"Thanks I'll keep that in mind"All dialogue between the characters is the same/similar. This is a cheap game with technology from 1997. I should have known better than to buy a game with the Microsoft name. Their games are always outdated, only half developed, primitive interfaces and not enjoyable.
This game is not Privateer....it's not even close.
Rating: 
Summary: blah
Review: Let's just say, stay away from this game if you have a GeforceFx video card. It's not supported and even after you add it to the database manually (as told by the Microsoft tech support), the game locks up while loading. The tech support came up with over 15 ways to solve this problem but still it wouldnt work. and no, it's not because of my PC. I'm not the only one experiencing this problem. I visited the MS forum the other day and found that several other people were having the same troubles when playing this game with a GeforceFX. So just a warning to you all, DO NOT purchase this game if you own a GeforceFX...wait 'til MS releases a patch later in the future...if ever...This is yet another 'unfinished product' from Microsoft.
Rating: 
Summary: Good game to play, but not a keeper.
Review: I originally received a demo from my gaming magazine. After several hours with that, I went ahead and bought a used copy, knowing I could sell it for not much less than I bought it a week or two later. But be warned, the work you did on the demo will not carry over to the full game. Apparently the save games do not match the full version.
It was a nice game. One of the pluses was the impressive graphics. You cruise through all manner of perfectly rendered space, including debris and asteroid and ice fields and dust clouds. The fps always seems stable. The ships look pretty good, the AI is sufficient, but usually involves the enemy turning suddenly and hitting the afterburners (which you can practically sit on in the bettter ships) or giving you a multiple ship head on barrage that leaves your craft crippled. You'll die a few times, but overall the difficulty is not bad. Thanks to shield batteries and a nanobots. The sounds are excellent, from the eerie atmospheric soundtrack to the blast of your cannons to the buzz of your shields and the clanking of docks and your ship's engine revving up for full cruise. The controls are good, simple, easy to learn. The mouse flight is truly innovative for a space shooter. And the way your guns track much faster than the nose of your ship is nice. Also the targeting system is nice once you get the hang of it, and you can really practice your visual concentration and shooter skills for other online games where it matters. You can toy with the camera to get all sorts of gorgeous screen shots of you and your latest heavy fighter patrolling the space lanes. You do fly bys past (tiny) planets, make approaches to and dock with extensive bases of all shapes and types. The feeling of being surrounded by the immensity of space is definitely there in the visuals and sound and feel.
The story is pretty cool. It's kind of arbitrary though and involves an alien artifact that happens to be the key to some huge conspiracy involving widespread corruption and the theories of Freeman Dyson. Also, there's lots of murders and guns and you won't score with your beautiful employer. There are no aliens in the game: EVERYONE in Freelancer is an anomolous robotic person- thing. So androcentric, just like the Galactic Empire in Star Wars.
But the downside to this game is pretty steep for anyone seeking any level of realism in the gameplay. I just couldn't understand how they couldn't come up with something resembling what actual solar systems simply must look like. In the game, planets are stationary and seem to be about 30km in circumference for the most part. Planets are crowded together, and have no other features besides being different colors. No oceans or mountains or topography at all. Within planets and bases it's all the same exact thing with different textures and skins and architecture and a slightly different clip of your ship landing in a different port: slick jazzy music, a dead bar full of corporate and governmental workers sitting alone doing nothing, the same boring greetings and introduction protocols. And if you want to be a merchant, be prepared for some long and monotonous space travel. The missiles and countermeasures are mostly useless. You may even find yourself disliking the character you play in the game. Everyone in the Freelancer universe looks like a product of genetic bioengineering or the well toned descendants of the Moonraker project. The major objects in each system are connected by jump lanes that you enter and go real fast along to get to the next place. The realism is just absent. Planets don't go around a really distant sun, it's more like pretty marbles sitting around haphazardly and a flood light facing you 1000 km away. No realism in the physics of anything except the ships. And after the story is done, all that's left to do is get bounties. And you'll have done enough of that by then. It should take about 20-25 hours to complete, including plenty of random exploration.
Worth your money, if you intend to sell it later. That's about all I can think of, and I did give it 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Freelancer is interstellar !!
Review: Freelancer is the perfect getaway from the "standard" in online gameing. Fly and upgrade your own ship as you build friendships with NPC's as well as other players like yourself!
A breath of cosmic fresh air after playing games such as Neverwinter Nights and Everquest.
Rating:
Summary: Freelancer = Privateer 3?
Review: Back in the early 1990s, Chris Roberts made a bundle off the Wing Commander franchise. Production values in these titles broke new ground for the genre, but gameplay wasn't particularly appealing to the sim crowd. Imagine scripted space dogfighting against a race of buffed cat people. Most of us preferred to get our scifi gaming from the Star Wars and Mechwarrior brands, except for one Wing Commander title -- Privateer.
Privateer was different. The game cast you as a freelance trader in the middle of a vast galaxy full of competing factions and pirates. You could skipper a freighter, become a bounty hunter, smuggle illegal goods, go off pirating ... Privateer defined the open-ended space sim. There was a main plot line, but that was incidental. Privateer was about exploring at your personal pace, setting your own goals and objectives. A sequel, Privateer 2, was released in the mid-1990s, but it abandoned much of the open-ended role play that made Privateer so endlessly addictive (personally, I lost a good part of the winter of 1993-1994 to Privateer).
Now Privateer is back, in the guise of a Microsoft game called Freelancer. Chris Roberts began work on this title back in the late 1990s, after starting his own shop, Digital Anvil. Roberts left halfway through development, but the game retains all the earmarks of a Wing Commander title. Effectively, it's Privateer 3, and that's good news for anyone who still yearns to explore the stars.
Anybody who's spent any time at all with Privateer will instantly feel at home in the Freelancer universe. It's all here, updated with modern graphics and a slick mouse-driven interface. Players travel from planet to planet within systems using trade lanes, and between systems using jump gates. You can also engage cruise engines to reach waypoints manually, but that takes awhile, given the distances involved (and they are long). Money is earned by taking on fighter missions or hauling legal or illegal goods between planets and systems (drug smuggling is still an option, but slave trading isn't). The same Privateer career paths are available, along with a large inventory of vessels, equipment and upgrades. Equipment includes energy weapons, missiles, mines, countermeasures and tractor beams. Vessels range from fighters to freighters. You can interact with NPCs at planets or space stations, having pretty much the same limited conversations you did in Privateer. Enemy AI hasn't improved much, either -- it still favors the suicidal head-on pass. There's a main plot as well, but this time it's more compelling than the pedestrian story presented in Privateer.
The cockpit HUD looks mighty familiar, albeit simplified, and with more mouse controls. The weird Wing Commander radar is gone (not that it was particularly useful to begin with), replaced with -- nothing, really. There is no radar. Instead, onscreen pointers show whether individual bogies are to the left or right, along with a list of ships displayed on an MFD. This works better than it sounds; in short order you realize how limited a 2D radar screen actually is in a space sim. The other biggie is joystick control -- again, there is none. Piloting is performed through mouse and keyboard input, sort of like an FPS. Major maneuvers -- docking, waypoint autopilot, formation flying -- are handled automatically by clicking selections from a menu with the mouse. Keyboard equivalents are also available for mouse commands, and most can be remapped.
Mouse control sounds lame, I know. But it works better than you might think. After all, in space there is no ground, and there is no gravity. Given this environment, a joystick's responsiveness isn't particularly necessary. It's analogous to the way many of us ignored our joysticks in favor of using a mouse-and-keyboard combination for Mechwarrior. As a bonus, targeting is much easier, since you simply click to acquire. The mouse-keyboard combination takes a couple of missions to get used to, but quickly feels very natural.
Don't let the simplified controls scare you away. I've put in about 16 hours with Freelancer so far (the game keeps track of seat time for you), and I'm having a right blast. A nascent Freelancer mod community looks set to extend the good times. If you miss the original Privateer, Freelancer will give you your fix, and more.
Rating:
Summary: I was mistaken
Review: I believe that I made a mistake when I wrote a review giving this game 3 stars. There is much more to this game then I realized. For air combat purists or RPG purists is may still only have a 3-star appeal. However, if you are an average gamer with an imagination, this game can keep you interested for many, many hours.
After finishing the 13-mission part of the game, there is lots of treasure to find, many systems to discover, and a significant amount of leveling-up to get the best equiped fighter in the game.
If you feel like you are just riding around picking fights, set your own goals. See if you can get a fighter armed with Nomad weapons. See if you can survive in Omicron Alpha. Go visit the planet inhabited by monkeys. Try to get a job with the Outcasts. Set up an Alien Organisms trade route. Visit every planet and find every Jump Hole. See what is in Alaska. There are lots of things to do. If you think that the fighting is too easy, then you either haven't taken on any of the tough guys or you have already put in a lot of time to get the best equipment. But even with the best equipment, you may still find youself loading saved games more often then you thought.
Be careful out there.
Rating: 
Summary: Three to Five Stars
Review: Download the trial version. Every basic aspect of the game is included. You can be docked with access to equipment, commodity, vehicle, bar, and spaceport facilities. Those are the only options available in the universe. Player options are to buy or sell things, get money-making jobs, or take off and land. You can fly your ship around to explore or fight. That is pretty much it.
The campaign is a linear 13 missions which you are led through so there is nothing to figure out. You can play the game without reading one news item, initiating a single optional conversation, or worrying about who to improve your reputation with. Involving youself in those game-playing activities can improve your enjoyment but have nothing to do with "winning".
The sequence is take a mission, make some money, take a mission, make some money, etc., etc., etc. Make money by fighting, mining, trading, or pirating. Basically, you just fight. The other options are less interesting diversions. Extremely simple money management skills are all that is needed, if at all. You only need three ships to get through the game. You do get a free one to start, but should be using a Heavy Fighter by Level 2 which comes almost immediately. The second and third major ships are essentially given to you.
It is a first person, flying/fighting, action game. There are no optional paths, no long term strategies, no mysteries to solve, no puzzles, no thinking. Wrapped around it is an interesting story, good graphics, and pleasant music. The fighting starts off easy and gets very difficult at the end of the campaign.
It is a short game (20 to 30 hours depending upon your fighting skill). Unless one enjoys fighting, exploring, mining, or trading for no real purpose, the game has little replayability potential. One is always led through the same 13 mission Path. After the final few battles, replaying the general or optional battles is less interesting.
I played it once. Then I played it again just to see what else the game might offer. It is pretty much all the same in different colors. It was a great deal of fun the first time through. After that, the fighting becomes repetitious and boring. Fighting is about the only thing the player does. It may be a fun game to play online but unless the ability is added to get fairly equal ships from different civilizations everybody will be using the same ships.
$$ is a fair price to play for the game craftmanship. The number of enjoyment hours per dollar spent is low for most people. Some will engage in fight after fight and will be happy for the money that they spent. It is a fighting game that requires little or no thinking.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: Now, I am still waiting for the game to arrive, should be here tomorrow. But I have been playing the demo. And for what i see, it is truly awsome. Its almost like GTA in space. If you work for one group, your reputation will go down for another group, depending on what you do. If you rescue a pilot from a loosing battle, your rep will go up for the branch that he works for, or atleast thats what happened for me.
This game reminds me allitle bit of the Fantasy game in Ender's game, and Ender's Shadow. It keeps changing.
It is a must have for people that like a very large, changing game.
