[Divmontru]

Someone on one of the main wikis said they felt Freespace Open was the second best game *to date* that has the TIE fighter. What would he or she have been referring to as the "best" (perhaps at the time, at that, mods and current communities not withstanding)? Star Wars X-wing & TIE Fighter? Something else?
Just an opinion?

[Javito1986]

I would guess the BEST game ever that has a TIE Fighter in it would be... TIE Fighter :-). It's certainly one of the best space sims ever made. TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, and Freespace are like "the big 3" of space sims.

[haloboy100]

I would guess the BEST game ever that has a TIE Fighter in it would be... TIE Fighter :-). It's certainly one of the best space sims ever made. TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, and Freespace are like "the big 3" of space sims.

QFT.

Though I still think XWA trumps the whole X-Wing series.

[Mikes]

A comparison between Tie-Fighter and Freespace 1/2 would have made sense back in the day, as these titles were released.

At this point of time, Tie-Fighter is dead and Freespace Open pretty much surpassed anything that Tie-Fighter ever was a hundred fold over.
There is no single spacefighter game and there never was any, that offerered such a wealth of well-crafted campaigns, gameplay varitey and indepth storylines, as FS Open does right now.

In that sense, you could even argue that it is a "good" thing that FS3 was never released, as it might have stiffled FS Open developpment.


Someone "still" considering Tie-Fighter to be a better game really needs to get over their irrational nostalgy and take a look at what FS Open actually offers now.

Though I still think XWA trumps the whole X-Wing series.

X-Wing yeah, Tie Fighter, no way

I like X-Wing, adored Tie-Fighter, found XWA kinda "meh" afterwards.

[Javito1986]

I don't know if I'd go thaaaaat far. I agree that Freespace is the best engine for space sims ever made and the wealth of quality the community has made is astounding. But if someone wants to prefer TIE Fighter they can, it's a marvelous game in its own right. I'm a huge huge lifelong fan of the Wing Commander games and while they definitely don't have the technology that Freespace has, they certainly hold a dearer place in my gaming heart. 

[darkone]

There was some decent mods (mainly server play only) that were star wars related for Freelancer that were pretty good. And of course the originals are classics but the crown would have to go to FSO for the work on this since Lucasarts hasn't decided to make another game.

[Mikes]

I don't know if I'd go thaaaaat far. I agree that Freespace is the best engine for space sims ever made and the wealth of quality the community has made is astounding. But if someone wants to prefer TIE Fighter they can, it's a marvelous game in its own right. I'm a huge huge lifelong fan of the Wing Commander games and while they definitely don't have the technology that Freespace has, they certainly hold a dearer place in my gaming heart. 

Don't take me wrong here. I'm a great fan of X-Wing/Tie-Fighter and even more so of the Wing Commander Series.

But if it really came down to it and i had to choose to remember one game and forget the others, then it wouldn't even be a contest.

Freespace had no life-action video sequences... but the sheer strenght and power of the atmosphere of foreboding, dread and melancholy it portrayed still strikes me as one of the most memorable out of all the games i played, not just spacefighter games. Gameplay fell in somewhere between the perfection of Tie-Fighter and the (gameplaywise) a bit weaker Wing Commander, but what made Freespace absolutely unique in its time was a deeper meaning, especially in FS2s story that portrayed the trappings of hubris and the fear of futility of ones own actions. It really got the point across just how small we all are when measured with a cosmic scale, following the footsteps of a curious "infant" yet overconfident humanity, that "thought" it had already grown up, contronted with the harsh and hostile dangers of an unforgiving universe, which was a refreshing point of view to take for a videogame. That's where it surpassed both games, while it had to concede the gameplay crown - just barely - to Tie-Fighter and the presentation crown to Wing-Commander with its life-action videos.

Back in the day i would have argued that all 3 games would have to be considered equally impressive, just with a different focus.

But that was then, and now is now and now the wealth, quality and depth of gameplay and/or storylines that is contained in campaigns like Transcend, Sync, Homesick, Derelict, Blue Planet, PI and all the others really surpasses either game easily, including the original Freespace 1+2 and almost certainly a "hypothetical Freespace 3" as well. That's how i feel anyways.