Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: FlamingCobra on May 24, 2016, 10:19:05 pm
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I'm sure I'll be branded a heretic for this, but I have to say it. I like FS1 more than FS2. I don't like many of FS2's new ship designs. It's not that they aren't good ships, it's just that I don't like the way they look. I actually like the new Vasudan ship designs. But I don't like the FS2's Terran ships so much, and I think FS2's new Shivan ships are utterly awful and ugly-looking. I much prefer FS1's music to FS2's. It has a very military-scifi feel to it, which really fits the tone and atmosphere of FS1. And it kind of reminds me of Stargate SG-1 for some reason. That feel is completely gone in FS2.
And while I do think the introduction of beams was a good move for the series, I think they are used far too frequently.
Kinda drunk right now and I can't think of anything else to say. I'll leave it at that.
EDIT: I just want to say that I even like FS1's HUD better than FS2's. I think it's smoother and more aesthetically pleasing.
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Okay.
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FS1 had better music and sound effects.
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Where's ShivanHunter?
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The Vasudan foothold on Vasuda Prime and the subspace node remains solid.
meanwhile, on the PVD Hope
The Terran outpost on Earth remains in place
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CB Stage 1
GTD Galatea
Betelgeuse System
Stage 1
Pilot Attend: Welcome to the GTD Galatea. Your first assignment as a part of the Galatea's crew is to stand the 3rd watch. You will patrol the area surrounding the GTC Orff. The GTC Orff suffered an engine breakdown in the Betelgeuse system, and is awaiting repairs. We are already in Betelgeuse, but we want to make sure you didn't get disoriented.
Stage 3
You will begin your watch by jumping to Betelgeuse near the GTC Orff. You will also be jumping from Betelgeuse, because we are in Betelgeuse, as we mentioned in the command briefing.
Stage 9
POP QUIZ. What system are you in, pilot?
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Did someone say Betelgeuse three time?
(https://49.media.tumblr.com/9174a9a6c6819317025a7821c5a6a384/tumblr_o3v3iia9Xn1v7j38qo1_500.gif)
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I agree with bits of this. Actually, I agree with most of it; I just think FS2's atmosphere and writing outweigh the rest.
Yeah, FS1's ship design was better. FS2's isn't bad, but the first game just had more...inspiration? to it. I have to say I adore the Typhon. I like the Hatshepsut, too, but that's mostly just because of the MediaVP redesign. The original model was pretty much just two hunks of beige connected by a hunk of grey. (Although it was a decent design regardless.) (I'm getting off track.)
On the subject of Shivan craft: I personally find the second game's Shivan ships more visually appealing, but I think that, "objectively", they are more generic and less original. Second-incursion ships have all those spikes and things, which is pretty standard for evil death aliens, as opposed to the sort of blunt, squarish sensibilities of FS1-era Shivan ships, which probably had more artistic merit.
And yeah, I think FS1's music was marginally better, if only because of Spook. (I love Spook.) On the other hand, FS2 has Joshua (and Leviticus, to a lesser degree), but I think FS1 wins out overall.
It's just...the voice acting, and mission design, and writing. It never feels like anyone cares about any of this. "Yep, an unknown alien race just showed up and is now seeking our extinction with invincibility shields and weapons we've never seen before. Yawn."
(The exception is the opening cutscene, which is awesome.)
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freespace 1's sound effects are utter ****
sometimes i wake up in a cold sweat hearing that hull impact sound
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On the subject of Shivan craft: I personally find the second game's Shivan ships more visually appealing, but I think that, "objectively", they are more generic and less original. Second-incursion ships have all those spikes and things, which is pretty standard for evil death aliens, as opposed to the sort of blunt, squarish sensibilities of FS1-era Shivan ships, which probably had more artistic merit.
I "objectively" say your opinion is wrong. The squarish sensibilities of FS1-era Shivan ships have "objectively" less 'artistic merit'.
Look man, you are entitled to your opinion. But don't try to pass it off as anything more than what it is: just your opinion and preference.
It's just...the voice acting, and mission design, and writing. It never feels like anyone cares about any of this. "Yep, an unknown alien race just showed up and is now seeking our extinction with invincibility shields and weapons we've never seen before. Yawn."
Yeah, like absolutely nobody here cares about such trivial things. And nobody has brought these subjects up in the past. You are the first! Congratulations!
CB Stage 1
GTD Galatea
Betelgeuse System
Stage 1
Pilot Attend: Welcome to the GTD Galatea. Your first assignment as a part of the Galatea's crew is to stand the 3rd watch. You will patrol the area surrounding the GTC Orff. The GTC Orff suffered an engine breakdown in the Betelgeuse system, and is awaiting repairs. We are already in Betelgeuse, but we want to make sure you didn't get disoriented.
Stage 3
You will begin your watch by jumping to Betelgeuse near the GTC Orff. You will also be jumping from Betelgeuse, because we are in Betelgeuse, as we mentioned in the command briefing.
Stage 9
POP QUIZ. What system are you in, pilot?
Please write the next BP chapter like this.
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I "objectively" say your opinion is wrong. The squarish sensibilities of FS1-era Shivan ships have "objectively" less 'artistic merit'.
Look man, you are entitled to your opinion. But don't try to pass it off as anything more than what it is: just your opinion and preference.
Well, yeah. That's why I put it in quotation marks. It's not actually objective because there's no such thing in this context. I just needed some way of distinguishing my thoughts on which was more original from the one I actually liked better. Honestly, I didn't realize I was saying anything particularly contentious.
Yeah, like absolutely nobody here cares about such trivial things. And nobody has brought these subjects up in the past. You are the first! Congratulations!
Ah, I think you misunderstood. I was saying that nobody in Freespace 1 seems to care about the Shivan invasion or their impending doom.
Dunno why you're being so confrontational, but I wish you'd stop. You have a lot more prestige here than I do, and I'd rather not end up getting ostracized or banned because you decided you had a bone to pick.
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sometimes i wake up in a cold sweat hearing that hull impact sound
This would seem to go against your argument.
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Well, yeah. That's why I put it in quotation marks. It's not actually objective because there's no such thing in this context. I just needed some way of distinguishing my thoughts on which was more original from the one I actually liked better. Honestly, I didn't realize I was saying anything particularly contentious.
Not so much contentious as pretentious.
Mostly the part that the blocky designs of FS1 somehow have more 'artistic merit' than the spikey designs of FS2.
Ah, I think you misunderstood. I was saying that nobody in Freespace 1 seems to care about the Shivan invasion or their impending doom.
In my defense, the way you wrote that sentence, you didn't made it very clear you meant the people in the freespace universe, as opposed to people here on this forum.
Dunno why you're being so confrontational, but I wish you'd stop. You have a lot more prestige here than I do, and I'd rather not end up getting ostracized or banned because you decided you had a bone to pick.
:lol:
The staff here may have had a record of questional moderating actions, but nobody is going to ban you over any of this. That would be beyond silly.
And prestige means nothing.
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There have been occasions where certain people have claimed to be objectively right about subjective matters and been hostile to those who disagree. It has ruffled feathers.
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What is this, a thread about fs1 vs fs2? For christ sakes, this is [current year]!!
On topic though, I think I've only played FS1 once. The GTC Orff mission put me off the other 20 times "oh I remember now, it was like this..."
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I prefer FS1 to FS2. Always have. I've been over why before. Mainly it's about how the game plays. But I also much prefer the FS1 music which I don't think I ever brought up.
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Not so much contentious as pretentious.
Mostly the part that the blocky designs of FS1 somehow have more 'artistic merit' than the spikey designs of FS2.
Oh, okay. That makes sense.
I think the word I was looking for was "unique", but for some reason it didn't jump to mind. Really, I think it's just that I'm mildly uncomfortable with the fact that I like the more "generic" spiky designs more than the "unique" blocky ones. Because liking generic things is bad and makes me a plebeian or something, I guess?
Or maybe it's just a holdover from discussions about the daedric armor in Morrowind versus Skyrim.
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Unless you are aiming to be some kind of grand hipster, you should probably like the thinks you like and don't feel bad about doing so, even if it's generic and mainstream and all sorts of other horrible words. :p
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Well, yeah. That's why I put it in quotation marks. It's not actually objective because there's no such thing in this context. I just needed some way of distinguishing my thoughts on which was more original from the one I actually liked better. Honestly, I didn't realize I was saying anything particularly contentious.
FS1's prose and plot writing is Objectively Bad, and I do mean Objectively. I bet it has lower kolmogorov complexity. I bet alien archaeologists could mathematically analyze these stories and detect FS2's superiority.
(i am agreeing with you here)
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Two foes must learn to overcome their differences when a true nightmare attacks. Only an ancient manuscript can name the single weakness in the otherwise invincible enemy. We must disable the enemy mothership's shields.
(i actually think fs1's ending, plot wise, is pretty good)
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sometimes i wake up in a cold sweat hearing that hull impact sound
This would seem to go against your argument.
the sound of impacts on an enemy hull. because it's an amazingly horrible effect
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I think the Flail sounds nice, but that's about the only good thing I can say about FS1's sound effects.
(I'm in the middle of replaying FS1 right now, because I finally figured out how to fix the flickering thing. (Turns out it was switching between windows really quickly for some reason, so I just have to alt-tab out and back in every time I open the game.) I'm currently on Playing Judas. ...I hate Playing Judas.)
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Sometimes I feel like the only person who never had any trouble with that mission. :D
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Unless you are aiming to be some kind of grand hipster, you should probably like the thinks you like and don't feel bad about doing so, even if it's generic and mainstream and all sorts of other horrible words. :p
...Now I sort of feel like I should make "Grand Hipster" my title or status or whatever that thing below the username is called.
But yeah, you're right. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think the FS1 designs are better, but I don't like them as much.
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I'd be able to forgive FS1s shoddy writing and generic plot if it wasn't so far behind FS2 in gameplay as well. Capships feel pretty much useless as they can't defend themselves from fighters/bombers or deal meaningful damage to other capships. Aside from the excuse that destroyers are needed as carriers there seems to be no reason to ever deploy a capship instead of a few wings of fighters and bombers.
Almost all weapons do crappy damage and big Shivan bombers like the Nephilim take way too long to go down without anything interesting happening as you just wail on them with Avengers and Furies for like 10 seconds. A lot of missions where you have to disable or destroy cruisers or transports also have infinitely respawning fighter waves which is just a cheap way of making the mission "difficult". You can't get rid of the fighters and then focus on your objective as the fighters just keep respawning(FS2 has some of this but mostly in escort missions where destroying fighters and bombers IS your objective).
There are also way too many long escort missions where all you do is shoot at respawning Basilisks or Nephilims which gets really boring really quickly. This combined with crappy weapon sounds makes playing FS1 feel like some kind of purgatory punishment.
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Freespace 2 is better in pretty much every respect. The graphics are much improved, the voice acting is far better (they have Robert Loggia FFS), it has beam weapons as opposed to the ****ty looking Super Laser, flak cannons, better missions, plus there are incremental improvements like to the controls (B targeting bombers) and removal of bugs such as flying into a **** and waiting in its hull while it's jumping in.
I think the story is also far better, but your mileage may vary on that, the only area I think they're substantially different and FS1 might be better is in the music.
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A lot of missions where you have to disable or destroy cruisers or transports also have infinitely respawning fighter waves which is just a cheap way of making the mission "difficult". You can't get rid of the fighters and then focus on your objective as the fighters just keep respawning(FS2 has some of this but mostly in escort missions where destroying fighters and bombers IS your objective).
There are also way too many long escort missions where all you do is shoot at respawning Basilisks or Nephilims which gets really boring really quickly. This combined with crappy weapon sounds makes playing FS1 feel like some kind of purgatory punishment.
This should be understood in the context of the time. FS1 drew a substantial amount of inspiration from X-Wing and TIE Fighter, and those games were full of missions like this. I remember one particularly annoying mission (http://www.swgamer.com/guide_tie_b5m4.shtml) where you had to single-handedly fight off swarms of the most difficult-to-dogfight craft in the game. And TIE Fighter was forgiving compared to X-Wing.
I suspect this was due to the arcade game design philosophy of the 1980s heavily influencing the games of the early 1990s. When you remember that game developers in 1992 (the year X-Wing was written) probably cut their teeth destroying wave after wave of enemies in Space Invaders, this starts to make a lot more sense.
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There is one thing I think FS1 did pretty well, or...at least...sort of tried to do well, which was small-scale stuff. That is, in the sense of building up a single Aten cruiser as a credible threat and a Big Deal.
Unfortunately, it entirely fails to sell the apocalyptic horror of the Shivans, which kind of wrecks the experience.
(Also -- and this is sort of new-thread material -- but I feel like there's a distinction between a "mission" and a "battle", and in a game about a "Great War", you need at least a few of the latter, which...there kind of aren't. This is related to but not synonymous with the BoE concept -- a mission being a battle is more about presentation than scale. You could easily have a proper battle with just a couple destroyers and cruisers, if you set it up correctly -- portray them as unified battlegroups that meet for in a pitched engagement. I think part of the issue is that so many engagements in FS are running affairs, where the objective is to get from one place to another, which detracts from the idea of it being a proper battle.
I think what got me thinking about this originally was the opening cutscene of FS2, which drops you into "THE BATTLE OF DENEB". Now, it's not as though those sorts of situations don't happen in-game. If you took a few minutes of high action from one of the more hectic missions, it'd look pretty much the same. (Case in point: FS2's ending cutscene.) But it feels different, because the engagement comes together so haphazardly.
I have gotten horribly off-topic. Apologies.)
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A lot of missions where you have to disable or destroy cruisers or transports also have infinitely respawning fighter waves which is just a cheap way of making the mission "difficult".
In addition to what Goober said, you have to realize that FS1 is actually significantly better than TIE Fighter or X-Wing in that regard; it has much tighter mission design and they're actually pretty good about turning off the tap when it's appropriate to do so unlike the other two.
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I still enjoy FS1's structure and story. The execution is rather dry, though that has as much to do with deadlines as anything. While I was quite young playing through the game the first time, I love the way the Shivans are introduced. From today's perspective, FS1 doesn't capitalize on that introduction as well as it could in hindsight, as a product of its constraints, I still enjoy it.
You should also remember that, while the team was built out of the fragmentation of Parallax, they had never done anything like FS1 before. As Goober noted, the design sensibilities of the time were still somewhat rooted in the arcades (just look at Descent 1 and 2's score/live system and even how Freespace lets you see your mission and campaign scores) and more integrated narrative, not just a text screen every so often, was still new to action games in the mid 90s.
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I don't know if you can blame deadlines. I don't think (for example) that Jason Scott would have produced material that rough even on a first pass.
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Silent Threat? :drevil:
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I remember, admittedly hearsay, hearing that :v-old: had to throw FS1's story together near the end of the development cycle. While I would tie the Ancients' monologues as a symptom of this, the briefings most likely were completed in a draft or two and were deemed serviceable enough to get the point across. I'm also not sure if FS1 even had a dedicated writer attached to it.