Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996 Video Game) User Reviews

A mixture of the very best and the very worst

[spiff-12 · 9/10 · 8 February 2003]

Privateer 2 broken down into it's movie parts could, with better audio, have been a cult classic if it was made into a full movie. Visually, pure genius. The characters; vibrant and charismatic each in their own unique avenue of personal expression. The comedy and style of the movie combined with amazing acting, direction, cinematography as well as the natural interaction between the characters and the portrayed technology was genius...nothing less. The high quality of actors really showed their stripes; Jurgen Prochnow, Christopher Walkin, Clive Owen, David Warner, John Hurt...just to name a few of some of the most professionally respected actors in the world. If someone actually rescues that footage and makes a full movie out of this, not only would I watch that movie in the theater, I'd buy the video as well...and you would find it in the 'cult classic' area of your local video store. So I'd give the movie portion of this production a 9.5 out of 10...it would have been a perfect 10 except the audio is a little sloppy.

The game portion of this production has a couple of really good points and a couple of really bad points. I like the idea of a lot of different styles of ships to choose from...each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Of course the more expensive the ship, generally speaking, the better it is likely going to be. The interface was incredible...very visually creative and appealing. The enemy pilots looked like they were cut and pasted together from old 'National Geographic' magazines ... really sloppy. They always said the same thing, which, after hearing it for the 300th time gets a little stale. The flight engine makes it look and feel like you are going quite slow, regardless of how fast it says you are going and can freely bounce off of most ships without any difficulties. It feels more like 3D bumper cars with guns than what I imagine space combat to be like.

It almost seems like this production was put together like a patchwork quilt made up of silk and burlap.

Privateer 2 was fantastic

[j-eberhart · 9/10 · 15 April 2008]

Man, I loved this game. It came out during the time I'd gone back to graduate school in my 30s, and it just about ruined one semester because all I wanted to do was play the game. Incredibly addictive, but the previous poster is right -- the game crashed all the time. The company finally got pretty free with cheat codes just so you could get through certain segments that were especially gnarly. I wouldn't have used the cheats except that without them the game would overload your CPU and you'd lose all your work! I finally finished the game, and it was pretty mind-blowing in terms of the ending. Also, the cast was outrageously impressive -- Christopher Walken, Clive Owen, John Hurt! Tremendous fun. Even after I finished it, I played it some more, until CPU speed finally made it obsolete. After I had seen the whole plot, I basically just became a pirate, blowing up as many cop-ships as I could, sacrificing my cargo pilot and ship to other pirates, etc. I can't believe how much fun that game was. Nothing like it these days, and though I tried one of those CPU-slowdown programs to try to make it work, it really didn't. Gone but not forgotten.

Ok game, but not a worthy sequel

[Rilkan · 7/10 · 28 August 2001]

The first Privateer game was one of the greatest flight sims ever made. Not only did it include the excellent flight combat system that the influential Wing Commander games made famous, it had an intriguing story-line that took you through numerous systems and to interesting planets. It was also one of the most enjoyable games to play because of the fact that you could choose your own ships and missions, increasing the variety in an already vast and open-ended game.

However, for some reason, Privateer 2 failed to continue the trend of innovation that Origin had been known for. There were many problems with the game. First off, it was behind the times in that it was a DOS-only game. Windows 95 had been out for a very long before this game was released, giving the developers ample time to convert whatever they needed to to make it a Windows game. I was especially perturbed at this because the game was delayed for several months, and the developers STILL did not decide to convert it. Second, the game had a high degree of instability. Often I would try to land at a planet or a star base and the game would crash. This would make me very upset because there was no in-mission saving, and if it was an especially difficult mission, then you would have to start over completely.

Other problems were that it did not have the engrossing story-line that the first one had. The story was too short, and not very in-depth. While I enjoyed Christopher Walken's cameo, the story was just too confusing to follow completely, and then it abruptly came to an end. The missions also did not have the variety of the first game, so while you were trying to get to the next part of the story, you would not be having as much fun as in the first game.

As a whole, the game was simply "all right." It wasn't horrible, and it was sufficiently similar to the first Privateer, but it was definitely not a worthy sequel...

Very good space flight/action thriller for PC

[CitrusBlast · 10/10 · 23 June 2002]

Even though the game is 6 years old, it's gameplay is on par with (or even above) some more recent space games. As Lev Arris, you awake in a hospital, with amnesia, and you must pilot your way around a Tri-system of planets, space stations, pirates, babes and bozos in search of anything that will lead you to a clue about your past. The game is native to DOS, however, there is a Deluxe version native to Windows, though I would gladly give up the availability of Windows XP for good ol'fasioned Win98 to play Privateer 2. All in all, I give this game a 9.5 out of 10, but since I can't choose.5's, I'll just give a good hardy 10/10.

Get your grubby, stumpy fingers around this title, yesterday

[ocsnow · 5 April 2004]

just because it has christopher walken and john hurt ? no. the game is space based, but has you interacting in a story in which your actions define the outcome. after the initial intro to the game (which is excellent) you play for some time, getting a ship, learning some trade routes, fighting some skirmishes. then the real fun begins. you have to make choices. you have to choose your employers, and your missions. for example, you can choose to stay the righteous path, rescuing pilots; or you can plunder their wreckage. You are then presented with choices in which your character enters a scene, and you can choose to be belligerent, or accomodating. obtuse, or engaging. hostile, or neutral. saying the wrong thing can get you killed on the spot! really, this game was far, far ahead of its time. it will not even run well on today's fast cpus, so a cpu slowing utility will be needed - along with a lot of patience to keep restarting the game after it crashes. you're forewarned, just because it was brilliant does not mean it was flawlessly executed. much frustration resulted the initial release and the subsequent failure to patch the engine up to standard. crashes were the norm, much work was lost. i never finished it. but i still think about it. i still think it was and will be the game by which others will know not to strive for - because the bar it set was too high. so most if not all will be painfully beneath it. you might find it as abandonware. lucky you. hopefully it's been fixed. if it has...

An average game that could have been a great one.

[stewie-3 · 6/10 · 22 April 2012]

There was a lot to like about Privateer 2. It had an advanced game engine, beautifully rendered graphics, a clever plot, and live action video with a good amount of A-list and future A-list talent. So what went wrong? The first problem was, it wasn't really a sequel to Privateer. The game universe bore little resemblance to the Wing Commander series and had no real connection in either gameplay or story. No Kilrathi, no New Detroit, etc. That might seem like a minor quibble, but consider the reception a Star Wars game that had nothing to do with The Empire or Jedis, etc. would get. Fans would feel a little cheated, no matter how good the game was.

The second, and biggest, problem for me personally was that the flight and combat gameplay was almost entirely ripped off from an earlier game. In the 1980s, Firebird Software released an 8-bit game known as Elite. It was arguably the first space trader/privateer type game, and influenced the genre significantly. There's a difference between influence and outright copying, however. P2 reproduces almost every aspect of the older game, right down to the faux-3D radar screen used on the player's ship in Elite, and the gimmicky "smart bomb" used to blow up all your enemies at once. The names of ships and weapons changed, but it was basically the same game I'd played as a kid in 1986, though admittedly with far better graphics and AI. After a few fights, I began to feel like "Hey, I've done this before." Beyond that, P2 also follows the pattern for things that should have been left back in the 1980s. Missions can take a LOOOONG time, and frankly they get boring and repetitive after a while. Combat in the first Privateer and most other Wing Commander games was an exciting, often white-knuckle affair. In P2, you just want to get the later missions over so you can save the game.

Finally, there's the sound issues with the live-action sequences. The video quality is fine, the acting quality is fine, the audio quality is not. A lot of the dialogue was muddled, and unlike other games in the Wing Commander series, there was no option to add captions. It took away from what really was an exceptional story premise and script.

Privateer 2 could have been a great game and a cult classic, but its flaws made it merely ordinary and ultimately forgettable. I did finish the game, mostly because I wanted to see how the story ended, but after winning, the discs went on a shelf and are probably there to this day. It was a "one and done" for me.

6/10.

Lost treasure!

[jeff-1078 · 7/10 · 22 October 2006]

The movie parts of this game were incredible. I only wish you could view them separately to the game, as it sadly no longer works on modern systems (WinXP etc.) ... the original release was full of bugs and I never actually got more than half way through it, as the darn thing kept crashing ... but I would love to find out what happens later on in the game / movie.

Clive Owen was, as usual, awesome. The cinematics blew my mind when I first played this ... I actually still have a boxed copy waiting for the day when I can dig out an old system and play it again. Maybe one that can play it all the way through without crashing continuously!! :) Ahhh the good ol' days...

Interesting engine, poor streaming video

[chvideo · 4/10 · 15 December 1999]

The first time I heard of this game the title was only 'The Darkening' and the preview of it interested me. When it got the Privateer label I thought it would be even better, but I was confused because the preview described a game that took place in a different universe than that of the Wing Commander series, which is where the first game is set.

Regardless, this game has an interesting and stylish flight engine which I thought was really cool--except the fact that you can't hyper-jump when enemies are around, forcing you to fight them (very annoying). Not to mention some of the cool landing cutscenes and interesting computer interfaces in port.

However, the video scenes are pretty bad and have poorly mixed audio--half the time I couldn't understand what anyone was saying.

a good-looking fun space trader

[Beegee · 2 April 1999]

privateer 2 is a dang good game, and definitely a worthy addition to any wing commander or space sim fan's collection. However, it is a bit too easy, and sometimes the dogfights can get a little boring.

Then again, after you have finished the main game you can continue playing on as long as you like. There are some fine actors involved and although some of the video is quite long and annoying, there are some great effects.

It isn't another wing commander game, but it is nonetheless fun and similar in many ways. So if you see it on the discount shelf of your local video game shop, snap it up and you should be pleasantly surprised.

Incredible mix of cinema and space combat

[supertedg · 14 September 2002]

Developed at the height of Origin's "Interactive Movie" phenomenon, Privateer 2 featured an incredible cast (Clive Owen, John Hurt, Christopher Walken) and, most importantly, incredible gameplay. The game is so open ended and so engrossing that you could complete and quickly tire of 11 or 12 modern games because you got bored of this beauty. V. sad that most developers have now stopped using real actors in games in favour of crappy 3D models.