5 ms·

Wow, I never realized the site of the Battle of Wolf 359 is a real place.

by TomMarius 7y ago

lopis 7y ago
Same for the site of the podcast series Wolf 359!
- mwexler 7y ago
  https://www.wolf359.fm/ https://www.wolf359.fm/ for those who haven't yet heard this podcast audio drama. Tone changes a bit from early episodes 1-8 or so as the story picks up, but all of it is pretty impressive.
misnome 7y ago
There is a certain subset of star systems that I will always associate with and have a fondness for because of Freespace 2. And the phrase “Capella jump node”.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  For me it's the same, except for I-War (marketed as Independence War in the US). And the phrase in my case is "Toliman jump point"[1] =) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri_B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri_B
  - ganzuul 7y ago
    Man the graphics of I-war was really something else. Our 75MHz pentium with S3 graphics could make it look nice. Always wondered how they did that.
  - detaro 7y ago
    seems interesting, hadn't heard of I-War before: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_%281997_video_game%29 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_%281997_video_game%29
    - Sharlin 7y ago
      The game was extremely well received critically, but sadly less successful commercially. It's one of the very few space combat sims with a fully Newtonian six-degrees-of-freedom flight model. It's still extremely playable due to a togglable "fly-by-wire" system where the computer attempts to make thruster burns to keep the ship's velocity vector as close to where its bow is pointing at as possible, but a totally free flight mode is just a key press away at any time. Another of the game's distinctive features is that instead of piloting a nimble but vulnerable space fighter, the player assumes the responsibilities of the bridge crew of a 160-meter corvette with a dry mass of almost 20 thousand tons! Even though for playability's sake the ship is capable of several-gee accelerations, there's definitely a tangible feel of inertia in how it responds to the helm controls. The 16-minute, full-CGI intro video is probably one of the best introductions to any game ever, and definitely worth watching even as a standalone work of fiction: https://youtu.be/ECfKL4oS-6w https://youtu.be/ECfKL4oS-6w
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Dive! Dive! Dive! Hit your burners, pilot! FreeSpace 2 will forever have a special place in my heart. The best space fighter sim experience there ever was. I hear that perhaps Elite: Dangerous is comparable, but from the videos of it I've seen, it doesn't have that military sci-fi feel to it. I miss the FreeSpace ambience, where you'd fly around in your fighter listening to the chatter between capital ships as they duke it out. I'm sad there was never a third part of the series; the storyline with the Shivans was excellent.
  - prox 7y ago
    Bought it in discount recently, and it has a good/great ambience, just not amazing . Obviously a lot of detail work has gone into it, and the cockpit is pretty convincing. It misses that “this is an alive universe” touch. The scale of it is pretty good, you do get the feeling of these huge distances you traverse.
  - JohnBooty 7y ago
    It's not set in space, but as a fellow Freespace 2 fan... the Ace Combat series nails everything else that made Freespace 2 fun. The AC series uses licensed real-world fighter jets but is set in a "near future" Earth-like setting. So there are sci-fi elements like giant flying aircraft carriers and enormous doomsday weapons such as giant railguns. The plots are enjoyably goofy, full of drama and plot twists. Lots of radio banter. The overall "realism vs. fun" balance very closely approximates the good old spaceflight sims of yore like Freespace 2 and Tie Fighter. AC7 is available on Windows as well as console, a first for the series. I put about 100 hours into it, and needless to say I really loved it. AC6 (Xbox 360) was great fun too; it may run on XBox One as well. All AC games are all set in a shared fictional world ("Strangereal") but each game is a story about a different war and has a unique set of characters. So no worries about jumping into the series at some arbitrary random point; you're not going to be missing out on any context.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Thanks! I'm going to dust off my old joystick and try it out!
- akita-ken 7y ago
  Part of what made Freespace 2 so immersive was its usage of actual stars as the locations for jump nodes - as a kid, being able to actually point to Gamma Draconis in the night sky as the setting of a game I just played added a whole new dimension to it.

Wow, I never realized the site of the Battle of Wolf 359 is a real place.

lopis 7y ago

Same for the site of the podcast series Wolf 359!

mwexler 7y ago
https://www.wolf359.fm/ https://www.wolf359.fm/ for those who haven't yet heard this podcast audio drama. Tone changes a bit from early episodes 1-8 or so as the story picks up, but all of it is pretty impressive.

misnome 7y ago

There is a certain subset of star systems that I will always associate with and have a fondness for because of Freespace 2. And the phrase “Capella jump node”.

Sharlin 7y ago
For me it's the same, except for I-War (marketed as Independence War in the US). And the phrase in my case is "Toliman jump point"[1] =) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri_B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri_B
- ganzuul 7y ago
  Man the graphics of I-war was really something else. Our 75MHz pentium with S3 graphics could make it look nice. Always wondered how they did that.
- detaro 7y ago
  seems interesting, hadn't heard of I-War before: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_%281997_video_game%29 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_%281997_video_game%29
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    The game was extremely well received critically, but sadly less successful commercially. It's one of the very few space combat sims with a fully Newtonian six-degrees-of-freedom flight model. It's still extremely playable due to a togglable "fly-by-wire" system where the computer attempts to make thruster burns to keep the ship's velocity vector as close to where its bow is pointing at as possible, but a totally free flight mode is just a key press away at any time. Another of the game's distinctive features is that instead of piloting a nimble but vulnerable space fighter, the player assumes the responsibilities of the bridge crew of a 160-meter corvette with a dry mass of almost 20 thousand tons! Even though for playability's sake the ship is capable of several-gee accelerations, there's definitely a tangible feel of inertia in how it responds to the helm controls. The 16-minute, full-CGI intro video is probably one of the best introductions to any game ever, and definitely worth watching even as a standalone work of fiction: https://youtu.be/ECfKL4oS-6w https://youtu.be/ECfKL4oS-6w
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Dive! Dive! Dive! Hit your burners, pilot! FreeSpace 2 will forever have a special place in my heart. The best space fighter sim experience there ever was. I hear that perhaps Elite: Dangerous is comparable, but from the videos of it I've seen, it doesn't have that military sci-fi feel to it. I miss the FreeSpace ambience, where you'd fly around in your fighter listening to the chatter between capital ships as they duke it out. I'm sad there was never a third part of the series; the storyline with the Shivans was excellent.
- prox 7y ago
  Bought it in discount recently, and it has a good/great ambience, just not amazing . Obviously a lot of detail work has gone into it, and the cockpit is pretty convincing. It misses that “this is an alive universe” touch. The scale of it is pretty good, you do get the feeling of these huge distances you traverse.
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  It's not set in space, but as a fellow Freespace 2 fan... the Ace Combat series nails everything else that made Freespace 2 fun. The AC series uses licensed real-world fighter jets but is set in a "near future" Earth-like setting. So there are sci-fi elements like giant flying aircraft carriers and enormous doomsday weapons such as giant railguns. The plots are enjoyably goofy, full of drama and plot twists. Lots of radio banter. The overall "realism vs. fun" balance very closely approximates the good old spaceflight sims of yore like Freespace 2 and Tie Fighter. AC7 is available on Windows as well as console, a first for the series. I put about 100 hours into it, and needless to say I really loved it. AC6 (Xbox 360) was great fun too; it may run on XBox One as well. All AC games are all set in a shared fictional world ("Strangereal") but each game is a story about a different war and has a unique set of characters. So no worries about jumping into the series at some arbitrary random point; you're not going to be missing out on any context.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Thanks! I'm going to dust off my old joystick and try it out!
akita-ken 7y ago
Part of what made Freespace 2 so immersive was its usage of actual stars as the locations for jump nodes - as a kid, being able to actually point to Gamma Draconis in the night sky as the setting of a game I just played added a whole new dimension to it.