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A BIG let down

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: March 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well after reading the overview of the game and all the positive comments, I was ready to buy the game. Luckily I downloaded the demo first. This a poor excuse for a flight simulator.

You start off on a planet and you are told to go to the bar. I think, "ok lets walk around and find one". Lol, no walking allowed in this game, you just click the bar icon to go there. Want to talk to people in the bar, well click them and watch the cut scene.(Get use to them the game is filled with cut scenes versus exploring yourself)

Once you get into space, then you have control. Well control over average quality graphics as you spins in circles with the shoot button held down :::yawn:::

I'm sorry, but I'm deleting this demo and not buying the game after all. Its just a cheap game ment to get your money and take advantage of the no return policy on games :-P.

Good form, bad flight

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 12
Date: March 24, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Overall I liked the game. It is the same great type of space flight simulator that we have come to love from this production team. However this game has some detractors that made me put it down and walk away. The primary and most serious of these problems is the flight control. The game is controlled exclusively by mouse. There is not even an option for joystick flight. I think their intenet was to make the HUD interface better. I had a horrible time with flying and shooting and the targeting system was off as well. The voice acting (at least in the demo) was pretty deadpan and uninspiring. The graphics were ok but not any better than Privateer 2. The only good aspect was that the ganme seemed more open-ended thatn P2 and the universe was larger. I recommend getting Privateer instead, at least until they (I wish) come out with another Privateer game.

Expansion disk needed

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: February 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Notes from an oldtechnohobbist:

I'll make this short as I can; I've got this game, played it twice. I have seen the limites other talk about. Here is the fix; an Expansion disk.

One. Who says only the Nomads can invade, why not another alien force. Figure a class fifty fighter one third the size of a battleship with cargodoors that open emitting a dozen class twenty fighters maybe with regenerative shields and repairable armour and better guns and missiles. (get inside the cargo hole and blow it to pieces.

Two a Titan class ten figher is made by the Corsairs. How come those guys haven't gotten together and go rampaging through the known fifty two systems and tried to make it Corsair Universe? The same should go for the other loosers,lane hackers, mollys and so on. This should happen only rarely.

Three: The main thrust of this expansion disk is why can't you have your own station? Figure the smallest one goes for about half a million up to the largest for one hundred million. Not counting up grades in shields, armour, guns, missiles. Choose you own bartender from thumbnail pictures. Have a garage so you can park that Titan and board one of your other ships, such as a big cargo vessel so you can make more money to pay for those upgrades. It would be nice if on your station scroll was used instead of voice/over. You could hear a lot more rumors. Plus you would have better access to the news and would know when those large groups of corsairs were coming your way!

Last of all, those artifacts. Well, let some of them be mounted on your ships/station to add to their gun's range, damage...missiles, armour, shields ... all of it.

I tried to E-mail digital anvil...no can do. Someone else tell them for me that they can have this idea for free.

Missing one vital feature: Character!!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: March 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For those of you out there who played (and loved) 'Privateer' with the speech pack, Freelancer will be a disappointment. Despite it's positive features, such as fluent gameplay and an expansive universe (to name a couple), Freelancer is missing the humour and 'homely-feel', if you will, of it's antecedent.

In Privateer, you would encounter Retros who yelled "heathen taste riteous fire!", pirates with Texan accents ("this crate's about to explode!"), Kilrathi, confeds, bounty hunters, militia and aliens. Even better, you could communicate with them. You could ask them how they were or if they needed help; or you could insult them, provoking them into a fight or persuading them not to attack you. This feature added enormously to the feel of Privateer - it truly felt as if you were part of a rich environment.

Conversely, Freelancer lacks this option entirely. Enemies are faceless and numerous. 'Rogues' are simply that - rogues. They have no discernible character. In fact, it's the same with all enemies in the game. This makes each journey into space something of a bore. It's just a matter of take off, fly to the way-point, take out the enemies, etc. etc.

Worse still, the in-game cinematics are perhaps the dullest cutscenes ever made. 'Trent', the Freelancer you play, is as boring as he is monotone. The rest of the characters are as well. In Freelancer's future, personality apparantly has devolved out of humanity entirely. In Privateer, you would meet interesting characters with whom an interplay would develop. There was a spark about the repartee.

Despite how pedantic all this may sound (I too would be skeptical of a criticism of a game that's based entirely on character), it's incredible how much the game suffers as a result. Other reviews will tell you the game is well made, looks good, feels good, and plays well. It is all these things, without a doubt. But when you enter the world of Freelancer, you enter an entirely functional, and dull, gaming environment.

Five Star Freelancer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 19
Date: February 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is the best! With over 40, yes 40 systems to explore and 1st class game play this game is the best. Also you pick jobs that influence your reputation with other people. For example: If you go shoot on every liberty ship in the system don't expect themto let you land at their docks. This game will be released pn March 6 and I'll be one of the first to have it!

Not for Cockpit Jock oldtimers

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: March 12, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Visually, this game is extremely good. The freedom of the plot line will remind you of Privateer. However, once you get into the cockpit, it is not this same. There is no joystick support at all.

If you enjoy first person shooter games, you will probably adapt to the mouse only interface pretty quickly and enjoy the game. However, if you are looking for more of a flight combat sim, you came to the wrong game.

I don't want to be unfair. Everything else about this game is top notch. I just could not get over flying without the joystick and using my programmable buttons. Firing and manuvering was just too cumbersome and I was forced to return the game.

If they ever added joystick support, I would definitely buy it again. In the mean time, I'll stick to my existing sims.

Where is the Joystick Support?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 10
Date: February 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well I played the demo and it is going to be a great game, but the mouse just does NOT have the "feel" of flying anything! Does anyone fly an F-15 Eagle or Stealth Fighter with a mouse? the lack of joystick support is truly disappointing. Maybe a future patch will include joystick support, or maybe some hack will write a "mod" that will give us the joystick support that this type of game demands. I just don't understand why you can't have mouse and/or joystick supported. It's a 4 star game until this issue is fixed or patched. (fin)

Pretty but repetitive

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: March 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

For those of you who have played games like Elite, Privateer, BattleCruiser, Wing Commander, Independence War, etc.

This game is a prettified version of Privateer. I was hoping it would be a replacement for Frontier: Elite 2 (released in 1993!)
But nope. It really isn't much better than Independence War.

Very disappointing for a 2003 title.

Freelancing Excellence

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Microsoft is really becoming a big force in the gaming industry. First Dungeon Siege, and now this? Two wonderful games in a row!

Contrary to other reviews, Freelancer's graphics are amazing, as long as you play it on a decent computer with a good 3D-accelerator. With all the graphics settings enabled to the fullest (which my computer can handle and still run at a high framerate), there are ultra-realistic fog effects (and ultra-freaky! Fly to the Badlands in the New York system to see what I mean), amazing amounts of polygons (look at the characters!), cool special effects, and all that in a highly detailed background of stars, nebulae, galaxies, etc.

Also contrary to other reviews, there are indeed two views to fly in... a cockpit view and a chase camera view. Old school Wing Commander, Privateer, and Strike Commander fans would enjoy the cockpit view (by pressing Ctrl-V during flight) and, if they have surround sound, be simply amazed as they hear all of the lasers and missiles coming from every which way during a large dogfight. Of course, we old school players will miss the good ol' trusty radar, but the small arrows that mark off-screen enemies should be substitute enough. Now, if you were not around back in the Wing Commander days, the chase camera view is definitely a better view to get used to (tactically speaking). While the surround sound won't be nearly as impressive with your camera a slight distance away from your ship, it definitely gives you a tactical advantage by providing you with a wider field of view. Personally, I use both views regularly: chase camera during battles so I can be fully aware of the surroundings, cockpit view while navigating so I can listen to the spiffy trade-lane surround sound effects while I fly from one place to another. Of course, if you are a sticker for realism, there's nothing wrong to staying in cockpit view the entire time.

As to the gameplay... think of all the good features of Dungeon Siege and leave all the bad ones behind. The AI for everything in the game is impressive, greatly simplifying your management during peaceful times (you will beg for those soon enough). Now, the bad thing about Dungeon Siege was its storyline... too little role-playing, too much combat. That will not be a problem in Freelancer. Everywhere you go there will be something to do. Cargo running (yes, you WILL be running), scavenging debris fields, exploring the systems to the fullest, keeping the peace by helping the police, upholding chaos by raiding innocent merchants, fighting for your life against unimaginably deadly, mysterious forces in the universe (oops, I mean, the Order... *cough* *cough*), and you get the point. If you want a game to keep you occupied for hours on end and never get boring... Freelancer is IT!

2 years later

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

So I played the game and loved it when it first came out. Over two years later I'm purchasing it again (lost original) because I've got a sudden urge to play it. I have yet to come across a better space-fight sim. As mentioned though, you're stuck to the main plot line if you want to level up, which is against some gaming fundamentals but outside of that, the game is thoroughly excellent.

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