Because everyone is posting one these days...First off, I know it's not Darius' doing per se, but this is the first mod I've actually played in-game with 1) the new re-did FS with all the SCP goodies and 2) the finished Stratcomm Fleet ships. And I have to say, woweewoweewow. Very nice.
Note: do not read past here if you haven't played the campaign and don't want to be spoiled. You've been warned.
PS: Also, if you're not a fan of reading, you can watch my video reaction commentary, with special notes regarding the mission "Forced Entry" here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_KywtiFO3M.
Now, for the review: I'm no stranger to campaign building, nor am I new. So let it be known that it's a given that putting out any measure of work (especially in this mausoleum of a community of fallen epic projects) is not only impressive, but respectable. Darius has managed to put out a mod with the ritz. Among two dozen missions, he included various re-skinned ships, a truly epic original soundtrack, and custom animations. Aspiring modders should take note, veterans be impressed.
Judge, lest ye be judged firstThat having been said, this is still a review.
The Story:
out of The quintessential Earth jump-node leads to a mirror-universe filled with Battlestar Galactica themes, abundant interstellar nebulae, bugs, Shivans, their alien yet strangely familiar counterparts, and a seemingly endless threat of forward beam cannons, all to return by the grace of Hindu Gods to find out our beloved GTVA-complete with Whedon-esque odd futuristic idioms, actually intends to go to war with our old friends from Babylon 5.
Blue Planet plays into so many ideas, themes, and actual story I've written or entertained myself at one time (ask Anazalon) that I actually thought Darius came across some of my material somewhere. My arrogance was short-lived though as I realised that anyone who plays through the original Freespace series can come to some very similar and universal conclusions. Nevertheless I was happy to finally see some great ideas physically manifest in-game.
The creation of a speaking (well, texting) Alpha-1 was bold, but definitely allowed for some character development within the game, but more importantly, to convey the message to the player. The whole Kara Thrace "I'm the chosen one, I've realised my path" thing might have seemed contrived for some, but played out wonderfully the way Darius did it. Though it departs significantly from the FS style, choosing a 1st person narrative with a speaking part allowed Darius to push the underlying message of "enlightenment" that the player is that much more inclined to both understand and believe because, well, his avatar says so. The fact that Darius took this jump to a speaking player-character, and cemented it with flashbacks, active relationship drama with family, and dream sequences made it that much more effective and confident.
The inclusion of a new race is usually frowned upon by any Freespace veteran, because most new modders speak of adding in new aliens simply at the behest of making new ships with new guns with new and bigger explosions. Any shallow examination of the Freespace universe suggests that more races are certainly possible, though excluding a few rare examples, and perhaps the Ancients, certainly unnecesary. Darius however, goes deeper into the philosophy set up by the original games and looks at where the Devs drew their inspiration. Thus he comes up with his Vishnus, modeled after the godly avatar of Hindu origin. Though the split of roles between the Shivan Destroyers and Vishnu Preservers is a little confusing (why exactly are they at war with each other?) and directly contradicting to Ancient monologues which names the Shivans are playing both roles one in the same, the dynamic between the two "gods" is as distracting as it is enthralling, reminding the player of stories of drama on Mount Olympus about how best to run the affairs of mortal men. The inclusion of the Brahman Creators completes the trifecta, and I suspect an analysis of Hindu mythology and philosophy will show best to anyone curious where Darius is coming from, if not where he is going.
Despite all this, Blue Planet is still a little disorienting in its setting. The alternate universe set-up, while very creative and allowing for even more clever scenarios, made me facepalm a little, ever so slightly afraid that an Evil Colossus with a captain sporting a goatee might rear its ugly head around the corner at any time. Equally as frustrating was the ending. Perfect for a sequel and definitely a nice about-face of the plot in spite of the lessons we'd just learned while traveling through hell, the actions of the fleet (and even the GTVA's orders) fly in the face of what we're shown to be the character of comrades we'd just fought for our lives with. Would the 14th fleet really obey the orders to invade Earth, after experiencing so harshly a universe without it? Let us not completely forget irreplaceable bond between men that is created through common experience in combat, as surely dozens of pilots, if not hundreds of crewmen died during the campaign. More to the point, why would the GTVA look to go to war with Earth instead of simply, like, saying hi, welcome back... ? Hopefully Darius will answer these things for us.
The Delivery:
& 
out of Cleverness and creativity can only be awarded so much when juxtaposed to monotony and ultimate frustration.
For every flashback, there were forward beam cannons that needed to be destroyed to narrowly avert front-on disaster yet again. For every dream mission, there were Liliths with beam cannons that desperately needed destroying in 30 seconds or less. For every beautiful nebula, there was another Lilith, creeping behind your ships and 'sploiting that all-too-prevalent achilles heels. Honestly, each one of those ships designed by Stratcomm from the cruiser to the Raynor have three or more huge beam cannons on them, yet I never see any of them used to shoot down a Lilith once, ever.
A fan boy might disregard me as merely exaggerating, and that would certainly be the case if a select few missions weren't so damn unplayable. I think this forum knows my thoughts regarding "Forced Entry" (apt, if not subtly named. Try "Surprise Unsolicited Anal Sex" next time.) Despite being tuned to be difficult, you should never have to play and fail a mission a half dozen times simply in order to be able to predict to a precise enough degree where to be ahead of time in order to pass the mission.
My other gripe is with the extreme rigid linearity of design. What do I mean by this? On the surface, I mean missions like Forced Entry where any loss of your capital forces means instant failure. On one hand, this provides for a semi-arcade style of play with escalating difficulty that can be appreciated. On the other hand, it severely breaks up the heart and true worth of the campaign, which is its function as a story telling device. Wiping 7 consecutive times on the same mission, calling it a night and going to bed does little to keep me enthralled in the otherwise superb story telling (btw, yes I'm a good pilot and a good shot, yes I always tell my wingmen to attack things, I use optimum load outs, and yes I eventually figured it out after being able to predict exactly where things would jump in and where. One can only do so much however to defend against stray beams, hordes of dragons, or random exploding bombs.) If you dig deeper into the design however, the linearity is hard-coded into the FREDing. Amusingly enough, in my frustration with Forced Entry, I activated the
www.freespace2.com cheat set and began ~k'ing everything in sight (unamusingly having to restart twice after incidentally destroying my own mission critical craft) until I came to the Ravanna. The mission was scripted as such that even a destruction of the beast was insufficient to win, only the dismantling of the omnipresent forward beam cannons would suffice for the objective.
Why playing as the Vishnus was downright fun at first (yay OP weapons) the fun was killed very quickly when the god-like creatures themselves fell into the ol' Lilith-from-behind trap, one that works almost as well on the non-corporeal beings as it did on the Humans, if not better.
Also, the cut-scenes were hit or miss. Obviously meant instead of full rendered video scenes, some were truly superfluous (one ship jumping out of subspace) while others were spot on (fleet battles.) Still, bold of Darius to make the attempt, and definitely ingenuous.
The Sound:
out of Love it. I'm a big sucker for music. Music makes or breaks the mood. I even downloaded the soundtrack. Favorites include "Briefing 8" and the Machine series, though I wish the latter were greater in length. Briefing 8 sounds like there was more to it as well that got edited out. Any chance we could get an extended version?
Also, the Joshua redux on its own was amazing, though it seemed a little too upbeat for an assault on the face of death. Unless the point was to convey Bei's sense of serenity. In which case, well, good work.
The Toys:
out of This is the first time I've seen someone effectively and superbly integrate mods from multiple sources, something I'd always wanted to do. Nobody short of Woomeister has so far been able to afford themselves an entirely original fleet of ships while still keeping a realistic release for the main project. And nobody really needs to. It's superfluous. The real truth is, along with the backgrounds, the ships are mostly there to serve as scenery, provide plot points, and give the fighters something to interact with while they duel with other fighters and chase other bombers. The fact that Darius was able to integrate pre-existing mods so ably not only shows that you don't need 40 entirely new ships to make a mod, and that you're probably better off without them, namely, you'll actually get the important part done, which are the missions and the message.
Yet specifically, I was surprised to see the Stratcomm fleet which I'd first seen made for the defunct Devil in the Deep Blue campaign used to such great effect within the new Blue Planet time line and setting. Darius avoids the new ships looking awkward next to the old by simply avoiding juxtaposing them at all. The Ancient ships, which are quite literally ancient in terms of the models' age in the community, were given a fresh new look for the fresh campaign, and used in a capacity they had never been before. Darius even managed to find a plausible and enjoyable use for the Lucifer in a post-FS2 setting. My bad, two uses.
I guess if I had to choose something "negative" to say... I still don't know what the Balor is for. As far as I can tell, its a silver Subach cannon that I replaced with Kaysers whenever I had the chance.
The Polish:
out of I've already posted a bunch of times on the forums with bugs. One of them was my own fault (lol no mediavps) but the rest really feel like they deserve a patch. Bugs include play testing, that one event bug with the Demon and Ravanna mission (which I fixed by extracting the mission and changing the event... not something everyone should have to do) voice acting (for the love of God, voice acting! Though I hear this is in the works.) and some touch ups (my music cut out in the last two missions, never came back. Also the very last mission has my wingmen improperly and somewhat confusingly labeled as Command in the chat logs after they'd somehow died.) Nevertheless, voice acting in the least will go a long way towards making the campaign that much more enjoyable.
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TLDR: Blue Planet was a good work that while I feel like I enjoyed in theory, was certainly frustrated at times while playing. Perhaps the patches of unforgiving, monotonous style were a subliminal intention, as it certainly got my playing and thinking enough about it to write this review. The truth despite it all is that the attractors to the campaign outweighed the failings, and kept me playing to the surprising cliffhanger of an end. So long as the writing is on par with the first, and forward weapons disabled objective is expunged from all future Blue Planet FRED files, I look forward to playing a voice acted second installment.
