Originally posted by CP5670
...their missiles are just weaker versions of mainstream GTVA missiles. 
:D
Correction. Their missiles ARE GTVA missiles. And, well...
It seems the Shivans were cool in FS1, from what I've seen of it (I still have yet to play the campaign, but I might as well have from an informational standpoint), but they crapped out in FS2- bacame, essentially, just another evil alien race. For some reason, 100 ships slightly more powerful than another ship just isn't all that impressive, while a single, mysterious ubership with technology that can knock out a planet while you're still using peashooters is great. Likely, even if there were no Colossus to make the Sath look like just another Shivan ship, having way too many of them would have ruined the effect. I mean, which were you actually closer to freaking in- the missions where the Ravanna suddenly pops out of nowhere, and starts blowing you to bits, or the missions where you spot half a dozen Sathani? And which one had numerically more power? Notice anything? Excess kills a good atmosphere.
But that's just the Sath and Lucy- hardly the only thing that made the Shivans cool in FS1 and pointedly not in FS2. Well, actually, that's about it- other than their rather mysterious nature in the first game (they're less aliens than insurmountable galactic forces at work, whil in FS2 they're quite mortal, explained away to a dissapointing degree, and, well, just more sociopathic aliens), and the plenitude of interesting cutscenes in FS1 lacking in FS2 (what can I say? FreeSpace works better asa half-movie). But overall, I'd tend to say the Shivans WERE cool. Ah well...
