Freelancer

Rating:
Summary: Who Cares if There's no Joystick
Review: Yea yea I know that everyone is saying that this game is messed because it has no joystick support. Be happy. In the sequel I'm sure they'll honor your request. For now this is the best game that I'm playing now. Its awesome how you get to choose your storyline based on who you want to be your friends. You start out with a mediocre ship. Plasma repeating rifles. Being a mercenary for the Liberty Police or Navy you can make enough money to buy a new fighter or even, as most games would never allow, a CARGO SHIP. Yea you heard me. You can make tons of money shipping Boron and other materials from mining planets to industial or commercial planets. I love the short trip from Pittsburg to Manhattan making $10,000 on a single run. This game rocks and everybody should have it. The graphics are beautiful and you don't even need a great card. The save scheme is a little weird. For instance you can only save on a planet or in a space station, and not directly in space. The conversations are also a little dull. "Hey you new here? Yea. I see, I'm from blah blah blah. Got anything for me. Yea well i got some gossip but it'll cost u a million dollars to get it from me." But you can click out of them. Buy this game. Its worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Privateer Revisited...Great play, needs better economy
Review: A strong story line made this a good game...having things to do other than play the story makes this a great game. The universe is large enough that you don't feel like you are wearing a straight jacket while it is just small enough that most locations feel unique. The mouse flight seemed a bit odd at first but I quickly adapted to it. The guns on the ships have a limited amount of pivot built in, the mouse seems to work better with this than a joystick would have.

From an interface standpoint, more of the options need shortcuts. The manual also failed to fully detail the interface, leaving out a CRITICAL piece of information...what the changes to your cross hairs mean. It also fails to give enough information on the basics of weapon systems, so you are left on your own to experiment with when missiles are locked and how to use mines and turrets.

This is clearly a remake of the Wing Commander Privateer game (which is unplayable on machines over 200 mhz because its too fast). Unfortunately, two things are missing... Wingmen (a nice to have, but acceptably missing given the story line) and an economy that MAKES SENSE! It is difficult to be a merchant when the planet/station that produces an item charges the most for it in most cases. For instance, I traveled to a station that was advertised as producing "basic alloy" figuring I could take the basic alloy to a planet that focused on manufacturing and sell it there for a markup. The reality was that basic alloy cost far more on the planet described as "producing" basic alloy than almost anywhere else by a very large amount.(like $80 per unit vs $20 a unit). I've had to learn that "produces" USUALLY means "buys for the highest price". It would be nice to see a realistic system (which has been done time and time again in games before), and even a dynamic system that if you tried to flood one system with a product, the price would go down somewhat.

Another issue I had with the manual was its description of asteroid mining. It led me to beleive that I should go blow up large asteroids in an effort to find minerals to sell. The reality is you can blast big rocks all day and not get anything, they are just eyecandy. What you have to do is look for the little ones that zip by (and cause your cross hairs to spin when you put them on it) and blow those up. If you are lucky, you may be rewarded with some bit of mineral, water, metal, etc.

Another problem with the merchant/mining road is too many of the "advanced" systems (the ones you don't get to until you've been playing for a while) seem to have "mined out" asteroid and ice fields. This greatly limits your ability to move your home base to outside of the starting area if you are trying to be more of a merchant.

This game has a good degree of replayability. I've finished the story line and still am having fun flying around exploring and blowing stuff up. The story takes you on a wide circuit of the available star systems, but there is plenty of stuff hiding in asteroid fields and what not.

This game is a great flight sim, a nice change from what dominates the action market these days (first person shooters). I'd give it 5 stars if only the economic model made a little more sense.

Rating:
Summary: Good Game but it has its faults
Review: The games is great. It alows you to do whatever you want. This game is basically a new version of HardWar buy the Software Refinery Ltd. But in this game you have a universe to explore. The only thing i don't like about it is it doesn't support joysticks.

Rating:
Summary: Good action game
Review: Pros:
-The storyline is interesting.
-The graphics are very good.
-Customizing your ship with weapons, shields, thrusters, missles, etc... is a lot of fun. There are a ton of ways to costumize your ship and there are many ships you can buy with different statistics.
-The game has more missions than anyone would care to complete. The game is virtually endless (though the game does get much easier when you have the best ship and weapons).
-The universe is very large and beautiful. Did I mention the graphics ;)

Cons:
-Multiplayer could have been much better. I wish MS would have put at least one server for people to play on. The servers are run by players so expect downtime and problems.

Overall:
-The game requires little strategy, but the gameplay is addicting. There is always action going on, but you can take a break in friendly bases. The single player storyline and related missions are very well done, but don't expect much from multiplayer. Multiplayer is pretty ... for the fact that servers are publically run and there really is not much to do except kill other players or do the single player missions (hoping that the server will be there the next day with your character).

I gave it 4 stars for the lack of multiplayer options & gameplay.

Rating:
Summary: Great single player, but multi-player could have been cooler
Review: I almost gave Freelancer a four but I can't do it. Why? Because the game may be fun, but it is so short of an experience that it can't be given a good score. On that note, Freelancer is a very cool game but is short winded.

You play the role of "Something" Trent. The first name really doesn't matter because you are always called Trent. You go through missions after being blown out of the sky on the soon to be infamous Freeport 7. A Rhineland (Germans in space, nothing cooler) ambassador is also annhilated by the same people right off the bat. The story keeps going and makes Freelancer very addictive and fighting the huge battleships is one of the coolest things I've done in a long time. Unfortunately once the story is finished you're set off to do Freelancing. As cool as this sounded before when you wanted to go out and do it, once you're there it really isn't that cool.

So what do you do? Multi-player!!! Microsoft could have made some really huge servers that held 100+ people so it would be like a MMORPG in space but nooooo... they put it in the hands of individuals. So instead of traveling in your cool group killing other groups you go to small 12-30 people servers and take up missions (that are ok, but not as cool as the above) with your little posse. Oh how I wish that there could be rival groups with carriers and battleships but alas... nothing.

Sadly this game was short-lived for me. It could have been so cool but Microsoft threw us a bottle rocket. It gets an "Ooooh, Ahhhh" out of us but nothing more.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent game for sci-fi sim novices
Review: Freelancer is the latest addition to the "sci-fi simulator" genre. The single-player campaign has a strong but almost-predictable storyline, which comes across as a hybrid of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Independence Day". The very good voice-acting performances of Ian Ziering, John Rhys-Davies and George Takei help in bringing the Freelancer universe to life for the player. One particular standout is an angry confrontation between Ian Ziering's character (Edison Trent) and George Takei's character (Lord Hakkera). It's very rarely that we see two actors in a computer game getting to exercise their acting chops this way - it's a lot of fun to watch and worth the price of the game alone.

The ship designs in Freelancer are very unconventional, and seem to have more in common with the works of Science fiction artists like Chris Foss and Boris Vallejo, rather than the "Star Trek/Star Wars" stylistic fetishes that some sci-fi simulators follow. The designs will not be to everyone's tastes, and it's possible to underestimate a ship's performance based purely on its design. The Sabre is a good example of this - it looks like a gigantic spacegoing anvil, but is one of the best ships in the game.

The most prominent and most successful innovation in the game, is the successful implementation of a mouse-keyboard interface, which replaces the joystick used in most sci-fi simulator games. The interface actually works much better than a joystick, giving the player a much greater sense of freedom. It also makes it much easier to execute complex manuevers like strafing or loops - very important when dodging enemy fighters or spoofing missiles.

The less successful innovation, is an attempt at implementing a dynamic universe in the game. It almost works, but there are obviously some features that should have been implemented in the game to make it more convincing. For instance, even though your reputation with a particular faction can change, a faction's area of influence will not expand or contract, based on the actions you take. Furthermore, the news feed is a very useful way of keeping track of events during the single-player campaign. However, once the campaign is over, the newsfeed becomes totally useless.

Furthermore, the graphics are slightly out-dated now. This is testimony to the lengthy development time of the game (almost five years). The graphics in Independence War 2, which was released 18 months ago, are far superior than those used in Freelancer. The objects are not detailed enough - especially "super heavy fighters" like the Eagle or Titan. Large objects like space stations and battleships, aren't big enough to give a sufficient sense of size or scale.

In the end, Freelancer is an extremely worthy addition to the sci-fi simulator genre. As the Single-player campaign is extremely short, and replay value is limited, many hardcore sci-fi fans probably won't want to play full price for it. However, for the enterprising novice, who shies away from space sims due to their complexity, Freelancer is a wonderful introduction to the genre. Here's hoping that Digital Anvil are given the opportunity to develop a sequel to this wonderful game.

Rating:
Summary: Good game
Review: This game is really good, has great graphics and a good plot. Here are the details:

PROS
) Great graphics
) Good Controls and interface
) and even a great story line

CONS
) Short manual. (this is the reason for only 4 stars)
) and there seems to be no way to mod the game, assuming you want to.
) Requires a rather good computer.

Rating:
Summary: For all you Privateer Fans
Review: I think that is this a really good addition to this much ignored genre of games. Although short, the story part of this game was really well done. The main plot had a nice balance of different type of missions, several breaks where you can go off on your own for a while, as well as good voice acting (George Takei and John Rhys Davies among them).

Probably the greatest aspect of this game is the in-flight graphics and the take off/landing sequences. Space combat is really dynamic; as you tear down other vessels, wings fly off and explode, the ship catches fire and the enemy pilot gets really panicky on the horn. You can then tractor in guns, launchers, or cargo hold items in afterwards. Combat in the mulitude of various asteriod fields is really well done. Zipping along after an enemy in there, dodging and weaving is a big strength for this game. The mouse control thing was a little disconcerting in the beginning, but after a mission or two, you get use to it. The universe isn't static in the sense that all the worlds and stations, and battleships to land on are already set on the map. I have already discovered new systems and bases.

I really recommened this game to all you Wing Commander and Privateer players, you'll feel right at home.

Sure there are negatives that are addressed in other reviews, but I think they stem more wanting this very good game to be that "great" game rather than serious flaws that steer you from getting it.

Rating:
Summary: wonderfull.....but short
Review: This game is wonderfull! The gameplay and the missions are fun...but there are only 13 MISSIONS!! :( I completed the missions in about 2 days and didn't even have the best ship (not by a long shot). The only thing that is keeping this game from a 5 star game is the fact that the game is WAY too short. They should have added more missions. When I got to the end I could not believe that that was it! Sure, I can still fly around and sell and kill stuff, but what's the point if there are no more missions?!!

Rating:
Summary: Addicting
Review: I had to go buy this game after playing the demo. I have been looking for a space game in a while, and prior to this I was just playing the same online MMOPRPG.
Freelancer gives me enough shooter, trader, and most of all beautifully rendered scenarios, ships, blasts and explosions.

Dialogue is very repetitive and dull, but I add that even on the games were I found the dialogue very distinct and personal to each character, I always skip them anyways. I'm the "shut your mouth NPC", let me get to the action. This game allows you to keep fighting enemies over, and over again. Interesting to see what weapons do what, different flying options for perspectives. It's not a perfect game but its very nice. Pretty much a diablo style game without distinct personas like good old "Deckard Cain" (shut up old man, Identify my things =p)