Fri Mar 07, 2003 11:12 pm by Vyse
Here is what I thought of the ships.
Liberty:
Some of the best looking ships come from Liberty. The Patriot and Defender are both neat looking ships. Defender is one of my personal favorites. The cruisers and battleships are a sight to behold. They look like they would actually exist in such a future. Liberty ships appear to be influenced by the Wing Commander designs.
Bretonia:
These ships are very odd looking. From the light fighters to the battleships. These ships would have been more believable to me if they were custom made and hard to come by. Instead, they are the mass-produced vessels of that particular area of space. When looking at Bretonian ships, I get a very "this looks like something out of Star Wars" feeling.
Kusari:
Neat. Unique. Definitely of Japanese origin. Well, more so of the fighters. The battleships look rather awkward. Another kind of ship that makes me think of Star Wars. Kusari ships make you think that they come from watery worlds. What do you know? They do! However, the differences between light and heavy Kusari fighters isn't that much. Especially from a distance.
Rheinland:
Now these ships definitely look like something that came from the Starlancer universe. Rugged, overly mechanical vessels. I like them. Rheinland warships definitely gave me a sense of power and their fighters are rather good. Like Kusari fighers, it's hard to tell the difference between them from a distance. They look even more similar up close.
Non-Major House Ships:
A little disappointing that only the major houses have gunboats, cruisers, and battleships. Though the Order has the Osiris, it's a Liberty designed ship. Non-major house craft look very similar to each other from within their respective clan. The light fighters are the base design and the heavy fighters just add certain struts and wings. The Anubis is the only entirely original fighter design out of them all.
Freighters:
I don't care much for the freighters. The only major house freighter that doesn't look like the respective fighters is the Liberty one.
My Opinion:
The variety of design in this game could have been greater. This is going to sound hostile of me, but anyone who disagrees with me is only fooling themselves into believing that this game is everything it could have been. On a further note, for a game that took this long to make, the campaign could have been longer, the freelance missions more varied/involving, and certain aspects like NPC traffic, engine differences (all ships move at the same speed in this game), and NPC dialogue (I got tired of hearing the same lines over, and over, and over) could have been so much better. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool game. But I don't believe this game lived up to the hype and I know that deep down you all feel that way too.