Privateer 2: The Darkening

Video Game
1996

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Action Adventure Mystery Sci-Fi Thriller

Arris wakes up in a hospital after surviving the crash of the spaceship Canera. He can't remember who he is or what he was doing on the ship, when a group of assassins break in and try to ki... Read allArris wakes up in a hospital after surviving the crash of the spaceship Canera. He can't remember who he is or what he was doing on the ship, when a group of assassins break in and try to kill him.Arris wakes up in a hospital after surviving the crash of the spaceship Canera. He can't remember who he is or what he was doing on the ship, when a group of assassins break in and try to kill him.

Directors
- Steve Hilliker
- Erin Roberts
Writers
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

8.3/10

339

YOUR RATING

Directors
- Steve Hilliker
- Erin Roberts
Writers
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos1

User reviews10

8.3339

Featured reviews

7Rilkan

Ok game, but not a worthy sequel

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...

ocsnow

Get your grubby, stumpy fingers around this title, yesterday

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...

4chvideo

Interesting engine, poor streaming video

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.

9j-eberhart

Privateer 2 was fantastic

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.

10CitrusBlast

Very good space flight/action thriller for PC

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.

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Jürgen Prochnow and David Warner appeared in Wing Commander (1999), the movie adaptation of the Wing Commander games also produced by Origin (the first Privateer game was set in the Wing Commander universe).

Goofs
In the public records, the entries for the minor planets each have the wrong background as their photo (except for Petra).

Quotes
[Lev Arris meets the CIS Commander Hassan on the prison planet Hades]
Lev Arris: This is not a place I ever wanted to see the inside of.
Hassan: Why should you see the inside of Hades? Unless you're guilty of a crime.
Lev Arris: Am I being accused of something here?
Hassan: Not necessarily.
Lev Arris: Now look, I saved your life, I chose to follow you down here, now if you don't quit playing the Man of Mystery, I'm going to get back on my ship and I'll take my own chances with whoever's trying to nail me.
Hassan: There's a lot to tell you, Arris. I don't know how much you know, I don't know how much you're involved, right now I don't care. You could be the biggest cutthroat this side of New Bedlam as long as you help me get the Kindred.
Lev Arris: The Kindred? Isn't that some kind of organized crime group?
Hassan: It's THE organised crime group. Over the past 40 years, they've infiltrated every aspect of society. Commerce, government, law enforcement, on every planet known to man. They manipulate stock markets, planetary economies, politics. And anyone who tries to stop them, anyone who tries to get in their way, they're eliminated.
Lev Arris: That puts you in the firing line, Hassan.
Hassan: It's my job.
Lev Arris: That's all it is, a job?
Hassan: The man who runs the organization has stayed in the shadows for some time. But you tell me, Arris, you tell me about the man who runs the Kindred.
Lev Arris: What am I supposed to know?
Hassan: He's clever. Ruthless. Brilliant by all accounts. Lavish with rewards to his faithful servants, brutal to those who aren't.
Lev Arris: Yeah, I think we've established that he's a powerful bastard, what's that got to do with me?
Hassan: In the Kindred organization his name is Kronos.
[staring out of the window into the storm, Lev has a sudden flash of recognition]
Hassan: The CIS is at war with the Kindred. It's a war you've found yourself in the middle of.
Lev Arris: I don't want any part of it. I've got my own problems.
Hassan: You haven't begun to have problems. You cross me, you'll have problems. You're gonna have to choose sides, Arris.