Description
Three years after the destruction of the orignal Lucifer, the GTA begins to rebuild thier systems while fighting the Shivans and the Hammer of Light.

Storyline:
Three years after the destruction of the Lucifer, the Terrans and Vasudans continue waging the Great War against the Shivans. These missions try to tie up the loose threads after the Great War campaign: conquering the Hammer of Light, restoring the Vasudan homeworld, and regaining territory from the Shivans. The missions highlight the turning points in the story, bringing Alpha through the critical missions.

The first few missions revolve around the defense of Galatae Station, a joint shipyard in Vasuda, and an unexpected refit of several Orions. In the next few missions, the campaign turns to the defeat of the Hammer of Light. The "Revenge of the Nerds" mission borrows from a certain Star Trek movie and uses a "Genesis Project" to restore the Vasudan homeworld. In an attempt to prevent this, the Shivans send another Lucifer to nuke the planet from orbit (it's the only way to be sure). After defeating the Lucifer with a clever special device (bonus points for not contradicting the Great War campaign), the Terrans and Vasudans begin to reclaim recaptured territory from the Shivans and end with a massive D-Day operation. The end result is a wide variety of missions and a believable story following the Great War.

By focusing on the turning points of the story, the campaign resolves this detailed story, but it seems there could be more "transition" missions. However, this campaign does provide twelve very long missions -- usually around 10 to 25 minutes are required to complete each one. In fact, some missions have enough action for two or three different missions. There are major suprises, which turn a few of the missions into puzzles that must be solved. The story takes a backseat in the last few missions, giving way to a massive action sequence. Overall, the storyline is very solid and consistent, which transfers nicely from the briefings and into the action.

Balance:
The ship selection varies widely over the duration of the campaign, including both Terran and Vasudan ships. Most pilots will end up flying a Vasudan Horus, a Terran Hercules, or a Terran Ursa for many of the missions. Weapon and ship selection is handled very well, except in the last mission where there is no weapon selection despite the ability to choose from any Terran ship.

The difficulty varies from easy to difficult. Most missions are long, and you will often find yourself dying the last few minutes of the mission unless you call in reinforcements as soon as possible. The enemy forces are not impossible to defeat, but I found the first two missions very hard.

After you play most missions through a few times, the challenge becomes more reasonable. But if you need help, there is a strategy guide that provides detailed information on how to sucessfully complete each mission. This is an excellent touch, resulting in a walkthrough for the campaign which many will need.

Design:
This campaign shows that it was extensively beta tested. After playing through the missions many, many times, I found few errors and those were usually minor. In addition, there are many extras that set the production quality of this campaign in a class similar to Silent Threat. For example, an installation program allows the entire campaign or the special ship tables to be removed. This is an important feature, since the custom ship tables must be uninstalled to play the Silent Threat campaign or multiplayer.

I found only a few minor issues, but no bugs or broken events. However, a few times I found myself overrun by capital ships as they arrived. Another AI error results in a Terran Transport shooting at the disabled target that it intends to capture with Marines and then repair. In the last two missions, there are some major battles that will reduce frame rate. These missions are still playable and no worse than many of the missions in Silent Threat and a few in the Great War campaign.

There could be some other minor technical improvements. To nitpick, there are a few spelling and grammatical mistakes. After the first few missions, hotkeys (F5-F12) no longer seem to be implemented. These hotkeys are extremely useful in the long battles to keep track of key friendly and hostile targets and to give orders quickly. I also noticed that completing mission objectives did not increase your score, so advancement is strictly limited to your kills obtained. This is a shame, since many of these objectives require some skill to complete successfully.

This campaign uses many messages and directives. Bottom line, its design is clearly at the same level as those from Volition.

Gameplay:
Great! The missions are filled with action and your performance influences each mission. There are plenty of opportunites for dogfighting and attacking capital ships. Each mission is different from the others, providing a good mixture that doesn't grow stale. If you enjoy big and long battles, you will be in heaven. There is enough here to take even the most dedicated FreeSpace pilot a few days to complete. If you don't call in all of the reinforcements, you are able to replay the campaign at a much higher difficulty level. I can easily see this mission being replayed.

Other Thoughts:
This is one of the must-have campaigns and, best of all, it won't cost you. I didn't play through the campaign with sounds, but I've heard that it is definitely worth the download due to the large voice-acting cast.