Freelancer

""Name's Trent. I'm a Freelancer""

I got into Freelancer by watching a review on the TV. Then, I downloaded the demo, and loved it. Soon I bought the game, and loved it too. It seemed perfect for some time, but then I started to see its flaws too.

Gameplay

Freelancer isn't your standard space simulator. You don't need a joystick, actually, even if you have one, it's no use, as Freelancer doesn't even support a joystick. Instead, it's controlled with your mouse, and this control system, being rather unique at the moment, or at least new to me, works excellently well. Most of the flying and shooting is done with the mouse, but you also have some keys on the keyboard you have to use.

The game's difficulty is varying. At some points it's way too easy, and some of the missions are so hard you'd like to smash your computer out of the window. So, you could also say it's balanced.

Story

The game lets you into the shoes of Edison Trent, a Freelancer, thus the game name. He had just made a deal with a person when the station they are on is blown up by mysterious ships. The escape pod from the station lands on Planet Manhattan, and Trent needs to find a job. He gets one, from a Liberty Security officer, miss Jun'ko Zane, and they start working together.

There's 13 story missions. They aren't that long, about one hour of gameplay each. Some are more, some are less. Between missions you have to 'freelance', get some money either by trading goods, doing random missions, or salvaging wrecks.

The freelancing part isn't that long, so you can beat the whole story campaign in one or two days if you're fast, and play too much. You really can't leave the storyline, you're trapped to follow it from the start.

The story itself is rather good, with all the excitement, mystery, action and even some comedy. After the story, your fate is up to you again. You need to get cash again, to reach the ultimate goal, getting the best ship with the best guns.

Unfortunately, this is achieved rather fast too. And after that point, at least in Single Player, there's not too much left to do. Slaughtering weak police ships in your uber vessel can be fun for a while, but only for a really short one.

Sounds

The sounds aren't anything special. Lasers go 'zingg' and engines make sounds, but that's pretty much it. There's music too, and while the music you hear most of the time isn't anything special, there are a few 'masterpieces' which you hear during the story missions.

The speech is something, well, something. There's about 6 people in the voice team, and while some of them are famous, that doesn't make up for the poor quantity. Almost every other person you meet sounds the same, and also their speech is parsed together from small phrases.

Graphics

Graphics is what Freelancer is good in. The ships look great, space isn't empty at all, instead filled with debris fields, nebulae, planets and stars. The character models are one of the best I've seen. Everything looks impressive.

Replayability

It's fun to complete the single player campaign at least twice, and in multiplayer you can create at least 5 characters without getting bored. The game lasts pretty long, at least it does for me.

Buy it?

While Freelancer is a great game, it's also an expensive one. $50 is quite a bit too much, so I'd wait until the prices go down, and then buy it.

Overall

Freelancer is a good game, but it could have been better. Let's hope a patch or an expansion will make it perfect.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/28/03, Updated 05/28/03