Descent Freespace: The Great War Developer: Volition Publisher: Interplay Category: Role Playing Game System Req: P200, 64Mb Ram, 100Mb HD, D3D accelerator card, Win95/98 or WinNT4.0 Might look like: Wing Commander Prophecy Date posted: 1 October '98 Written By: Bjorn - This game was reviewed on P166, 64 Mb Ram, Voodoo Graphics, Win95 OSR2 - Descent? Descent: FreeSpace - The Great War. There has been alot of misunderstanding about this game. Many people actually thought it was Descent III. They were pretty mistaken when Interplay announced that D3 was being made at that time and that FreeSpace had absolutely nothing in common with the Descent series. Violition Inc., the company that developed FreeSpace, is in fact an offspring of Parallax which brought us Descent I & II. If I am not mistaken Descent III will be launched the Q1 of 1999. Patience. Anyway, FreeSpace has more in common with Wing Commander Prophecy or with the greatest of all the Space Sims that exists, the X-wing/Tie-fighter series. But is it any fun? Well, read on. Installation went smoothless and takes up some 100 megs. Not very much for this kind of game. I didn't experience any problems at all!    Graphics Next chapter is the graphics. To say it in 1 word: OUTSTANDING! Indeed, FreeSpace uses briljantly textures, great explosions and everything and everybody is highly detailed. This is a quality game for a normal prize. Still, you might agree or disagree with me but it still looks the same as those previous space sims. For example, Wing Commander Prophecy, a great game, good storyline , blabla bla ... same goes for FreeSpace and the storyline is, don't shoot me, basically the same as in WCP. Very very similar. For playing this game, you gonna need, like always now ;), a good D3D card, preferly a 3dfx voodoo card. On my system, a P166 mmx with 64 SGRAM and a mMonster 3D, the game played very smooth. Perhaps some little hard drive-interruptions but nothing really to get frustrated about. Some of the ships that you will fight against are impressive. Very, very big. You might even wonder if you got any chance with your little spaceship against such a capital ship. Most of the ships are pretty plain in structure and sometimes they do look the same. I didn't mind that at all because there is so much action going on that you don't pay attention to those details. However, I did see that the simulated space was like the real thing. In some other spacesims, I won't mention any game titles here, the space that was simulated was absolutely crap! Much lag and you, well I, got the feeling that I wasn't in space at all. Freespace doesn't have that lag problem and space moves like it should move ;). Sound effects and Music! Most of the sound effects that are used in this game are excellent. They are clear and you hear that they weren't made with unprofessional material. High-tech sound effects I would say :). But!, there are also some effects that could have been better. For example, when a ship explodes, you hear the explosion like it is a mile away from you, even if you are in front of that ship. They are not 'that' bombastic or loud, they are rather the opposite. Music is good and it does suit the game correctly. Ofcourse Star Wars games has more lovely tunes but hey ... this ain't a SW game and it rocks too. Next Page Up Previous Page If you want to review your favorite game, or if you work with a computer game company and want your products reviewing, mail info@playdevil.com. All contributions are welcome. Any problems and/or suggestions are always appreciated on webmaster@playdevil.com Nothing of this entire Site, animation & logo's included, may be reproduced, stored, saved, transmitted, in any form or means, electronic, written or otherwise without the prior permission of PlayDevil. Other Logos & Names are Copyrighted Material of its respectful owners. All Rights Reserved. PlayDevil Productions © 199/8-199/9 "rip your own stuff"