But don't take my word on it! It's free on GOG. It's a good game. I've been wanting to replay it for a very long time but I haven't had a flight stick. Maybe I'll try to grab a cheap joystick with a throttle? Don't think we have anything good in the office.

Anyway, pick it up in the next couple days and it'll be free forever, as far as I know.

Cool! It's an awesome game.

I had a 'use the Force' moment that has stuck with me for 15 years - I kept getting blown up in this one mission, but on one retry they damaged my sensor module so I lost my HUD, yet that's the one where I finished the mission. So cool!

Gonna wait for it to come to the EGS.

Seriously though that was an amazing kid I played as a kid that I don't think I would be able to get back into now, but neat for conservation purposes nonetheless.

Some would say it's the best game of all time, though I wouldn't put it above the first few Wing Commander games or Elite II: Frontier.

Thanks for the heads-up! I've been meaning to try out the two Freespace games ever since I started playing the WC and Descent games a handful of years ago.

Has anyone tried this with MKB? I assume it's less than ideal?

I mean it's no Tie Fighter. But I guess the (very close)second best space sim of all time is pretty good.

I've always played these space sims mouse and keyboard style and while yeah it's probably not ideal, it is imo totally fine. You don't get constant turning ability since you have to drag the mouse to the edge of your play space and then reset, but the alternative is that you get significantly more accurate firing ability. The modding scene for this game is also decent so I'll bet there are some modern controller mods out there if need be.

I replay Freespace 2 every few years and it is in the running for my favorite game of all time.

Hell, Freespace in general is a series that was ahead of its time in terms of set pieces and telling great stories through missions. To avoid spoilers, the original's opening cutscene is the Shivans attacking an outpost and they do a great job of showing how helpless everyone is. And then one or two missions in YOU get attacked by the Shivans and have to survive against a single ship with shields and much better guns than you have.

And FS2 cranks all this shit up to 11 as you fight an ever more increasingly desperate war for survival. Imagine DBZ style no-selling of Spirit Bombs and Kamehamehas but played for horror and drama.

Anyone who plans to play this should definitely use Freespace Open (I think GoG may even provide an installer for it?) and consider grabbing a texture pack or two. Even without the texture packs the particle and lighting effects make the game gorgeous. And using modern devices and displays gets a LOT easier.

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@rorie: Honestly, a modern gaming mouse (high DPS with a toggle) is probably the best way to play it. You don't really need super fine-grain throttle control and a mouse would make threading the needle on some shots a lot easier.

HOTAS wise: not sure if you guys still have the x52 in the office. From my times replaying that felt a bit too "heavy", but I also was never really happy with my x52's build quality and suspect I got unlucky with which company owned Saitek at the time. It is definitely worth a go

Over the past year I picked up a Thrustmaster T16000M for Elite Dangerous and IL-2 and then splurged for the separate throttle and pedals (stick, throttle, and pedals are sold separately so you can build up as you decide you need more). T16k is pretty cheap on its own (google says 60 bucks. I think I paid 40 on sale) and I find it feels a LOT better than anything short of my old ST290 (and I acknowledge nostalgia is a factor there) and has the best on-stick button layout I've experienced thus far.

Could probably play all of Freespace with just the T16k as it has the standard "twist the stick to fuck up your wrist but not need pedals" and a throttle on the stick. Haven't done an FS2 run on that yet, but just from getting a feel for the stick it seems to be in that sweet spot that you can do precise adjustments to land a WW2 plane or spasmodically jerk it to dodge a beam cannon the size of Colorado. And it works well enough with Mechwarrrior 4 (another game that was probably best played with M+KB)