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Who Cares if There's no Joystick

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: April 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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.

Gets boring quickly, not the next Elite or Privateer

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I am a hardcore Privateer fan. I've been playing space sims since I was ten years old, and I've played them all (my favorite is probably still Freespace 2). The hype surrounding Freelancer before it came out was unbelievable, and all of us space sim fanatics were counting down the days to the release of Freelancer for at least two years beforehand. When I finally got it and finished the campaign, I played for maybe three more days until I was bored out of my mind. Once the campaign is finished, there's nothing left to this game.

I was looking forward to weeks of exploring, trading, policing, stealing, whatever struck my fancy. But once you complete the mission line and become a real freelancer, there's nothing to do. The so-called "random missions" are all the same: go here, kill ships, come back, lather, rinse, repeat. Even the venerable Privateer had missions like patrol multiple systems, or escort freighters, or special cargo runs for mega cash rewards. Freelancer has nothing of the sort, only "go kill this guy" missions. That's it.

While all the planets and all the systems look different, every person inside said planets look the same. The game employs about 4 character models, differing only in clothes and hair. All the voices are the same, all the faces are the same. Not remotely convincing for a universe which supposedly houses hundreds of billions of people.

A lot of people beef about the lack of joystick support. Let me say that I am a hardcore flightstick junkie, and I went into the game perparing to be disappointed, but I was surprised at how well the mouse system worked. If you're new to the genre, it's very easy to learn, and you can become a much better dogfighter using this method than if you were to try to use a joystick cold turkey.

All in all the combat aspects of the game are revolutionary and cool, and the graphics aren't bad, but the rest of the game is a bit under par. If you're looking for the next Privateer or Elite, I would recommend X2: The Threat. This is not it. I know. I was disappointed too.

ELITE it ain't! 2 1/2 stars....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 23
Date: May 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Elite was the best space combat/trading game ever. Many have tried to create an updated version of this game; Privateer was the best effort so far in my opinion but there have been others (X-Beyond the Frontier and Independence War 2 are good ones). The latest attempt, Freelancer, looks good but really misses the mark in a lot of spots.

First off, why no joystick? I really tried getting use to flying with the mouse but it gets silly, especially when I got into a dogfight with the lightweight enemy fighters in the game. If I could use a joystick they would not last 5 seconds, the enemy AI is that bad. It makes the whole issue of combat in the game seem like a side issue.

Plus the game starts getting jittery in spots. I have a P4 with a Gig of RAM and it still slows down when there is alot of activity on screen.

Its not worth the hefty price tag.

No choices to choose from

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: January 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Entertaining enough, but it has several disappointments: annoying animation & dialogue, constricted choices, and conflicting player controls.

The space animation is excellent. Planetside, every time you talk to someone, he makes random arm movements. Anytime you go anywhere planetside, you get to watch the a pan of the graphic designer's world concept. Then you have to click another button to do what you went there to do (say, buy equipment), in case you only wanted to see the designer's work. The dialogue, too, follows a strict formula. Whenever you approach someone in a bar, you use the clever opener, "What have you got for me?" Instead of just slugging you, the other person replies, "I'm X. I work for Y. We don't run this place, but we have an understanding." Right.

The controls are also awkward. Although your ship has a 90 degree arc of fire, the guns and the steering are both controlled by the mouse. You end up having to turn toward your target. If you could only fire dead ahead this would make sense, but you're actually firing ahead of your line of travel, which is just bizarre.

But the biggest disappointment is that, in contrast to the promotional copy, I found myself locked into the story. You begin with no ship, no money, and one (count them, one) person who will help you. Receiving her help, you have taken sides with law enforcement in a rebellion, and have alienated all parties other than government and corporations. There is little you can do to patch up relations. Once I had a ship and money and a bad rep I tried to freelance. When I tried to mine an asteroid belt I was immediately set upon by rebels. So I tried trade. I ran the same two cargos back and forth between the same two planets and was paid the same prices for them until I got bored. There was only one other world accessible to me. When I went there I found no landing dock, and was immediately set upon by rebels. So back to working for law enforcement.

As the story unfolds, you have little opportunity to choose your path. When I began to suspect that my sponsor might have sinister plans and was advised to flee the country, I found there were no routes out of the country. So much for deciding my own fate!

The story is interesting, even if out of my control, and it's always fun to pilot a starfighter, so I wouldn't call it a bad game. I just wish it were the game the advertisers said it was.

What can we say?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: March 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

A great game. Awesome graphics and contradicting what others might have said, the combat is great too. The story line will keep you interested and guessing. But what happens after storyline? Anything you want. After the hours of game play go take the experience you have and take out old enemies. Or maybe try and make more money by trading. And if you really want to make new enemies. And maybe the best thing in this game, You dont have to be the good guy! Go take out some trade convoys or smuggle drugs into the New York system. Heck, when i get bored i go take out the whole New York police force. Anything is possible in this game but i do suggest finishing multiplayer so you can reach full potential getting some very cool ships and weapons.

Now we get to the online play. Up to 128 players but NOT RECOMENDED. Microsoft (on drugs at the time) left the servers to be run by people. Bad Choice. Lets say you jump on a server the first day and do pretty good playing for a few hours getting a new fighter..horray! You dock at the nearest station to save and log off. The next day, however, if the host isn't on (saying it was not a dedicated server) you couldn't get on that character and would have to wait or find a new server and start over. And even some of the 24/7 servers are bad. Laggy, sometimes not even on! Wheres the 24/7? 16 players can lag a non dedicated server and sometime 32 can lag a dedicated one. Microsoft should have coughed up the money and established a decent server. I believe if this would have been produced with same exact game but MMORPG would be the best game out there. The only reason this game deserves 4 stars is the lack of effort put into by Microsoft (though i do like the anti-hack code)

Very good space trader/fighter sim

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: March 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Don't let the reviews bashing the mouse control feature scare you off this one. Although it isn't what a hardcore joystick pro might appreciate, its very intuitive and you get used to it real quick. I do have trouble with this game being called a flight sim, it's an RPG with space combat. It's similar to the MMORPG called Earth and Beyond but so much better than that. If you liked EnB you will love this game. The ship customizations are great. Lots of Weapons and other equipment to choose from that you can buy using payments from jobs or by selling items that you loot after space combat. The voice acting is good but a few of the lines are a bit cheesy. Compared to many other games though its pretty good. Theres an openness to this game that a I really like. In the demo after you complete the first few scenarios you're left to do what you want to (explore, fight , etc)... I took some missions, fly from station to station, pretty much whatever I wanted to. Your really out there on your own doing what YOU want to. Do the storyline or not.. its your call, and thats the big draw to this game I think. There's a demo (150mb +/-) for this game... I would highly recommend giving this game a try.

Good Open-ended engine that allows for amazing replay value

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: July 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Freelancer lives up to its name. Where others have failed, some miserably, Freelancer has not only succeeded, but raised the bar much higher for those to follow in its footsteps.
Even though this game has been ranked amongst the top pioneers, it does lack in some places, namely voice-acting, and planet environments.
The voice-acting is cheezy at best: characters in Britonia space will either speak in a fluent American accent, or an extreme stereotypical Enlgish accent. The action sequences contain dialogues that belong in the B-Movies.
The environments on the planets and other platforms (cruisers, trade platforms) are robust at first, as panels slide forth to help you repair and equip your ship, dealerships thrive with salespeople to help you buy a new spacecraft, and the ever present Bar presents the many possiblities of rumors, news, stock prices, and of course job listings. However, if you take into account the massive universe that this game puts together, the same formula applied to EVERY SINGLE planet begins to get a bit monotonous.
At the risk of seeming a bit too thankless for such a good game, I would suggest a bit more dynamic planet environment. Allow for some vehicles on the planet surface where the character is free to roam, just like in the space. This of course would add an extra dimension to the game (which is already immense), hence it would probably be easier to manage this by cutting down on the already present systems.
In conclusion, this game is awesome, a must-buy for ANY pc gamer, specially those who like Space Sims...All I have to say is, this is the first space sim I TRUELY enjoyed since Decent: Freespace...its positive aspects FAR OUTWEIGH any faults it may contain, including the ones I have mentioned.

Just Plain Amazing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: March 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is a space simulation game that has come out this Tuesday by Microsoft; and they have really outdone themselves this time. About a week ago I downloaded the demo, and I was hooked right from the start. Even though I only had access to one of the 48 solar systems, it was still one of the best games I've ever played. The strange thing about Freelancer is the fact that you control your ship with your mouse. I admit that I was not sure if they could do this effectively, but they did. Also, the amount of choice is amazing, you can be a merchant, Traveling, buying and selling goods. Or a pirate, stealing the goods for yourself. Overall, this is an amazing game, and I'd reccomend it to anyone.

Addicting

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

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)

Great fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: May 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I first read about the game I was really excited and when the demo came I got it as quickly as possible. I played that demo about 15 times because I had so mnuch fun. Then I bought it and even more fun! The story may be short but it's very cinematic and full of little twists. The combat is fun I think and I personally feel the mouse control is better than using a joystick because its more accurate. I didn't let the graphics affect my rating because I just turned antialising on and it looked a little better and Digital Anvil started making this game 4 years ago!
All in all I REALLY enjoyed the game and would recommend to anyone that isn't really picky about games.

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