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.