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Like many other games of this genre, I-War 2 features the usual list of mission types, from escort, and defence, to assaults and recon missions. However, they are varied enough that it’s difficult to get bored of them, and some missions are actually somewhat humourous in nature. For example, one mission involves you remote-piloting a painting drone to spray-paint graffiti onto the hull of a heavy cruiser. In-game dialogues and events with other characters also help spice things up and help carry the story along. Unfortunately, the trademark difficulty and frustration levels of some of the missions in the original I-War have carried over to a few in I-War 2 mostly due to the overpowered nature of the missiles in the game. Some escort/defend missions are exercises in frustration as wave after wave of enemies appear and immediately missile “critical ships” to death. Other missions actually end in mere seconds after the action starts when your ship gets destroyed by the initial salvo of missiles fired off by multiple enemies. You literally do not have enough time to recover or dodge as literal stream of missiles slams into your hull. The problem is compounded by the fact that your countermeasures appear to be somewhat ineffective against them as well. Luckily, by far the majority of the missions in the game are not so dependent on missiles and are actually very fun to play.

Graphically speaking, the in-game graphics engine of I-War 2 is light years ahead of its predecessor. The lighting is excellent, and the ships look even better than before. A lot of attention has been paid to details, so much so that you can see yourself in your cockpit whenever you look at the front of your ship from an external viewpoint. The game seemed to run well on a P3-866/GF3MX at 800x600x32, but at 1024x768 it started to chug a bit when a pitched battles occurred. In addition, some slight clipping problems can be found on some of the models, where different polygons attach to others, but these are hardly noticeable as most battles will not involve being so up close to other ships. Other special effects are done quite nicely, and the shield effects are extremely well done. However, I’d have to add that some of the CG sequences that are dotted throughout the game are somewhat disappointing, and the character designs look and move about a little too oddly for my tastes, but this is only minor nitpicking in my part.

The music and sound for I-War 2 is absolutely top-notch. Leaning towards the instrumental and techno side, the music that plays during the game always seems to match the mood on screen adding greatly to the atmosphere. It is possible to add your own music as well by fiddling around with MP3s that are used for the game, should you tire of the default music. The voice acting for the game is also quite consistent and good, with no character ever speaking alike. It appears that for the most part, the voice actors did not sound like they were reading off of a paper and were actually interesting to listen to.

When the original I-War was released, it was much criticized for failing to jump onto the multiplayer bandwagon. Therefore it is rather perplexing and somewhat disappointing to find that almost nobody seems to be playing the multiplayer mode included in I-War 2. During the times that I’ve fiddled around with it, at most I’ve seen 2-3 servers up with around 3-4 players each. However, this may be due to the immense lag that seems to plague every server I’ve logged onto. As a result, ships teleport around and damage never appears to be properly detected as well. Perhaps what may be the biggest strike against the multiplayer mode is the fact that online players tend to engage in missile slugfests. While some may argue that it’s “tactically sound” it really only makes for boring push-button gameplay when all you have to do is fire off a few missiles and watch your enemy die from a distance.

In any case, despite the poor multiplayer experience and the overpowered missiles, I-War 2 is a definite must-get for I-War fans. The rich storyline and the atmosphere and style of the game should be a treat for such folks as well help draw in newbies to the I-War universe. The graphics and sound for the game are not to be missed as well. I-War 2 is a very welcome addition to the space-sim genre, which appears to be going through a period of drought at the moment.

Overall Score: 89%

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