[Goober5000]

Yay!

You should also play Derelict if you haven't.  As well as anything Blaise Russel wrote.  And a bunch of other stuff.

[Stormkeeper]

I didn't. FreeSpace dragged me kicking and screaming into a locked room that was so dark... so dark ... noises everywhere and nowhere ... it hurts to think about it ...

DON'T MAKE ME REMEMBER IT NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[Getter Robo G]

I saw it in the store shortly after it came out and when I looked at the box I said, "Cool".

Took it home and was glad it was worth the money.

[terran_emperor]

Well, i heard some friends talking about FS2 at school.
Then I played it at their house and loved it
I borrowed it and copied the discs.
I then bought a mint condition FS1/ST double pack off e-bay
I then discovered the mod-archives on the old archive, sector game and the one that HLP had when it was on 3dactionplanet.
Eventually, I joined HLP and the rest is history 

[Lt. Murgatroid]

I'm actually working on Transcend right now. Played Derelict a while ago, but I'm thinking about playing it again while I wait for War in Heaven.

Oddly enough, Inferno always seems to break when I try playing it, and then helps itself to everything else.  Yay for restore points!

[Nohiki]

I found a FS2 demo cd when i was cleaning the room, but i do not remember where i got it I bought the game when i finished the demo campaign, it was in 2007. Since then i converted 3 friends from MS flight sim

[Det. Bullock]

I was 12 and a X-wing/Tie Fighter addict (with all the subsequent sequels like X-wing vs Tie Fighter + BoP and X-Wing Alliance).
I read about Freespace 2 in the italian edition of PC Gamer  but as I saw that required a 3D accelarator I cancelled it from my mind.
After a while I found myself in a computer store in Switzerland and there I found Conflict: Freespace - he Great War (with box, manual and all) at the price of just 20 Swiss Francs, when I saw that it had a software modality I immediatly bought it!
One or two years later, after getting a tnt 2 m64, I bought Freespace 2 too.
I remember I was dissapointed when I came to knew trough the "Giochi per il mio computer" magazine (lit. "Games for my Computer") that Freespace 3 wasn't to come out at all.

I came to know of the SCP project about 4 or 5 years ago through GMC (The italian edition of PC Gamer closed, being just a translation of the original magazine much of the information which contained was outdated), but then I had just a 56k connection.

One or two years ago (meanwhile we got an adsl) I tried to install FS_open but i couldn't spend too much time with it so I coludn't get it to work.

Now I  reinstalled it and got it to work (with the help of this forum, of course) and it looks awesome!
Thanks for bringing two of the best game ever back to life!

[Shivan Hunter]

[offtopic]

Just wanted to chime in about A Failure To Communicate.

there's a very poor design decision [V] made when placing the bomber wings. They always arrive in the same place, instead of a random location around the comm station. Order your wingmen to attack the enemy, not protect the comm station. This way, after destroying the initial wave of bombers, your wingmen will stay where they are with no orders rather than go back to the station. Then, when the next wave jumps in, you'll be much closer to it.

I always hated that mission. It's like they couldn't decide how to make it an interesting mission, so they threw a couple Nephilims at you and made it hard instead.

[/offtopic]

Anyway, my story: My dad got me FS1 around when it first came out, probably thinking it was a Descent sequel, and I was pretty much hooked ever since. I was around 8 back then, I think. I always skipped through the briefings and attacked everything that was hostile, pretty much treating the game like Descent in space. It was a few years until I got FS2, mainly because the only indication I had of its existence was an ad for it as an upcoming game on my Descent 3 cd case.

What I did with FS2 pretty much defines me as a gamer overall: I opened the level editor, before even starting the campaign to see where it went. I had been pretty much addicted to FRED 1, and was amazed to see so many new features and available ships in FRED2. This must have been back in '02 or '03.

Shortly after that, I went looking for new ships for FS2, which led me to the Volition Watch Archives- I pretty much downloaded all the ships there, and a few of the missions- and HLP. I've been lurking here ever since. Got FSO back when it was still 3.6.7, and IIRC the first new campaign I played was Derelict (sadly, not the SCP version).

FS is probably what got me into gaming and modding, since- especially with FSO- there's really a limitless potential to do anything you want with it. Windmills is an excellent testament to that. I hope to release a bunch of campaigns in the years to come... if I can ever motivate myself to finish one before starting another one...

 

[watsisname]

Saw the trailer for Freespace 2 on one of the Descent 3 disks.  Thought "Oooh this looks awsum, I'ma buy it".  Bought FS2 off ebay for five bucks.  Played it, beat it, later found and bought FS1 at a local game store. 

To this day I've never played a game series in its proper order and I am DAMN PROUD OF IT.

[silverwolf]

Uncle had a burned copy of FS1 that he let me play on his computer. Then gave me my own copy. FS2 it was on my xmas wish and I got it

[MachManX]

The first PC I ever used in my life was an IBM Aptiva E with a 19" monitor, 12GB HDD, Win 98, Pentium II 400MHz, and nVidia Riva 128ZX graphics.  It came with a few game demo discs, but also came with the full DVD version of Freespace 1 (Yes, my comp had a DVD back then for a 1997 comp and above specs...cost $3000 too ).  Anyway, a couple of thoughts were running through my mind when I held the disc in my hand:-

-What kind of game is this? (only had disc with Volition logo on it and "Freespace", no cover or anything)

-It's a DVD disc, so it must be awesome (back then I thought it was some kinda kids interactive movie thing and maybe I could play it in my TV DVD player)

-Maybe it's some hyper-advanced version of FreeCell <--Yes, I thought this

-Is it gonna be like graphically similar to "Popeye The Sailor Man" for DOS that I once saw in the store long time ago

-Isn't my Sega Genesis better because discs can scratch whereas cartridges will survive 3 story drops and direct hits with a jackhammer (Yep, I've tested this personally  )

Then I install it and watch the trailer and I was like "OOOOOOOOOOOOO!  THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!!" and "THIS TOTALLY BEATS MY GENESIS 100x" (talking bout graphics).  Then I'm held back by the sheer number of key bindings, because I'm the kind of guy who ALWAYS looks through the options before playing a game.  But I binded the keys as I started playing the training missions and the 1st two missions and I was like "NOW THIS IS A GAME! DEFINITELY BEATS MY GENESIS!" and ever since I've loved Freespace games  

First 3D PC game I've ever played.  Definitely beats FreeCell and Solitaire   Then I got a new PC, played Soldier of Fortune 2, which was included with my Geforce 2 GTS V7700 Deluxe, and then my 3rd game was Freespace 2, bought on the day it came out and paid in full    Never knew Silent Threat existed until 2 years later, but was a welcome surprise.

[MatthTheGeek]

-Maybe it's some hyper-advanced version of FreeCell <--Yes, I thought this

I loled so hard.

[Narwhal]

Was looking at the "Top Dog" list on the Home of the Underdogs site. Saw FreeSpace 2 and the great review of it. It added it was "freeware" and avalaible for download here... and back then it was.
Played it and loved it a lot. Then, I downloaded the Freespace Port, which I think was just out. That was awesome. The only time I was more surprised and hooked at a game was when I bought Europa Universalis 3 for 3 € at a store - "what is that stuff".

So now, EUIII and FS2 are my favorite games (could not say which one I prefer)... surprise surprise... they both have great modability and strong fan-modding communauties.


I bought it legit since then, BTW.

[BlueFlames]

I saw the trailer for FS2 on my shiny, new Descent 3 disc, and decided to give the demo a twirl.  It took a good three attempts to download, each of which lasted an entire night, on account of my hideously unreliable 28.8kbps dial-up connection at the time.  For how trivial a 59MB download might seem today, it was a chore to get the FS2 demo.  The wait and frustration were worth it, though.  Three missions was just enough to prime me for more, and I got the retail box, within a couple of weeks of release.

Incidentally, FS2 is one of two games that I own that has appreciated in value, since I bought it at full retail price and has clocked more play time than nearly anything else in my library (Baldur's Gate II being the possible exception, requiring 200+ hours for a single, typical play-through).

[Shade]

Saw a review of FS1 in a computer/gaming magazine, then headed to my favourite video game store to get it. Now FS2, that I simply saw on a shelf (in the same store, in fact) one day and, remembering FS1 as excellent, decided it was worth a shot. That turned out to be a good call Hadn't even heard it was out before that.

[kaloonzu]

OEM came with my first hardware purchase (joystick, Logitech). Still have the broken joystick and OEM disc as memoribilia. Bought FS2 on eBay for $14 a while back. Got FS1 off some kid my friend's cousin knew from his church (I'm Jewish, so I'd have never met the guy otherwise). I played the entire OEM and never understood the story behind the Shivans (always thought they were allies who vanished or something, because I never read the tech room), so FS1 was a HUGE wakeup call to me, 'specially without shields the first couple missions. And now, here I am!