Freelancer

"Not perfect, but good."

Let me start with this. I remember first trying the demo of Freelancer. I was amazed. I rushed out to the store to buy it the next day. I turned it on, and started some singleplayer. WOW. Just. Wow.

Story- 10/10 This game has a story. But not just any story. It is full of suspense, and some twists. To my delight, it transitioned perfectly from one event to another. It's so involved that I cant even say the beginning of it without a spoiler. It's perfect, and made me play the game over and over just too see it again.

Gameplay- 8/10 Well, with a good story, you want a good gameplay, now don't you. Fortunately, this game comes with just that. It's nothing amazing, however. While the main story has you playing, you need to take breaks in between missions, just like real life would have it. That is where this falls short.

Unless you like to be a trader, which is pretty bland, any mission you do is repetitive and boring. You shoot down some ships. Woot? Sometimes it even adds poor excuses for twists by making enemies flee to multiple waypoints. Woot? And better yet, you occasionally tractor in some plans for whatever or capture someone by trackoring in an escape pod. Once again, woot? It might sound like something is being left out, but I assure you, I speak the truth.

When the game ends, you wind up free to explore. But there isn't much to explore, save a few systems and neat ships. But that gets old fast.

Now, most games have some sort of modding community. This one is no different (I'm even part of it). Modding communities should not be the only thing that saves a game. Unfortunately, this is the case here. And worse, the community is dying fast while the X Wing Alliance community, from 1998, is still fairly well alive. The mods are what save this game, rebalancing it, making travel faster, and the like. Easy to do too. Thought I might mention that, as you might be interested in modding your game when you get it to make it more fun.

Controls- 10/10 WOW. This game does not use the joystick. It uses the mouse. Now, the hardcore space sim fans might not like this, but I assure you, it is good. You get two types of flight, free and mouse-click. Free means that wherever you move the mouse, your ship moves in that direction. Mouseclick means that you click the mouse and move it to move in a direction, making going straight easier. The controls are very few, once again a good point. No longer do you need to memorize the ENTIRE keyboard WITH shift buttons WITH control buttons WITH control and shift buttons to play the game. A few simple keys work fine, and its nothing that cant be done with the HUD. Very nice on the ol' noggin.

Multiplayer 8/10 Not bad here. Much more fun than the regular gameplay. Cheaters are in high numbers however, and that is actually MY fault (long story, just browse around on the modding sites to understand why) Luckily, server admin mods have been made to fix this, and a useless patch created to try the same.

As for the actual fun factor, it plays just like the end of singleplayer, where you can roam around free to do whatever you want. But with other players. It's quite fun to be playing the same game and cross paths with other pilots. You can even make groups and tackle missions together. The groups can be as big as you want, so if you organize a server war, it can get quite fun. And usually the better players will help you get a good start by giving you a million credits, or escorting you to a far away system and giving you credits to buy a ship there. For the most part, people are polite, and I don't think I've ever come across someone with an attitude problem.

You'll enjoy the multiplayer.

Graphics and Sound- 8/10 The sound in this game is amazing. You get some awesome music, especially in the main campaign. Not much else to say there.

The graphics on their own are outstanding. Pretty nice lookin ships, and some nifty characters, including your own. But why the 8? Well, the voice acting outside of the main campaign is terrible. Lips don't match words, some pausing when you land on stations and planets (they used robots as dock commissioners to cover up for that in a few places). And by pausing, I mean pausing like from Nintendo sports games. This also occurs when talking to someone in a bar. The people sound like 7 year olds performing in a play, trying so hard to memorize their lines, when all effort is futile. Not fun, but you can always work your way around that by turning the sound off completely. It takes from the game, but sometimes it really is the best course of action.

Replayability- 7/10 Those rebalance mods make the main game more fun to replay, but even the singleplayer was good on its own. However, the game WILL get old, unless you mod it (which I've stressed over and over). But even that only goes so far. Within a few months, you will be bored. But if you play it every now and then, it will maintain enjoyability.

Pros-
Nifty Controls
Fun
Nice Graphics
Nice Story

Cons-
Gets Old
Single Player Is Boring Once Completed, Unless Replayed Over and Over
Multiplayer Has Its Share of Cheaters



Buy or Rent?

Definite buy. It will be worth it.

Overall

While Freelancer didn't get completed to its full potential, it is pretty good. It should be worth the money, and isn't overly expensive.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/03