I know that the thread regarding EA not being all bad by Predator (thank you for this btw pred) is similar to this, but the title says nothing about the game, and I only clicked it by chance, so I wanted to re post to make sure nobody misses this, as it's a very worthwhile topic.
Wing Commander was one of my favorite games back when it came out, and IMO the only thing that sucked about the whole franchise was the crap movie that was produced...although having the goddess Safron Burrows in it almost saved it.
I downloaded this game from the shack news servers at around 1.2 megs/sec, took less than an hour, although for a free game it is a very large file, well over 3 gigs. I've only played the first couple of missions of the first campaign, but it promises to provide a LOT of entertainment for the price (hah, free). There a several dozen types of fighters, and numerous capital ships and weapon types. It's a very familiar environment to the Wing Commander fan, but with a little better graphics and sound. You do have to install a sound program with the game, so if you find you're without sound, find the program in your windows start thingamajig and find the sound program there and install it if you neglect to tick that box at the end of the install, like I did.
The graphics are a little dated, based on the old Freespace 2 engine apparently, but they are still very good. There is about 9 pages of key commands etc, and you can assign a joystick to fly, however so far I've found that if you have 3 different USB devices for your HOTAS setup a la CH products, you can only select one of the controllers so far in the game - they are already working on a fix for this so the forums say. I'm using my Fighterstick and it is good enough for controlling your fighter or bomber, although you need to use your left hand for throttle still, and directional thrust control etc.
The voice acting is what you would expect for a free game, but it isn't that terrible, and mission briefings and the storyline is supplemented by rather long and involved text scripting, which I like as it gives you a D and D sort of involvement. The storyline so far is pretty decent, and it promises to give you a lot of huge combat missions in the future.
Another really exciting thing is that the game is extremely MOD friendly, and although this has only been out a couple days apparently the MOD makers are flat out designing new campaigns, ships, weapons, you name it.
I do have to say that this game sort of reminds me of the first time I tried Aces High way back circa 1999 ish, when it was a free download and free to play game just getting its teeth sunk and gaining a foothold in the gaming world. It's giving me the same feelings I had back then, of something very big and offering long term entertainment about to bloom.
There is a multiplayer component, but I haven't delved into it at all yet, but I'm looking forward to it as well.
Do yourself a favour, and download it and try it for yourself. If anyone was at ALL a fan of the early Wing Commander games, you will NOT be disappointed with what these guys have done with an older engine, an idea, and its execution.
http://www.wcsaga.com/The official site, but I'd use another place to d/l the file, they are much faster right now.
