Descent Freespace 2, sequel to Descent Freespace: The Great War by Volition is one of the best space-sims of it's time.
When I was younger, I remember my dad getting a demo disc with the first Freespace game on it. He was so impressed with it, later that day he picked up the full game. That's what got me into this series. Descent Freespace 2, the sequel to the ground breaking Descent Freespace: The Great War, was even better than the first, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the original Descent games. With the addition of beam cannons for terran warships, improved graphics and weapon choice, as well as firepower, I have to say the only thing I'm truely disappointed in this game is that Volition didn't bring in a new species, only reintroduced our old foe. Then again, even the Shivians are fun to fight twice in a row.
The graphics for this game were great for it's time, and still are fairly good today, seven or so years later. With the addition of the Source Code Project, by the guys over at Indie Games, the graphics are improved again, with higher poly ships, improved engine effects, lighting, and in the Inferno mod, new beam cannon effects. You can even choose to use cell-shading if you so wish. The weapon effects are great, and you really couldn't tell that the missile poly count is a lot lower than you'd expect untill you see them in 3D on the weapon select screen (3D view only availble in FSOpen as an option), and even without FSOpen the game is still fairly pretty to look at.
The story of this game is one that once you've played it, you'll remember it forever, especially if you've played the first game. I don't want to give away too much, but all I can say is that you're going to go "Oh crap, we're done. We're done, guys, we're dead." once you get word the Shivians are back, provided you know who they are. The ending is especially brilliant, with a race to the node with the only prize being your life. Even if you don't make it, you've "beaten" the game, with a nice ending cutscene. Speaking of which, if you hate cutscenes in most games, you'll love them after you've played this game.
They even included a mission editor, named FReespace mission EDitor (affectionately dubbed FRED2), with high functionality, but also a high learning curve, so I recomend only intermediate to advanced users take a look at it, but you've seen great user-made fun such as the Just Another Day 2 campaign, in which you literally battle FRED. Look it up on ModDB. FRED is located in the root FS2 directory.
The multiplayer is also very nice, even though it's impossible to play it anymore. Still, relatively no lag. Not much to say anymore though.
As with every review, I feel obligated to find something bad about the game. If you don't like space-sims, steer clear of this one. It takes space games to a whole new level. Also, if you're an original Descent lover, and try to think of Freespace as one of those games, good luck loving this one. Apart from that.. I really can't think of anything wrong with this game. Highly reccomended.