[mr.WHO]

What I like:
- intro battle - as epic as first WiH intro battle.
- stealth fighter - very powerful, yet very fragile fighter, makes a very good feel as a SpecOps.
- missions are complex - assasination missions, Cathege, Gef Habitat, Jupiter mission - lots of fun.
- shotgun primary.
- dreamscape briefing/debriefing
- whole concept of Fedaeeyn
- whole concept of struggle between Shivan and Preservers (and I'm not a New Age fan)
- Shivans as a "good guys", Preservers as a "Bad Guys" (I love the scene where Bei, the protagonist from first Blue Planet feels so conviced that Preserves are  good when we know the truth)
- (A)Ken (Bosh)
- Frikn' Tower Defense in Freespace
- GTVA Supernova orbital stike at the end of Tower Defense
- Custos X
- Custos gunboat support during first misson and Carthage mission.
- countdown to GTVA attack on Earth


What I don't like:
- stealth fighter - the fact that I still wasn't able to fly Isra'il (Banshee) fighter and the mission mechanics mostly force you to fly only the stealth fighter.
- missions are complex - assasination missions, Cathege, Gef Habitat, Jupiter mission - those mission are very overwhelming at first run, but this is solved by second or third run when you have a good view of what should be used and when.
- the final Dream mission is nice but whole flying between waypoints should be faster - there is too much long flying with no action.
- dropship camera view movement is bit uresponsive and auto focus on platforms often lonk on the plaftorm next to intended target (really pain in the ass for those 4x platform points).
- whole act 3 is soo short and I expected that countdown to Earth attack will go to zero and we will take part in the final/turningpoint battle. the end was like WTF! The End. WTF?! I know that the missions were complex and whole SpecOps think can't be too long (see the stealth fighter problem), but I think that a few more "standard" missions with no complex stuff and simple objective (destroy, escort, scan etc.) would be nice and Act 3 would be better with circa 12-15 missions instead of 8.

Anyway looking forward to Act 4.

P.S the whole BP story deserve a movie. Sadly that woud require the Freespace movie first. Or ar least the TV Serie.

[Phantom Hoover]

Note that act 3 was intended to be released with acts 4 and 5, which will focus on heavy assault and bombing missions, which is why it doesn't have much in the way of combat.

[bigchunk1]

Your review is much more organised and efficient than mine. I probably should have went for this format.

-the final Dream mission is nice but whole flying between waypoints should be faster - there is too much long flying with no action.

I didn't mind this in the first playthrough, but since I was forced to play through it 3 times, the discovery aspect was lost and it was more about executing the basic mechanics of the mission. A checkpoint feature might have been nice.

Yes, we haven't gotten a chance to fly the Durga in a mission either. That bomber is pretty strong as it is able to take out a Chimera by itself (player controlled). There seems to be a lack of bomber missions in general. Warhammers really are a cool weapon.

[MatthTheGeek]

There is a lack of bomber missions because bomber missions are extremely hard to make fun. That is being worked on.

[Shivan Hunter]

- Frikn' Tower Defense in Freespace

I remember first playing that mission I was like OMG AWESOME

(then I was like OMG how the hell did they do that HUD, that is amazing)

- the final Dream mission is nice but whole flying between waypoints should be faster - there is too much long flying with no action.

As I remember it, the only slow bits were when the Bosch monologues were playing (and the ships in the mission mirrored the videos of the monologues themselves. I REALLY loved that part, don't think I've mentioned it before). I agree with bigchunk1, a checkpoint feature in that mission would be nice, especially since it's divided up into segments. After a few playthroughs I just opened it in notepad to look at the messages.

- whole act 3 is soo short and I expected that countdown to Earth attack will go to zero and we will take part in the final/turningpoint battle. the end was like WTF! The End. WTF?! I know that the missions were complex and whole SpecOps think can't be too long (see the stealth fighter problem), but I think that a few more "standard" missions with no complex stuff and simple objective (destroy, escort, scan etc.) would be nice and Act 3 would be better with circa 12-15 missions instead of 8.

I have to disagree here. The Fedayeen arc is, gameplay-wise, about trying crazy new concepts and going in to extremely complex situations with good intel (the [in]famous briefings). For the devs, it may have also been about throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck for future campaigns... but I digress. Filler missions are usually unwelcome in regular campaigns especially if they come at the expense of the story, and they would have been especially terrible here.

Besides, take the campaign's length in context: it's one of five acts, which so far have averaged about 8 missions each. If 4 and 5 are about the same length, you end up with a FS and FS2-length campaign which is nothing to be disappointed about.

[mr.WHO]

I have to disagree here. The Fedayeen arc is, gameplay-wise, about trying crazy new concepts and going in to extremely complex situations with good intel (the [in]famous briefings). For the devs, it may have also been about throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck for future campaigns... but I digress. Filler missions are usually unwelcome in regular campaigns especially if they come at the expense of the story, and they would have been especially terrible here.

I do see a reason why the overall campaign is so short and I do agree that it's better to be too short than too long. I think that coutdown to Earth attack made a misassumption about the act finale.

[niffiwan]

The next act is called "War in Heaven" (matching the mod name) so I assumed that's where we'd have the Big Battle for Earth