Privateer 2: The Darkening

The Good
This was actually quite good - a campy space opera crossed with 'Elite', although for more of that see the next section. Starring the deadpan Clive Owen, the FMV sequences seemed to understand that they were rubbish, and were therefore amusing in a cheesy way - and anything that has Mathilda May in it can't be all bad. The game itself is a simplified space trading game, with attractive, non-3D accelerated graphics produced by Argonaut's 'bRender' system. It's fun for a while, the presentation works with the game instead of against it, and although you'll skip through the FMV the second time you see it, it's not bad at all.

The Bad
That said, it's a bit too restrictive to be a proper space trader. There are only a few planets to visit, not much to do, and skipping back and forth becomes quite tedious after a while. Some of the space battles are almost-unfairly hard to start with, although once you realise that you can hire giant, armoured transporters it becomes a lot easier. Apart from that, it's not particularly offensive.

The Bottom Line
A decent modern arcadey space-trader, not particularly special but not awful either.

The Good
For once, a full motion video game with decent actors. You've got John Hurt from Alien, Jürgen Prochnow from das Boot and even Christopher Walken. It's got a nice range of ships and weaponry (except perhaps for the Nuke'Em device which is a bit of an overkill) and an interesting plot-line.

The Bad
The game is not completely free of bugs, sometimes escort missions are virtually impossible to carry out and you run the risk of gnawing your own leg off in frustration before you manage to actually get it right. Also, the sound engineering/leveling is off the scale, it's often hard to hear what people in the game are saying because there's just too much background noise/music.

The Bottom Line
If you're into either space sims or full motion video, this game is something you should try to get hold of.

The Good
The story is quite fascinating. It is also developed in an interesting way. The acting is not bad for a computer game, although it cannot be compared to real movies. Most of the motivation is caused by wanting to get money for new ships and equipment.

The Bad
The game design is not as good as in Privateer 1. There you were first in a solar system where nothing really bad could happen to you. In Privateer 2 you are in the same area all the time. That means that at the beginning you have to deal with the same amount of pirates as later and at the beginnig they are unbeatable. So you have to save your game everytime you leave a planet and hope you do not encounter any enemies. Another option would be invulnerability but it should be possible to play the game without it. In this game it is not. Always coming to the same planets all through the game also gets a bit boring. The space combat is also quite tiring sometimes. As you can only jump to the next NAV-point when there are no enemies around, you have to kill them all first. But if it takes you too long, more and more of them will arrive and attack you. I sometimes came in a situation I could not escape, because there was an unlimited number of pirates and it was not a mission but just an ordinary flight. I had one of the best ships and killed about 100 of them without being severely wounded, but after fighting this battle more than an hour I was just frustrated and I had to restore the game. And this happened to me several times!

The Bottom Line
The concept has been stolen from Elite and a story was added. It is a game from Origin's Interactive Movie period.