Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: 23-down on December 18, 2009, 03:22:02 pm
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Hi people.
I tried to find such a topic via the seach function but the only topic I've found is from 2004 and archived.
Ok. I make it short. I would be interested which is in your opinion the best Freespace2 fan campaign ever made. We have of course the Campaigns wiki which isn't bad but the informations given on many of the campaigns are mostly just sporadic the same goes for freespacemods.net.
So lets start a small discussion here if you like. I would be interested in hearing your opinions and maybe we get a small list together on just 1 side. That way interested + new people to FS SCP just have to take a small look onto this topic to get communities best campaigns with the best wishes from us. Tell me if you find this idea stupid guys I'm well aware that there are plenty of sources to gain informations but it can be a bit hard gathering this intel since they are dislocated on many different sites and topics.
Ok i'll make the start with the campaigns I played so far:
The first campaign and in my opinion one of the best is Blue Planet: Age of Aquarius
Finally after 18 years since the destruction of the capella jump node GTVA finally found a way to rebuild the knossos portal. A reunion with Earth is close. But things aren't like expected and something goes wrong. Play and find out what exactly. The campaign offers a new main menu, new music and a very strong story. It felt like I'm playing a possible FS3 another of the best things also is that you have an entire new fleet under your disposal. I'm talking of really high quality stuff. Unfortunately there isn't any voice acting present yet. But as far as I know the devs are currently working on that and then will release a 2nd version sometimes.
my advice: Download now.
Further infos + dl link:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=49876.0
http://blueplanet.hard-light.net/
Another great project is the Derelict campaign.
Like the name suggests you will find something during the campaign. A thing which will change everything. The campaign is nearly as long as Fs2 if not even longer. The fact that it is fully voice acted gives the entire game a great atmosphere and you're feeling like you're really in space. The story plot is fantastic and also the missions are very challenging and variants rich. I had fun playing this campaign and I'm sure everyone else will.
my advice: Download now.
Further infos + dl link: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=38019.0
Another fine piece of work I came through is the campaign Sol: A history
in this campaign actually in this 4 campaigns you see what happens to Earth on the exact day the Lucifer arrives in the Sol sector. Be a part of Earths history. Play from beginning with the collapse of the jump node in 2335 till the year 2376. The story offers a great & logical plot which strips over 40 years. Unfortunately it had no voice acting and some missions were a bit lame. Still all in all a nice decent campaign.
The campaign requires Inferno R1. Another campaign mod.
my advice: Download later.
Further infos + dl link:
http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.108
http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.95
Inferno R1 yet another campaign which is based on the same idea like Blue Planet. GTVA created their own knossos portal to reopen the Sol - Deneb node. But instead of a warm welcome by Earth the expeditionary Force has been destroyed by Earth ships. A war is at hand and GTVA must retake control of the blue planet and annihilate the earth dictatorship. An interesting campaign which wasn't bad but the missions were really unrealistic at some point. Your wing is mostly alone in the most difficult missions which was a bit strange at some point.
my advice: Download later.
Further infos + dl link:
http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.95
So people now it's your turn what other campaigns can you recommend. It would be nice if you give a small description in your own words + info without spoiling that much and maybe also telling if it features new ships, races , music and if it's voice acted or not. If the plot is ok and make sense to you or not if it's a short or large campaign things like that.
Looking forward to your suggestions. If we all add the things we like most we can surely safe us all some time everyone played something else maybe some of you played everything. As for me I just played the things featured in my list here. I will try to find more good campaigns and then add them onto the list here if I liked them.
Greetings 23-down
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Procyon Insurgency
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Transcend
Silent Threat Reborn
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Silent Threat Reborn
Repeated for great justice.
Also: Sync.
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My favorites are:
- Derelict
- Warzone
- ST:R
Campaigns I did not like although they are very popular:
- Procyon Insurgency. Not only that the difficulty level was way beyond my skills, I also thought the story to be too fantastic.
- Inferno. I never understood what's so uber good about it; no offence meant against the original crew, but this is more a ship and weapons pack with a few testing missions and a rudimentary story than a real campaign in my eyes. I'm looking forward to the Re-Release, though.
BP: AoA a very professional campaign in terms of fredding, but I didn't like the story so very much. Also, I am eager to see the sequel.
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Those who didn't like Age of Aquarius should like War in Heaven. It's closer to the original FreeSpace feeling (which I assume is what people didn't like about it) but incorporates the same amazing writing and plot that made AoA awesome. And no more repetitive shooting down Shivans.
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Those who didn't like Age of Aquarius should like War in Heaven. It's closer to the original FreeSpace feeling (which I assume is what people didn't like about it) but incorporates the same amazing writing and plot that made AoA awesome.
Yeah, that's exactly the impression I get from the vids we've see son far. That is why I'm looking forward to it so much.
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:nervous:
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:nervous:
.
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For Port stuff:
ST:R
Memories of the Great War (Light of Antares, etc.).
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Second great war part two !! :yes: :yes: :yes:
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The first campaign i played was Derelict. A great campaign with very fair difficulty and wonderful voice acting.
In the meanwhile i played many campaign's and here my Top 5:
1. Blue Planet AoA (Can't await BP:WIH)
2. Derelict
3. Transcend (i like this scary Storyline)
4. Ghost Revenants
5. Stormfront I+II
also good are Warzone, Aftermath, Homesick and many more...
Its very difficult to create a ranking. The campaign's are all very nice.
What i dislike there are campaigns they are to hard like Inferno or Procyon Insurgency.
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Transcend (i like this scary Storyline)
:nod:
1: Transcend
2. ST:R
3:Sync (Was okay. Had a couple FREDing problems though.)
4: Ghost Revenants
5:Stormfront I was okay
The list goes on. There are some really great ones out there though. Always wanted to play homesick, but it didn't work for me on FSO. Hopefully it's been re-done so it is playable (if it is, I'd highly appreciate if you could give me a link. :D)
Didn't like Procyon Insurgency as much, first of all, because I didn't understand it all that well, and probably because I didn't give it much of a chance.
I also really like ITDoH (Into the Depths of Hell.) Derlict (IIRC) was good to.
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Anything released by Ransom--Sync, Transcend, and Windmills (everyone seems to forget about this one).
Anything released by Blaise Russel--Shrouding the Light, STL: Origins, S:AH, Homesick, FoEP, Echo Gate, Phantoms.
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Windmills was good, but not my type of campaign. A really interesting idea though. :yes: And yes nuclear, your right. That one is not mentioned as much as it should be.
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It's closer to the original FreeSpace feeling (which I assume is what people didn't like about it)
To be blunt, people need to get their heads out of their asses and get the **** over the total need for everything to feel like FreeSpace, it's not fun when people are forced to be strict about a mod concept and force it to be completely unoriginal by feeling like the same thing that's been played for the past ten years.
Age of Aquarius was raw awesome in a can.
Mods that try something new usually are awesome.
Like Windmills, another installment of it should definately be done. It's not played like FreeSpace, but it's such a different concept that it's cool.
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Cardinal Spear FTW!
I usually don't play the Port, but I'll happily do so for this one. Not to mention the fantastic visuals with physical planet models... ;7
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That's a campaign I haven't played for a while.
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My favourites are:
1) Blue Planet AoA
2) Silent Threat: Reborn
3) Deralict
If campaigns for The Babylon Project are counted as well, I'd even insert "Fortune Hunters" and "Dark Children" in front of Deralict.
Transcend was also good, though I didn't like to fly only the Herc II all the time, especially since they offer you other fighters in the beginning (and I would have prefered each of them over the Herc) but you turn them down....
Windmills was ... interresting, but it felt too much like a psychotest and too little like a game for me.
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3) Deralict
I want to play that one! where can I find it? :nervous:
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Here. (http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.582)
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He's just poking fun at Norbert's typo.
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Someone took it seriously, that's awesome. :lol:
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If campaigns for The Babylon Project are counted as well, I'd even insert "Fortune Hunters" and "Dark Children" in front of Deralict.
It's worth getting TBP just to play Fortune Hunters. :)
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Here. (http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.582)
I was just joking around, but now that I have the link I might as well go ahead and replay that campaign :yes:
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Cardinal Spear FTW!
I usually don't play the Port, but I'll happily do so for this one. Not to mention the fantastic visuals with physical planet models... ;7
I honestly never even came close to liking that one. Every now and then you come across some fantastic tidbit of unique gameplay but in between those was boring everything, mediocre to ear damage inducing voice acting and that damned blob thing. The green, homicidal one that never hit anything except what was close enough to kill both of you. And that one officer who's voice was so bad she deserves special mention outside my lambasting the voice acting already.
Play Windmills (Good because it feels like a psychotest and will happily **** with your mind, as well as the crazy, never before even attempted gameplay), BP, Transcend, Sync, ST:R. Derilect is ok and Inferno is worth a playthrough just for the ships.
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I honestly never even came close to liking that one. Every now and then you come across some fantastic tidbit of unique gameplay but in between those was boring everything, mediocre to ear damage inducing voice acting and that damned blob thing. The green, homicidal one that never hit anything except what was close enough to kill both of you. And that one officer who's voice was so bad she deserves special mention outside my lambasting the voice acting already.
Play Windmills (Good because it feels like a psychotest and will happily **** with your mind, as well as the crazy, never before even attempted gameplay), BP, Transcend, Sync, ST:R. Derilect is ok and Inferno is worth a playthrough just for the ships.
You didn't like Cardinal Spear? :wtf:
Actually, that campaign had some of the better fan VA I've heard to date. It's a little quiet, yes, but it's well done. And don't diss the GTB Gorgon and its uber-plasma guns! I actually started to work on some concept art for what I felt the actual bomber should look like, not just a table hack of the Medusa...
Lastly, what female officer with a terrible voice? Perhaps I should play through CS again, but I can't recall a female VA in that one...
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Here. (http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.582)
I was just joking around, but now that I have the link I might as well go ahead and replay that campaign :yes:
Meh, well if any newbies happen across this thread, there's a link to it anyway. :p
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I honestly never even came close to liking that one. Every now and then you come across some fantastic tidbit of unique gameplay but in between those was boring everything, mediocre to ear damage inducing voice acting and that damned blob thing. The green, homicidal one that never hit anything except what was close enough to kill both of you. And that one officer who's voice was so bad she deserves special mention outside my lambasting the voice acting already.
Play Windmills (Good because it feels like a psychotest and will happily **** with your mind, as well as the crazy, never before even attempted gameplay), BP, Transcend, Sync, ST:R. Derilect is ok and Inferno is worth a playthrough just for the ships.
You didn't like Cardinal Spear? :wtf:
Actually, that campaign had some of the better fan VA I've heard to date. It's a little quiet, yes, but it's well done. And don't diss the GTB Gorgon and its uber-plasma guns! I actually started to work on some concept art for what I felt the actual bomber should look like, not just a table hack of the Medusa...
Lastly, what female officer with a terrible voice? Perhaps I should play through CS again, but I can't recall a female VA in that one...
I'm positive there was a female officer with an absolute ear grinder of a voice. Maybe I have to play it again. :nervous:
I do refuse to say anything nice about that hateful uberblob contraption. Hilarious, yes. Practical, safe or in any way useful? No.
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I'm positive there was a female officer with an absolute ear grinder of a voice.
Maybe you're thinking of Admiral Porter from Awakenings. That voice actress was trying way too hard to sound like Admiral Shima. Fortunately she's only in two missions. (She actually has a rather decent "normal" voice, as can be heard during the one or two instances where she slips up and loses the Porter voice.)
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Oh lord, yeah, that has to be whom she's talking about. I winced my way through those particular briefings.
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Ah yes. That's the one. My ears bled after those briefings. I don't know why I thought that was part of Cardinal Spear.
EDIT: Oh lord, yeah, that has to be whom he's talking about. I winced my way through those particular briefings.
Noticed, fixed, not appreciated :p
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Nope, it wasn't a typo. I really thought it was spelled deralict. I guess it shows every now and then, that my mother language isn't english....
But it is a good campaign regardless of the way you spell it :p
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Half tempted to try to get a thread started for Upcoming campaigns.
Have to say, All time Favorite released campaigns was BP: AoA. The story was great, and the music took Standard FS and threw it out the door. Best thing since Transcend and the original track at the end.
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Actually, I can't decide between Silent Thread Reborn and Inferno. Since the first is fully released, I guess it wins.
Both campaigns don't depart from the classic Freespace formula and story telling, something both Derelict and Blue Planet do.
Also, I consider Derelict's mission design (especially everything that involves pirates) somewhat weak. It IS a great campaign but the level of quality shifts somewhat. Blue Planet wins originality but I am just in the "Freespace 3, please!" camp here.
STR gets my vote.
Somebody needs to start a TBP campaign poll too here. I can't do it, I am biased.
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What is with Black Horizont and Black Horizont2? is it aviable for FSP? My favor.
Peter
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It's a shame I've already played every campaign in this thread, I've run out of campaigns to play. :P
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Perhaps you should find an old favorite...
...Or start writing your own... ;)
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What is with Black Horizont and Black Horizont2? is it aviable for FSP? My favor.
Peter
What?
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This is off-topic, but rather than start a new thread, how was Operation Templar tied into FS2's GotY edition when it was supposed to take place at the end of FS1?
...It is at least a campaign-related question...
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The campaign (to be exact 3 campaigns with 88 missions)with the greatest and most complex storyline was Freespace 2 - Revenge: Final Conflict. I think, this campaign is from 2004 or something. I played it in german but I just found a newer english version. It seems, it has some problems with other versions than retail. Nevertheless a great story and a lot of different, mysterious missions:
http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=38610.220
Story (as far as I know it after 6 years :confused:) :
A few years after the orignial Freespace II campaign:
1. campaign (Kind of a long tutorial): GTVA has developed a lot of new ships and weapons and plans to investigate (and if possible expel the shivans). Therefore a new Knossos-Portal is built. The Hammer of Light return and try to hinder the GTVA, from using the gate. A new civil war begins, but GTVA remains in control.
2. campaign (Action with the shivans): A strong strikegroup attacks a shivan world. 2 ships, the GTVA Marco Polo (colossus class :cool:) and the GTVA Malovolence (deimos class) are accidently pulled into a big - long distance - knossos portal. These two ships are on there on in a distant region of space, filled with a lot of shivans. Both ships heavily damaged and without new supplies are forced to play hide and seek with the shivans. First signs of an mysterious, but mighty enemy of the shivans appear.
3. campaign (Revenge): New allys are found and GTVA Marco Polo and Malovolence will be upgraded. A way back to earth is discovered, but another big problem has been discovered. A big shivan strikeforce with lucifer and sathanas ships is on its way to earth. Earth can't defend it self, because of special circumstances. (Don't wanna tell everything :p) So it depends on you and your ships to hunt down the shivans, and to ensure that future attacks from shivan forces are impossible.
I really think it is worth a try, if you have a few days of free time. :D Also a must have mod for every fan from ST Voyager or Battlestar Galactica.
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That campaign should go to FSCRP, because it apperantely very old, but because you consider it so good, it may be worth upgrading.
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The Relic.
For the sheer fact. . . . I can ENTER SECURITY CODES on mission 2!
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That campaign should go to FSCRP, because it apperantely very old, but because you consider it so good, it may be worth upgrading.
Revenge is the worst piece of crap I've ever seen. I am not gonna play this ever again!!!!
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It's only notable for the fact it's the longest campaign ever created (at 80 missions).
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Revenge is the worst piece of crap I've ever seen. I am not gonna play this ever again!!!!
Because of the quality of the translation?
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You know, in my present location it is hard for me to make material contributions to the FS community until may or so, but I _could_ go through Revenge: Final Conflict and fix its grammar and spelling issues, and put it into a proper modpack form. Is this campaign actually worth the effort to do so? I could also get it sanity checked by the rest of the FSCRP team. I don't want to do all this if this campaign is some Second Great War Part II redux. Most opinion back in the English release thread seemed to be positive. Anyone care to comment?
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I don't really know how many campaigns I have played so far, but I wouldn't be suprised if anyone tells me that it were more than hundred. Unfortunately I can't remember the most that were horrible, but I do so with those that were grorious and offered me a fantastic gameplay.
1st place: Blue Planet - Age of Aquarius
The way the story got told was just fantastic (please don't mind me using this word quite often, but it's the only one that describes how I felt playing that campaign). Everyone remembering the destruction of the Lucifer and the collapse of the Sol-Delta Serpentis jump node may has awaited the moment of warping through the new connection to the old homeworld and may also has been a bit nervous to see earth and to learn how it has developed during the time of disconnection from the GT(V)A. Then the shocking moment of seeing the ruined planet. I'm sure that all who played the campaign asked the same question. What happened? The story explaines that all in quite interesting and fantastic dialogues during missions and in cutscenes. Then, after finding the way back to the real earth the GTVA suprisingly starts attacking the earth forces due to a violent intend which was simply shocking in my eyes. I wish the story would continue with the same pilot and his squadron mates, but I also look forward to Blue Planet - War in Heaven.
2nd place: Silent Threat - Reborn
Also a famous campaign which showed lots of suprises. I never played the original Silent Threat campaign and in some way I'm thankfull to myself for that as I may would have compared it with the Reborn version. I really liked the mission in which the player got attacked by shivans clutching at the player ship's hull. I don't know how often I replayed it untill I found out how to get rid of them. Not a campaign playable at difficulty hard, though. Defeating the beast created by the GTI just gave me a feeling of being godlike. I felt like being the good itself. I don't know why exactly, but that's just what I liked so much.
3rd place: Tides of Darkness - Chapter One
This campaign showed a complete unique way of how the story could have continued on the other side and I found it quite interesting. Of course this campaign has its flaws such as fightercrafts capable of carrying beam cannons. I don't like that, but this gave the campaign something special I'm not capable to explain. Just to be sure, I don't want to say that just this campaign has flaws, nearly all have them and I even can ignore them as these flaws aren't caused by bad fredding skills, but by granting the player the opportunity of acting like a bull in a china shop. The best thing however in this campaign is the giant, famous, fantastic music arrangement that has been used to drop an atmosphere over all the missions. I felt like being in a very very good action movie with dramatism. Just one word: Whoa! :jaw:
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Because of the quality of the translation?
I once tried to play this... thing when it was released in the German game magazine GameStar back in 2002 or so. So no, it was not the translation. It was the "oh, let's attack the Shivans with our super-fast fighters, our rapid-fire turrets, super-warships and super-cannons" story. That mod crushed FS's gameplay that it just hurt!
Just the same as Inferno: The author didn't seem to make this campaign to tell a story, but to show everyone that he or she can make the biggest guns and warships.
Maybe others like it, but on me this is lost.
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Revenge is the worst piece of crap I've ever seen. I am not gonna play this ever again!!!!
Because of the quality of the translation?
I second everything SF Junky said. It could've been awesome, but was just bad, big ship porn.
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Link?
Not because I want ship porn. But because i've never heard of it and I thought I knew all the campaigns. Good and bad. . . .
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Erm.... scroll up a bit to Ghostmans post. In there is a link to the release thread....
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The main premise of Revenge is actually quite quirky and unusual for a Freespace Campaign and contains some elements which no other Campaign ever had or has now. It is pretty battle heavy and sometimes a bit BoE-ish, but it's not as bad as in Second Great War Part II. If you can cope with it's main story flaw (GTVA suddenly has super-special-awesome technology and starts kicking Shivan ass with it. This mod is set only 11 years after FS2, so yeah) then it's certainly worth a playthrough. There are worse campaigns out there.
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Speaking of poor campaigns: Twilight.
^This one bit it hard. Now, it wasn't the worst, but it wasn't very good, either.
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Are we now starting a "Worst Fs2 fan campaigns !?" thread?
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Speaking of poor campaigns: Twilight.
^This one bit it hard. Now, it wasn't the worst, but it wasn't very good, either.
Yeah, this one kind of surprised me. Since it was (supposedly) in the same continuity as Derelict, I was expecting something similar in quality...
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There are some campaigns that are just funny bad, and others that are frustrating bad. The line gets blurred easily.
Deep Blood was funny bad. Twilight was frustrating bad.
Millennium was funny bad. Revenge was frustrating bad.
Second Great War Part II just had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
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I haven't heard of either Deep Blood or Millennium.
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Second Great War Part II just had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Bull****. It's utterly hilarious...and just about completely bug-free, to boot. :p
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I haven't heard of either Deep Blood or Millennium.
Deep Blood just got restored by the FSCRP and is about to be rereleased (if it hasn't already). Millennium...you're not missing anything. You're still flying Ulysses fighters in 3000 AD.
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And that's funny bad? That's more like bull**** bad to me. :P
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Speaking of poor campaigns: Twilight.
^This one bit it hard. Now, it wasn't the worst, but it wasn't very good, either.
Yeah, this one kind of surprised me. Since it was (supposedly) in the same continuity as Derelict, I was expecting something similar in quality...
It was the very first campaign I disliked.
"So yeah, I'm fighting, I'm fighting, conspiration, I'm fighting, zillion new star systems, I'm fighting, I'm fighting, rebellion, I'm fighting, I'm fighting, act like a spy, I'm... WTF IT'S OVER?!"
I was playing it at the same time I was playing Warzone. I've found them a bit similar because of the conspiracies but while Warzone was a good campaign, Twilight was a confusing piece of crap.
At least it didn't feature a vampire deep in love and... but I digress.
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FS Twilight wasn't bad, I think that some ideas were interesting.
Also, it's modpack is good, especially music and new weapons.
It wasn't the best campaign I played, but it's quite good.
And much, much better than the book with the same title, which is fortunately completely unrelated.
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The first thing to get on my nerves about Twilight was the rather poor explanation for why it was necessary to employ the Apollo in FS2. And the associated rants... There was also the use of a fighter from Nuke's mods... I felt it was a rather lousy selection. However, all of that is arbitrary. The campaign could have been terrible to the Nth degree, which it was not.
I'm actually playing Homesick right now. As far as "technical" elements in the story go, they definately do not mesh in well with the FS-verse like campaigns such as Derelict do. However, the storytelling is simple. Not spectacular, but simple. This is actually nice for a change, where it gives the environment a very light and airy feel. There's not much to focus on other than the mission because of this factor. ...Which is good, as the "technical" elements should not be analyzed to deeply! :p
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The one thing I really hate about Homesick and Sync: What's so fun about incessantly jumping from node to node with 50% of the maps all filled with the damned nebulas? :mad:
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The one thing I really hate about Homesick and Sync: What's so fun about incessantly jumping from node to node with 50% of the maps all filled with the damned nebulas? :mad:
You mean Transcend and Sync? (Never played Homesick before)
These were definitely based upon an engaging story (not classic FS stuff, I know but most of the community liked it)