Reviews - Son_of_Ares800

At first look, Wings of the Federation was a great surprise to the Freelancer modding community. While Singleplayer campaign changes have been done before, no one had done so much to it like masternerdguy has. Completely new sector, new factions, new storyline (not related at all to the vanilla campaign) even voiceovers, this mod brought a whole new form of modification to Freelancer.

Playability: 7.5
Starting a new game in Wings of the Federation, you are instantly jumped into action, fighting groups of enemies with small breaks in the action, allowing the player to refresh, before jumping them back into the fight. This proved to be one hell of a gamble in a game built for small periods of action with lots of travelling, one which turned out to be a rather great change.

However, this is also the biggest downfall of the mod. Removing the feature of which the game thrives on, freedom. Freedom which allows you to do just about whatever you want. This alone removes any form of replayability, which unfortunatly brings the score down.

Balance: 8
The difficulty scale on this is pretty consistant. All ships will always have the same loadout, your opponents will always have the same ships. The only real difficulty changes is the type of ship you will fight against, which is not often, and the amount of ships that you will fight.

Creativity: 8.5
This mod is full of creativity. No system is based in vanilla systems, factions have nothing to do with vanilla factions. Even the infocards of the ships are different from Vanilla. The only thing that is the same is environment colours and ships designs.

Map Design: 9
As stated before, all systems are different. The only real beef is that almost everywhere you fly is crowded with asteroids or other small space areas.

Story/Instructions: 9
Completely seperate from Vanilla, nothing to do with aliens. Only problem is replayability, which is very small

This is a great mod, different but great! I give it: 8.4 (Rounded to 8)

When I first saw the features provided by this mod, my jaw almost hit the ground. With updated graphics, game mechanics and soundtrack, who wouldn't want the S.T.A.L.K.E.R Complete 2009 mod.

Playability: 9.5
With most of the bugs from vanilla S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl eliminated, there is now a fully streamlined experience where you only have to worry about where your next opponent will appear from instead of hoping that the bugs won't ruin your next mission.

The big addition is the ability for freeplay. You can now skip the campaign and play just for fun, as well as joining any faction you please.
This however may not seem worth it as most of the hostile factions (Army, Monolith, etc.) will not interact with you.

Other great features include a sleeping bag, updated ragdoll physics, High Resolution Scopes, Repair kits, Black and White Nightvision, Fast Travel, Third-Person viewing as well as several other additions.

Balance: 9
NPCs (both friendly and hostile) throwing grenades, healing each other and other ways to interact with each other allow a more realistic experience, letting you deal with tougher enemies at some points. The improved HUD lets the player see these thrown grenades and also allow the player know when he is noticed.

Creativity: 10
New weapon/character/environment skins, guitar tracks and sound effects all create a much more immersive experience. The dynamic weather is really done well, bringing this up to a 10

Map Design: 9.5
No changes in map design, but there are changes in the detail of the shrubbery, buildings along with just about everything else. Also, everyone likes bird shooting.

Story/Instructions: 9.5
Not much done hear, just little bits and pieces. Those little bits and pieces however do make a noticable difference. Changes in text make it that much more believable.

A fantastic mod, the absolute ultimate in S.T.A.L.K.E.R Shadow of Chernobyl Modding. I give this mod: 9.5 (Rounded up to 10)

Review topics are based off of Heavengames.com

Playability: 6
This is a tough call by me. I chose this score due to many problems that I have encountered myself as well as the comments made on version 1.1.

One example of problems, which seems to happen to alot of people is where the AI would bug up and not give orders, only ever moving whenever their opponent gets close. Also this mod is not newbie-friendly. The AI is unforgivable when a mistake is made.

Balance: 9
CIS ships seem to be very strong, Republic ships are good as well, however a Venator won't stand up against either CIS Capital Ship
. The ISD however makes up for this. So I guess the designer's idea is to make the Republic player go on the defensive until the ISDs are availiable. Land conflict is fairly equal. Another great factor of this mod is the lack of availiable facilties for units such as Capital Ships and the AT-TE.

Creativity: 9.5
All ship designs are based off of multiple sources. The models however are very impressive. The graphics of the explosians and the detail that has gone into these models is the best I have seen for this graphics engine. The decision on laser damage and speed is overpowere however. Other than that, the devs have done a magnificent job here.

Map Design: 9
Nothing much was changed here. The only difference is the size in some maps. The size let me down a bit because it took me too long on ground missions.

Story/Instructions: 8
The lack of a scripted campaign was the only issue here. Galactic Conquest is a fun experience if you can handle the difficulty of the AI.

Overall: 8.3 (Rounded to 8)
A great mod for players who are more interested in the Old Republic Era rather than the Empire Era. Or for die hard players who love Star Wars. There are still a few issues that needing sorted out however. And while it may not be Mod of the Year in my opinion, it would easily make the top 100, maybe even the top 10.