I-War 2

[Mount Suribachi]

I was intrueged by this game when it first came out. I played the demo, but didn't have much of a clue what I was meant to be doing gfx were gorgeous too.

Anyways, its available for less than a tenner now and I'm tempted.......opinions?

[Stormer]

never heard of it, link to screenies?

[Sir Moody]

I-War was an age setting game - not for graphics but for complete and total stroy and gameply aspect - very few Space Sims at the time could imerse you quite as well

with my love of Iwar i had to get the sequel and yes i did - its good graphically and story wise but it doesnt quite live up to the feel of the first it just feels less but even then its an exellent game tho like the first can be very frustrating as the real space physics makes dog fighting very difficult and one slight mistake can end it

[Phatose]

I've got I war 2 sitting right beside me. One of my favorite games. It's great in many many ways. It's not perfect, but it is loads of fun.

Having not played the first, I can't say if it's better or worse storywise. I can tell you it's very interesting and kept me playing.

It's got a good bit of the elite style flight sim/economics in it. However, the flight sim part is very unusual in that you fly in real, newtonian space. A spaceship handles like a spaceship would flying through a gravityless vacuum. There are various flight assists if you're overly used to earth flight sims that kinda simulate that, but they seldom accomplish anything but to get you killed. Eventually, you end up flying by wire.

The economic elements are pretty cool, and you can play at being a pirate. They're completely barter based - apparently there is no money in I-War2 - which is new and different. Unfortunately it's not very flexible at all - If they want medical supplies, you HAVE to have medical supplies, and they won't take anything else. Not even if you're their ace pilot and you're offering a planet's ransom in gold and neutronium. A lot of piracy is therefore looking for the one item your allies want and hoping.

It's not a perfect game, but it is a very good one, and different - not many space flight sims actually use newtonian mechanics. And it is still very pretty to this day.



I got my copy for $10 recently, and it was very close to being the best bargain game I've managed to pick up. Recommend it highly. Do patch immediately if you do though.

[Cazbol]

I tried the demo. I feel that a space sim has to be very free form, but the demo was the exact opposite of that, which destroyed my interest for the game. I was told to do exactly this and then exactly that, and then there were some director's comments or something which made the whole thing seem like a pseudo-interactive movie. If the game was a good free form space sim, then they didn't do themselves any favours with that demo.

[Sir Moody]

the game is a movie kind of and the missions are very go here do that but thats the story - if you dont want to follow it and you want to pirate you can

[Phatose]

Aye. The actual missions are scripted, like Tie fighter Freespace. However, after the intro levels at least,for the most part you're free to ignore the missions until you feel like doing them. Allowing you to do what you feel. Usually that's hanging around L-points and jumping any cargo craft that look juicy, or sometimes visiting stations so you can shadow outbound traffic with good cargo then jack then in deep space.

It's not privateer or elite level complete freeform. It's a heck of a lot better then tachyon:the fringe though. And the epic mod crew is hoping to reach that level of living world - right now there isn't too much to show for their efforts, but foundations are seldom much to look at anyway.



I thought the economy worked well though, and the ship customization worked well enough. Piracy was fun, the plot was cool when you were doing it.


If nothing else, it's worth getting for the flight model and the sense of scale. Space in I-war2 feels big. Planets are...well, planet sized. And while the scale isn't totally accurate, it's about a million times better then every single other space flight game out there where planets are either tiny or one person fighters are the size of a small moon. And the flight model isn't 'airplanes in space' which makes it a far cry from x-wing, Freespace and the like which are essentially airplanes in space.

[Mount Suribachi]

Thanks people, for a fiver it seems I can't go wrong. Except that no-one has any copies left now It was everywhere a few weeks ago