Single Player Mission 2 - Capital Ship Duel "Crisis in Capella"

The second single player mission, "Crisis in Capella," demonstrates a pitched battle between capital ships. The fighters and bombers play an important support role and act to protect more vulnerable ships in the fleet. The objective of the mission is to escort two transports containing important materials through the battle to safety. This is harder to accomplish than it sounds, making this the most difficult mission in the demo.

This mission is so difficult because it is very easy to be distracted by the battle raging around you. It's tempting to just hang back and watch the capital ships pounding on each other with their impressive weaponry. The battle sequence looks like something from the movies, and you won't want to miss seeing all of the action. But this is no cutscene, this is the game engine. While the capital ships in FreeSpace 1 were impressive due to their size, the capital ships in FreeSpace 2 are simply massive (up to ten times the volume) and bristle with the firepower you would expect from such immense ships.

It is also tempting to help the Terrans pound on the Shivan capital ship before the cavalry arrives to finish the job. However, any lack of focus will allow Shivan fighters and bombers to concentrate on your weak transports and annihilate them before they can escape. From this mission, you can tell that the balance of the missions have changed with the new, improved capital ships in FreeSpace 2. No longer hulks of metal in the sky, the capital ships unleash an impressive barrage of attacks on each other in the form of special laser "beam weapons." There are several different types of these deadly beam weapons. Some are designed to destroy fighters and incoming bombs; others are intended to cut through the hulls of other capital ships like a hot knife through butter. Although you can often take a hit or two from a beam weapon before sucking vacuum, you'll want to avoid getting pounded.

An impressive moment is when you see these anti-capital ship beam weapons pierce through one part of a ship's hull and slice through other parts of the ship that it contacts. These weapons are powerful enough to take out smaller capital ships in one shot, and likely even multiple minor capital ships with a well-placed shot and a little luck. As these deadly weapons slice through the space around you, hundreds of meters wide, you get the feeling that your puny little fighter wing can easily be vaporized with one wrong move -- shishkabob, anyone?

In the demo, these new weapons result in an extremely tense and fast-paced battle which rages all around you as the transports find themselves caught in the middle of the crossfire. The area effect caused by flak guns prove to be effective deterrents and the transporst will fly through bursts of flak explosions. Get caught in the middle of some flak and you can quickly find your shields dropping to dangerous levels. It's been a long time since I've been so challenged by a simple "escort the transport to the jump node" mission.

As multiple beam weapons fire around you, you must constantly be on the move while taking down your current target and watching the battle play out around you. The strength and deadliness of the new capital ships, along with the requirement of 3d video acceleration, will allow Volition to recreate battles on a grand scale similar to that of the Battle of Endor, something which seemingly every third-party mission designer has attempted to create in FreeSpace 1. The new capital ship beam weapons create this much-loved "grand battle" environment, even if the game engine does not allow fleets on the scale of twenty capital ships or more (something other games claimed but haven't been able to deliver without using bitmapped backgrounds).

Another treat you'll notice in this mission are the improved explosions. FreeSpace already had some of the most beautiful explosions I have ever seen, but FreeSpace 2 creates even more vibrant explosions whenever a ship is destroyed. When capital ships are destroyed, the effect is an incredible reward for all your hard work. Capital ships include a "live debris" function that allows the ship to splinter into smaller parts that will drift through space for some time after the explosion. It's not too unbelievable to think that this effect will be used in FreeSpace 2 for some interesting suprises.

If you want to make the battle even deadlier, crank up the difficulty level from Medium to Insane in the demo. The demo has "toned down" the strength of the weapons and the levels of artificial intelligence, so as not to make the game impossible for pilots new to FreeSpace. However, it is clear that the game balance has changed. This creates an interesting challenge which will result in even the most hardened pilot from the original FreeSpace finding plenty to re-learn (or un-learn as the case may be). FreeSpace 2 isn't just FreeSpace 1 with better graphics, as the new dynamic makes for a different game that is familiar yet refreshing.

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