved, or any of many other things.

The engine though, was nothing short of phenomenal, especially with all of the many things that have been made possible because of it. If they hadn't rushed the game it would have sold more copies.

Hmmm ... I thought the voice acting, story, practically everything was superior to Freespace 1. You're the only person I've seen to claim Freespace 2 didn't sell because it lacked production. Freespace 2 won many, many awards and was also acclaimed at the time by the players - the few that bought the game. To me, it didn't sell because 1) Space sims were already starting on the decline in terms of sales in '99 and more importantly 2) Interplay never promoted it - especially important in those days when selling to retailers and retailers deciding what to put on their shelves. That seems to fit much better with what happened to Freespace 2.

I should restate what I didn't like about it.
Cutscenes were actually lower quality as far as "grab you in and yank you around like the intro to fs1 did".
Voice acting was equal or worse.

And.. there is the fact that there was next to no advertising of the game....Interplay did kind of f**k itself with that.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I found the voice acting in FS2 to be superior to FS1's in everything from the cutscenes to the briefings to even the wingmen during the missions. The voice actors themselves in FS2 were really a cut ahead of the ones in FS1 - heck for example Bosch and Petrarch were voiced by none other than Ronny Cox and Robert Loggia! Admiral Bosch's monologues were very well done and much better than the Ancient monologues. The main characters in FS2, Bosch, Petrarch, and Snipes, were memorable whereas in FS1 I can't remember any of the Admirals, commanding officers, or wingmen. All-in-all the writing and voice acting for FS2 were stronger.

I will agree that the opening cinematic was great in FS1 and a great lead-in for that story, but I felt the pervading sense of melancholy for FS2's opening cinematic was perfect for the story both for the events that had taken place in FS1 and were about to take place in FS2. Sure it wasn't as grabbing, but it wasn't without its moments either.

True.

also the space combat flight simulation genre died as a genre right around the time freespace two came out. in my opinion freespace two and wing commander prophecy were the last great games of the genre hopefully we will see the genre come back in the next few years.

Well, Darkstar One (was that the name?) tried but it sure didn't work all that well. Egosoft's X series really isn't the same genre (though very, very good IMHO).

These games are actually a lot like action RPGs. You build up your ship with weapons as you go along and they have a great story (hopefully).

It would be nice to see Freespace 3 but Interplay seems more interested in lawsuits than game making right now. It's probably better to just start a new story. Maybe Larian studios could pull something like this off? Or CD Projekt Red?

If the game was so screwed up, why did you buy 3 copies?

Freespace 3 may not have been made but there are plenty largish total conversions, new campaigns made for FS2 by the Freespace Open Source community. - some I think do claim to continue where FS2 left off.. consider that FS3 if you will..

With the latest Freespace 2 Open Source install;

http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Installing_fs2_open

you get an updated FS2 engine and many many other improvements graphics wise, gameplay wise. It's actually better than what Volition would have been able to do if they had come out with FS 3 years ago.

There is even FSPort, which is FS 1 running anew on this new engine and better graphics. All this makes FS 1 and 2 Super Enhanced. I'm glad we have them. Way better than version 3 would have been.

When your done with all of the above and the loads of TC's made for FS I suggest the next greatest space sim of all time: Tachyon: The Fringe