Privateer 2: The Darkening

The game is set in a remote region of the Wing Commander universe in the Tri-System Confederation, a three system government that has an almost three thousand-year history of its own parallel to the Terran Confederation history. In the game's opening, the cargo ship Canera is attacked during landing and crashes into Mendra City on planet Crius in the year 2790 of the Tri-System calendar (the calendar appears to be longer than a Terran year with months that are about 40 days each). One survivor, Ser Lev Arris (Clive Owen), a man in a fugue state with no memory of who he is and no record of his existence prior to two weeks before the crash, awakens from his cryo-sleep and must take on the life of a privateer in the Tri-System, rediscovering his past along the way. ==Development==

The game had a development budget of $5 million. ==Reception==

A Next Generation critic said Privateer 2 "has rejuvenated the genre". While criticizing the game for its reliance on live-action video segments to advance the plot, like the mainline Wing Commander series, the reviewer said it at least gives players the option of ignoring the story. They also praised the graphics, frame rate, flight mechanics, support for most flight sticks and throttles, and upgradeable ships, though they noted several glitches and the lack of Windows 95 support. Andy Butcher reviewed Privateer 2: The Darkening for Arcane magazine, rating it a 7 out of 10 overall, and stated that "The Darkening is one of the better attempts to combine an 'interactive movie' with a real game, and offers a fair degree of enjoyment for a while. Eventually, though, the space combat and trading become repetitive, and once you've finished the plot once, there's little reason to play the game again, although there are some sub-plots that vary from game to game. Fun while it lasts, but still not a true 'Elite for the 90s'." == References ==