Freelancer

"Think Privateer"

Freelancer is a space-sim, based in the Sirus system (which may or may not exist, who can be sure?) somewhere out in space. Freelancer is the sequel to Starlancer, which is a game I did not play, so I believe that edge gives me a rather unbiased view.

Story - 8/10 - From the 1/3 of the game that Microsoft has so graciously allowed me to listen to, which comprises of only the static chatter and the occasional bar encounter, the story seemed to be quite deep. I come to that conclusion because I had absolutely no idea what was going on for a large majority of the time, but understood after I stumbled upon the answer that the question was presented in one of the sceens I was barred access to. The story is quite possibly more linear than a sidescroller however, as regardless of your choices everything plays out the same.

Control - 10/10 - Flawless execution of arcade acrobatics controls. If you even moderately liked wing commander or ace combat then you'll enjoy the easy to use point and blow stuff up interface.

Gameplay - 3/10 - There is absolutely no AI in this game. None. If any enemy ship appears on your screen, it will stop whatever it was doing, for example dogfighting by itself versus 30 liberty gunships, and head straight for you guns blazing when it comes within range, only to be destroyed since its b-line for you forced it to become easy prey to the forementioned armada. Thus- in relatively small numbers you can fly around in circles and watch the enemy be destroyed trying to rain on your shields. However if the enemy even moderately outmans your assistance, then you will be the recipient of several missiles a minute coupled with a hailstorm of enemy fire while your allies try to shoot them in the back (as they tend to just fly right by allied interceptors heading for their target, aka- you). This and the fact that you are constantly underpowered versus your targets (because their weapons tend to be several ''levels'' over yours, and you cannot level up to theirs until AFTER you need even better ones).

Graphics - 8/10 - Although I would have liked a little more variety in ships, or an ability to cosmetically change your ship, the myrad of options available compensates slightly (each gun looks slightly different and produces a different effect when fired). The scenery is incredible, ice clouds look like iceclouds, and become ice clouds (with ice!) when you fly near/through them. The problem here is a relatively short distance draw, which means that objects that are farther away may be draw in before objects that would obscure your veiw of them. I didn't enjoy heading for a planet and walking away from the computer on auto-pilot then realizing that I had entered into a astroid field and been destroyed by flying into too many rocks.

Sound - 0/10 - Freelancer does not support (although it says it does in the manual and on the site) most preinstalled factory soundcards, including the chipsets commonly used on prebuilt Intel motherboards. Because of this, my computer, after having exhausted both the scripted help and a tech support representative, could not hear a majority of the game (no cutscene voices, radio chatter cut off by other noises, and most of the non-music sound was jarrbled). This problem is not just a cosmetic difference either, as without properly installing the MP3 codec included with Freelancer (which will not install at all on one of my computers), you will be unable to progress past level 3, because fo a bug associated with it.

Replayability - 3/10 - Unless you want to fly every ship available, or side with different factions at different points in the game to produce different effects (which does not have any effect; moot point), then there is no point to replaying the game.

Multiplayer - 4/10 - Basically a replay of the single player mission without the cutscenes and story missions (no problem here, couldn't hear them anyways). Needless to say this is a better option to the single player if you're playing by yourself, just for the intention of ''pre-planning'' your single player experience. The best part of this is probably dogfighting other people, but since you'll start relatively new and will probably be pirated by every mid-high level who just happens to be in the area on a whim (coupled with the fact that you respawn on the last planet you landed on, often forcing you to greet that person several times exiting the planet until you eventually leave the game).

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/22/03, Updated 03/22/03