Tue Feb 24, 2004 12:59 pm
Read and rebut... please
I was looking for EVERYTHING i can find about freelancer (im a fanatic like that) and i came across THIS horrific review. i like destroying other peoples logic, so here it is, straight from www.gamefaqs.com.
Review by clowning
I was very skeptical about buying this game, but then I read the box and did something I almost never do...believe the marketing lies. This game was billed as a free-roving game, where you could abandon the storyline and explore the universe...be a smuggler, a pirate, a merchant.... Wrong! I bought the game because the ads reminded me of an old seafaring merchant game I used to play on the SNES (I can't remember the name of it). In that game you really could be a pirate or a merchant, depending on how you wanted to play. I remembered that game fondly, and thought that maybe freelancer would be like that but in space. Again...wrong!
Other than great sound and graphics and a huge environment, this game is outright dull. The totally linear storyline is foreshadowed from the very beginning, the characters are stale and stereotypical and the AI is the worst I have ever seen in a space sim.
In combat, all enemy ships attack you, period. Nothing else matters. That means you'll spend most of your time running and hiding and dodging while your allies finish off the enemy, and they take a while to do it. And it gets worst. Most missions are solo missions, where you are outnumbered and outgunned, sometimes massively so. If you are not good at sims, you will never get past the story without god mode, unless you are willing to spend the time to get good. Unfortunately, this game does not encourage that desire after the first ten hours or so. Many of the missions are absurdly hard. Combine that with the inability to save the game while in space, and you have a game where you spend half your time staring at the screen while your ship travels through a jumpgate in-between reloads and flying to missions. Space travel would not be bad in this game if there was something to do, but the fact is, there is only one thing to actually DO in this game...fight. And the fighting gets very hard at times, and is very boring after a while. All missions are the same... ''go there, kill that,'' with sometimes a ''capture that'' thrown in for good measure. Despite the enormity of the game, play is very limited.
The other problem with this game is its linearity. The SP requires you to follow the story if you want to gain access to better ships and equipment and planets. You could trade your way to a million credits, but it would not matter, that larger freighter will never appear in the list of ships to purchase because you are not high enough level. And how do you increase your level, you ask? By playing the storyline. There is one plus to this, though, and that is that after beating the game, you can actually be whatever you want to be. Unfortunately, there is no real incentive to be anything but tired of the game. And travel takes so long and is so boring, despite the occasional pirate attack, that you probably won't want to be anything other than a player of some other game. Playing as a merchant, or anything else in this game, is not rewarding, because there is nothing to get out of it.
Finally, the factions are mostly irrelevant. You can't join any of them (you're a freelancer, remember?), and during the story they go from love to hate in a single mission as the story develops. Some weapons will not be sold to you if the faction does not like you enough, but that won't really affect you, you can always buy something comparable.
In short, this is another lousy game to populate the lousy-game shelf. It is huge and promises a lot, but delivers almost none of its claims.
Reviewer's Score: 2 / 10, Originally Posted on 05/03/2003
tear it up, please
----------
Orillion: So trent, will you help us with the mission?
Trent: Sure, as long as I'm not shot at, knocked out, held at gunpoint, electrocuted, skewered alive by giant alien shapeshifters, have to dive out windows, or fight off spindly nomad incubi.
Edited by - phantomewok on 2/24/2004 12:59:51 PM
Review by clowning
I was very skeptical about buying this game, but then I read the box and did something I almost never do...believe the marketing lies. This game was billed as a free-roving game, where you could abandon the storyline and explore the universe...be a smuggler, a pirate, a merchant.... Wrong! I bought the game because the ads reminded me of an old seafaring merchant game I used to play on the SNES (I can't remember the name of it). In that game you really could be a pirate or a merchant, depending on how you wanted to play. I remembered that game fondly, and thought that maybe freelancer would be like that but in space. Again...wrong!
Other than great sound and graphics and a huge environment, this game is outright dull. The totally linear storyline is foreshadowed from the very beginning, the characters are stale and stereotypical and the AI is the worst I have ever seen in a space sim.
In combat, all enemy ships attack you, period. Nothing else matters. That means you'll spend most of your time running and hiding and dodging while your allies finish off the enemy, and they take a while to do it. And it gets worst. Most missions are solo missions, where you are outnumbered and outgunned, sometimes massively so. If you are not good at sims, you will never get past the story without god mode, unless you are willing to spend the time to get good. Unfortunately, this game does not encourage that desire after the first ten hours or so. Many of the missions are absurdly hard. Combine that with the inability to save the game while in space, and you have a game where you spend half your time staring at the screen while your ship travels through a jumpgate in-between reloads and flying to missions. Space travel would not be bad in this game if there was something to do, but the fact is, there is only one thing to actually DO in this game...fight. And the fighting gets very hard at times, and is very boring after a while. All missions are the same... ''go there, kill that,'' with sometimes a ''capture that'' thrown in for good measure. Despite the enormity of the game, play is very limited.
The other problem with this game is its linearity. The SP requires you to follow the story if you want to gain access to better ships and equipment and planets. You could trade your way to a million credits, but it would not matter, that larger freighter will never appear in the list of ships to purchase because you are not high enough level. And how do you increase your level, you ask? By playing the storyline. There is one plus to this, though, and that is that after beating the game, you can actually be whatever you want to be. Unfortunately, there is no real incentive to be anything but tired of the game. And travel takes so long and is so boring, despite the occasional pirate attack, that you probably won't want to be anything other than a player of some other game. Playing as a merchant, or anything else in this game, is not rewarding, because there is nothing to get out of it.
Finally, the factions are mostly irrelevant. You can't join any of them (you're a freelancer, remember?), and during the story they go from love to hate in a single mission as the story develops. Some weapons will not be sold to you if the faction does not like you enough, but that won't really affect you, you can always buy something comparable.
In short, this is another lousy game to populate the lousy-game shelf. It is huge and promises a lot, but delivers almost none of its claims.
Reviewer's Score: 2 / 10, Originally Posted on 05/03/2003
tear it up, please
----------
Orillion: So trent, will you help us with the mission?
Trent: Sure, as long as I'm not shot at, knocked out, held at gunpoint, electrocuted, skewered alive by giant alien shapeshifters, have to dive out windows, or fight off spindly nomad incubi.
Edited by - phantomewok on 2/24/2004 12:59:51 PM
But I'll stay my opinion until I actually do some freelancing.
