Okay, I haven't finished it yet but I've played at least most of it so far.
Feedback:
1) The Vasudan officers/leaders that brief you seem very over-the-top. It's like watching WW2-era propaganda; "they're out to slaughter your families and enslave our people" or "no doubt the primitive Terran wretches are desperate for peace after the decisive thrashing we've been giving them" (or the whole repeated references about stealing the Avenger prototype BACK from the Terrans. Yeah, the AVENGER prototype. Back from the Terrans. Because we obviously have no backup data, additional prototypes, and our scientists and engineers that were making it all disappeared and forgot how to reproduce any of the work they've been doing. Oh, and we Vasudans decided to name it "Avenger", because it is most definitely a Vasudan word and in no way associated with Terran designs/tech). This stands in direct contrast to FS1's Terran perspective, where the Vasudans are NOT regarded with hate (at least not by your CO's and briefings), and it doesn't feel like everything coming out of your commander's mouth is blatant, WW2-era-style propaganda. I have no compunction about playing from the Vasudan side, but please don't portray them all as political officers from the Soviet Union during WW2.
2) That mission where you are in the debris field, searching for survivors...I *hated* that mission. It was good in concept, but it had some crippling flaws in execution. Doing the mission properly would take a looooong time. It took me a while to actually understand what I was looking for (which, for the first time I've ever seen, the radar contacts you're searching for are deliberately untargettable until you're right next to it, despite everything else being targettable from far away. And since you can't target Shivans yet, you have no way of knowing where their patrols are--so if they get too close, and Mission Control warns you about it, good luck actually figuring out which way to go to evade the patrol. Or how far away said patrol actually is. If you ever fail, you have to start the entire thing over again. You also hard-fail the mission if you only find and scan 99.9% of the friendly radar contacts, even if you scan all of the Shivan cargo containers (which should be just as, if not more valuable than half of the data logs you get from allied derelicts). I spent what seemed like 40 minutes on my very first attempt with the mission, scanned all the Shivan cargo, scanned all friendly contacts that I could find, and cycled through all of the radar ranges, finally finding what I was sure was the last remaining one. A Cain-class cruiser was hovering near it, but if it was the last one to scan, I didn't think it would matter. I never got a warning about being too close to the enemy, either. I scanned it...and was immediately discovered and fired upon, and ordered to jump out. I thought it must have been scripted, and the mission debriefing seemed to indicate that I had succeeded. Then I learned that I had in fact failed the mission (somehow).
I was pissed. There was NO way I was going to do all of that over again, especially considering how boring it often was the first time. I used cheats, used max afterburners as much as I wanted, and finally completed the mission (I had apparently missed a single target...that didn't even show up on radar no matter what range I cycled to...seriously?). I also destroyed a Shivan freighter and two wings of fighters, but no mention of that (lol).
3) The second fighter you get access to seems terrible, but for a stupid reason--its gun placements are so spread out and off-center that it's extremely difficult to actually hit your target, no matter how accurate you are with the lead-indicator. Close range, medium range--frustration abound regardless. The third fighter you get is a bit better in this regard, thankfully.
4) Please make it clear--as immediately as possible--that there's nothing you could have done to save the cruiser that backs you up in that mission with the Plato (where you first see the Shivans). It's not mentioned that there's nothing you could have done until the debriefing, even though it seems that there IS (unlike with its canon counterpart, where the Plato clearly gets demolished far too quickly and decisively for you to do anything about it). Also, considering how this game also defies canon at several points prior to this (like with McCarthy), it seems very possible. This is easily rectified by having Mission Control say right after the cruiser's destruction that there's nothing you could have done.
5) The first real mission, you're eventually ordered not to approach the Terran cruiser. Well, by the time that order came through, I was already rushing it to try and take out its turrets, to protect the supposedly vulnerable freighters/cargo-haulers. Well, I didn't have the time to read the order from the text, but I didn't expect to be explicitly berated about it--it was the right thing to do under the circumstances, and I even softened up the cruiser for the next mission, when you are tasked with destroying it.
6) Minor quip--what's with the second cockpit in the upper, dorsal "wing" of the Anubis? There's only one pilot...and it's not like that's to make room for the reactor or nonexistent afterburners..
7) The Vasudan dumbfire missiles actually seem overpowered--I cannot think of why one should use an MX-50 over these Fury (if I remember correctly) missiles. Dual-firing these along with your standard lasers makes mincemeat out of GTF Apollos and Vakyries whenever you're close enough to hit them with it (which is often).
