Independence War 2: The Edge of Chaos

The evil corporations pretty much run things in the badlands part of the galaxy.  As Cal Johnston you saw the evil Caleb Maas murder your father.  A life of crime, and a direction that points to revenge seals your fate.  So the story isn’t the most original idea this side of Mos Eisley but the epic scope of IW2 makes up for it.  The graphics are stunning, as I said before.  The sound will remind you of why you spent over a hundred bucks for that five-speaker bass-boosted woofer monstrosity in the first place.  You must crank this game.  The game galaxy is absolutely huge. 

Combat is very satisfying when you blow stuff up, and the option to trade for different material or weaponry, or to change the load out of your ship is welcome.  The missions vary, but there isn’t much new to the genre in design.  There is a sense of open-ended game-play as the box suggests.  This is due in part to the shear amount of physical space you must fly.  Sometimes a mission is not as clear-cut as you would like, and you must fly around and figure out exactly what to do.  There are times where you can choose between more than one mission.  The story mode is both involving and long, and I found it to be more interesting as a whole to the multiplayer option of play.  So I admit this game is an ass kicker, especially for all you fighter pilot gamers out there.  By all means add this title to your collection.  Just make sure you have an over abundance of patience, and a full head of hair, because you will be pulling it out.

The learning curve is steep.  The game can be played almost completely from a joystick.  I’ve got a gamepad/joystick with a gazillion buttons so I was having a blast.  The problem?  There is no simple way to re-map the buttons to a customized setting short of editing game files.  You must also make sure you have up to date drivers for your joystick, and video card to run this puppy.  It took me a while to get the controller working.  The screen is loaded with all kinds of signs, and sensors, and readouts.  You can access the in-flight menu by using your hat switch.  It takes some practice to figure out what everything does.  In order to save you must fly back to your hanger.  The game is so large that traveling through long distances gets very tedious very fast.  I know we all want to get the biggest bang for our buck.  That’s why longer games are better.  IW2 will take you a while to get through.  This is fine, but there are times when the action is lacking, and you just want to get on with it.  The actual feel of the ship is more of a heavy class than that old comfortable X-Wing feel.  It takes a couple of seconds to turn, and stop your ship.  This makes pinpoint accuracy a nightmare.  You spend most of the fight trying to compensate for the lack of precision in your craft.  As good as the sound is I was annoyed at two glaring oversights.  The weapons make hardly any noise at all during combat.  I can’t complain about this too much because when you launch a missile it sounds beautiful.  When that missile hits the target, and the enemy ignites into brilliant fiery death the complaint seems petty.  The engines seem to have a lack of sound as well.  Sometimes things just get to quiet, but the music is very well done so this is all minor.  Despite these small negative attributes Independence War 2 is still an excellent game.      

Install: Easy
Pretty slide show as the install process sucks up your space.

Gameplay: 8
It takes some time to get all the controls down, and the meaning of the cockpit readouts.  Handling the ship is a bit tricky, and takes some getting used to.

Graphics: 9 
Good stuff dazzling explosions.  Movies and game-play are both very smooth. 

Sound: 9
Play it loud!  Does Clay annoy you too, or is it just me?

Difficulty: 8
Control.  Control.  You must learn control.

Concept: 7
If only everyone could have the Star Wars license.  Oh what a world it would be.

Multiplayer: 8
Deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, or bomb tag.

Overall: 8.5
Overall a solid visually striking title with an involving storyline and a whole lotta game to battle through.  Enjoy.