Freelancer
Highly polished and very beautiful it is – but will Freelancer satisfy the masses?
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My middle initial is the letter P. No, I’m not going to let you in on what it really stands for but I will tell you that I have always substituted the name I hate so much with the word procrastinate. I will put anything off till the last minute. I’ll probably live to be 106 just because I won’t have been arsed to have gotten round to dying. The downside of this is most apparent to poor Luke, who has to deal with lame excuse after lame excuse from me why a certain review has yet to materialize in his inbox. Well I take this opportunity to make a public apology to you Luke and to say, as if you hadn’t already realised, that I’m a lazy git who takes far too long to produce anything. And when I do they are certainly never good enough to warrant the amount of time spent on them.
Can you see where this is going?
Five years man, five years. A blue whale take less time to gestate, be born and become sexually active. The soviet empire imploded in half that and Ron Jeremy doesn’t work up a sweat to make 300 pornos in that time frame. So what on Earth could have caused Digital Anvil to take such an unfeasibly long time to release a game that is astoundingly awash with waters from the Great Sea of Rushedness? I can’t answer that question fully. There were problems with publishers and creative differences in the team. The innovative force behind the Wing Commander series of games - of which this is a descendant - Chris Roberts left before half-time was reached. Microsoft bailed out the game when many feared it would never make it to full-time, yet it seems that while they provided the money to get the game finished they made some other demands which have diluted Roberts’ original idea, most probably so the title would port well to the Xbox.
All is not bad in the realm of games that have an incredibly long development time. Primarily the game will run like a dream on just about any machine which fits the minimum-specs. For once there is a game that comes in a box whose specifications panel is not a total fabrication. I got this baby running at full tilt on my mid-range machine, at a resolution of 1600x1200, all knobs and whistles duly knobbing and whistling away. I even managed to get a little FSAA on the go without hampering the flow of the graphics. As a result this is the crispest looking game to have ever graced my monitor, and fortunately the work of the art team is as stellar as that of the coding department. There are dozens of different craft, stations and other emplacements that are all pleasing to the eye with each managing to convey a sense of scale and wonder not seen since the Freespace titles. Each of the many regions of space is filled with different objects, from nebula clouds to minefields through asteroids, magnetic storms and many more special anomalies. The many planets are finely detailed, with differing terrain for each one and a lovely atmospheric shimmer which coats the whole planet. This game does look fantastic and it would seem that the modelers and artists had spare time to polish up their efforts. Something that can’t be said for the audio department, but I’ll come back to that later. Freelancer has also only just been patched, a whole three months after its release. Seeing as this patch only addresses some multiplayer aspects you can appreciate what a solid, reliable job the programmers have done.
Freelancer was always intended to be an open game with a single player storyline that could be followed and left at will, and for the most part this is successfully implemented. The game starts off rather unimpressively with an unclear opening cutscene. You play the role of Edison Trent, and you are one of a handful of survivors from the mysterious destruction of the space station Freeport 7. You were there to collect some money from one of the other survivors but seeing as he is in intensive care you have to make some earning while you wait for his recovery. This leads you into the game proper as you take on some training missions for the Liberty space police, the local authorities, and the first of many factions you will deal with in the game. These initial missions allow you to familiarize yourself with the controls and gameplay before blasting off into the inky-black yonder.
Comments
Have to agree with you Sam, the game had alot of promise (especially after the extremely long wait) but was let down by very repetitive game-play. The linear storyline itself I also found a constraint as nearing the end (roughly lvl17) I found I was forced into simply following the plot and had no chance to bail out to make money for more supplies which dampened my enthusiasm. Great promise, Big Let-down.
Roll on X-Universe.
Good review, you repeated my feelings exactly about Freelancer. The quests were too linear, but if your only interested in eye candy Freelancer is your game.
That race was darned tricky, reminded me of Mafia, whihc had the same problem of a race which stopped many cold.
I dont agree it's a good game not like starlancer but good,long /bbut good.
to everyone here complaining about the racing mission: SHUT UP. it is a challenge. if you are really that bad that you give up after the 2nd try though, heres what to do. WARNING!!! KINDA SPOILER AHEAD, CARRY ON READING ONLY IF HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE RACE MISSION.
1) buy the cavalier thats for sale in the battleship wossname. it is one of the most manouvorable (?) ships in the game.
2) activate your thruster for a second or two then power up your cruise engines.
3) ALWAYS look a ring ahead of you, so you can start turning quickly.
4) it dosent matter if you dont overtake Hovis yet, cos at the last 3 or 4 rings, he will stop to activate the weapons platforms. they shouldnt give you too much trouble, so ignore them.
5) soon, Hovis will start moving again but as long as you havent missed or hit a ring sofar, you should already be at the finish line. YOU HAVE WON.
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There is loads to do on this game its so cool!
amen, freelancer is one of the best space simulations ive seen... exept of course for Tachyon The Fringe by Novalogic
the game is beautifull but the controls without a possibility of being able to use a joystick is unnatural for this kind of game
this was a big waste of my money and still hope there will be space shooters coming soon like when tachyon,the fringe , starlancer or the wing commander series came out
I'm still looking for the eye candy everyone speaks of. Freelancer in my opinion fails dismally in the visual design department. (yes, with all options turned on and at 1600x1200) While stations are ugly but serviceable, the ship designs are horrid to the point of making one want to gouge out their own eyes. Suffering not only low poly models but purely amaturish design, I would have rather toured space in a short yellow bus with rocket pods. On the other hand, some of the celestial effects are wonderful and truly some of the best since Freespace. When compared to recent space titles such as Hegemonia, IWAR 2, or the stunning Eve - if Freelancer is good eye candy, I'll take a poke in the eye instead.
Freelancer has earned a good solid - meh.
This was one of the biggest waste of my time and money. I got hung up in the darn race, and have not played since. I am really in need of a good space game.
Bought the game. Had to do a little tweaking on my system ie updated driver for video card (even though system is new) to get it to play right. Certainly enjoy the play. Race scenario very challenging. Would rate highter than 75% maybe 85%. Think multiplayer would be great if any of the game zones would support. Reviewer said dogfights got a little dull and with a good ship the missions get easier once you become familar with the ship but toward the end of the game they are definitely tough and a challenge. So all in all, I believe this game is a winner!
Very good review, I totally agree that this game lacks soul. I wish to hell they'd released a mission editor so that at least the community could have built what the game sorely lacks, i.e. random missions.
Now X2, there's a game to wait for....
I think the reviewer was a bit harsh with 75%.
I've played the demo, but I couldn't get use to the controls. I look around the option for ages trying to enable my Saitek ST330 rumble force. When I did some research on the internet I found out that there was joystick support for the game. I was dumb struck to say the least I thought 'how can you make a space sim and leave out joystick support?!?'
They could have a least left it as an option i.e turn joystick support on and off, and leave the gamer to make the choice over which controls they prefer.
I hope this issue is cleared up with a patch or something because until then I won't buy this fantastic looking game.
i am really disappointed for not being able to use joystick. Microsoft tried to develop games of many different sorts lately but they have fully understood what gamers need.
i uninstalled the game once i realised the game does not support joystick.
i used to play a lot (wing commander1,2,3,4,5 and many other games)
mouse controlling of a ship is a disgrace to the game
I liked this game a lot! When is number two coming out?
Anyone else have problems with their Cruise Engines spontaneously restarting in the middle of the race with Horvis?
Just to add to some of the graphics: I think they are great. Seriously, in some of the other games, they're ships are all smooth and rounded. How in hell can mankind get those sort of ships in that time frame. Freelancers ships are kind of blocky, so what! It fits in the human time line. The alien Artifacts are not sort of believable, but what do you expect from a video game?
I have the same problem whit the race.
HOW IN HELL CAN I WIN if the friggin engines stop themselves ?????
Gettin throught the rings isnt hard at all, you just need to have a sight slighty better than a blind person and consider perspectives, but you CANT win if you stupid ship gets moody and stops cruise speed for christ sake !
Great game. I will agree with a good bit of the review. Mostly on the audio, and