Mon Feb 24, 2003 1:53 am
Freelancer mini review (and why this game is a letdown)
Hi, everyone. I thought I'd just come by to give my review of Freelancer, after borrowing my friends press gold copy for a few days.
At first I was really enoying Freelancer--the graphics were pretty nice, the ships looked pretty cool, and the sound effects were done well (after I spent about 2 hours fixing the sound issues). But sadly, Freelancer isn't nearly as open-ended as they claim it to be. In fact, once you see through the glitter, you realize that this game is just as linear as any other. After about 10 missions I realized just how linear this game was, and it went down hill from there.
The game haults your progress of the main plot by your net worth, so you can't actually go to new systems to try and find new ships or equipment until you've reached a certain net worth. The rub is this, once you reach the net worth required to continue the next level of the main plot YOU CANNOT TAKE ON ANOTHER MISSION until you continue the main plot. What this means is that you have the main plot shoved down your throat and there is no ability to just go out and make money to your hearts content so you can afford a much nicer ship. You continue down the plot line with just enough money as the developers want you to have and there is nothing you can do about it. In a word: lame.
Some of the ships are pretty nice, and look good as well, but you are, of course, limited to their access until you reach a certain point in the plot. This is very unlike the "Elite" games where you could buy anything you damn well wanted at pretty much anytime in the game. Now that's open-ended. Freelancer is anything but.
The NPC voice acting is so-so, but it's still better than all text. At least we have voice acting, so I won't complain too much. The plot is barely entertaining. It's your standard sci-fi fair. I won't go into detail as to not ruin the plot, but trust me, you've seen it a thousand times before. The way the plot is continued is incredibly lackluster as well. After mission 10 it's all ho-hum, the same old mission after mission.
The dynamic mission generator is quite literally THE SAME DAMN MISSION over and over, just in a different area of the sector. I kid you not! There are precisely TWO different missions: 1) attack and destroy the enemy base, and 2) Find and kill what's-his-name and retrieve the item.
The missions are utterly ridiculous and mind numbing after you've done 10 of them. Ugh.
If you were hoping for an "Elite" style game, forget about it. My recommendation to you is to go get X-Beyond the Frontier and the XTension expansion pack. Or just X-BtF Gold which has them both. Now THAT is an open ended game in the loving memory of Elite....but Freelancer is a joke compared to either of them.
I'm sorry to drop the hammer on this title, because I was hoping for more just like everyone else in these forums, but I recommend you read some reviews before you waste your money on this game. It will entertain you for a day, until the game slowly grinds down to a shrieking hault of boredom and linear emptiness.
The graphics engine is nice, and it does run well on lower end systems, but that is where the positive remarks for this title END.
When you play Freelancer, you realize that X-BtF is about 100 times the game that this is, so why play Freelancer at all?!
Here is what X-BtF has that Freelancer does NOT:
1) You can truly go to any sector of the universe whenever you see fit, from point A to point B after you've visited that area once already. In Freelancer you have to go from jump gate to jump gate. Going from one end of the game UNiverse to the other could quite literally take you an hour of INSANELY boring hops from one jump gate to the other. Who the hell designed this system?!
2) You can own FACTORIES in X, people! You can buy or hijack enemy ships and make them your own, and then send them to work in your factories in X. Is there anything remotely like this in Freelancer? Umm, no.
3) Once the intro stops in X-BtF you are plopped into the gaming world and, baby, it's up to you! Do whatever you want, make money fighting, capturing, and selling pirate ships, or build up your financial empire by building factories making a wide variety of goods. Or, hell, do them both!
It's total freedom and all depends on your ingenuity. In Freelancers you have one path. Do about 6 missions until your net worth is at such and such, then you're forced to continue the main plot. Rinse and repeat that until the game is over. *yawn*
4) You can own one ship in Freelancer. In X...holy ****, I don't think there is a limit. You can continue to buy frieghters, and fighters until your computer blows up from running to slow. Maybe there is a limit, but I've never hit it. My computer never slowed down, either.
5) The Universe in X feels so much larger than Freelancer. Freelancer is the same old canned sector after sector. Once you've seen two, you've seen them all. I'll admit that some sectors are pretty beautiful, but really, asisde from the space background there is nothing new in any two sectors.
Ok, I guess this review has turned into a comparison of Freelancer and X-BtF/XTensions, but you know why? Because after 5 hours of playing Freelancer, I promise you will say to yourself, "Why the hell am I not playing X? It is all that Freelancer is and 100 times more."
And if you haven't played X-tension, then, brother, do not walk, but RUN to your nearest online store and buy that game, because Freelancer has nothing for you that X-tension can't do tenfold.
In a nutshell this game is a disappointment. In the end, I realized that the pretty graphics just tricked me into wasting a couple days on this title, when I'd have been better off using my time for something else.
The graphics were nice, though, so in all fairness, I will give this title 7 stars out of 10.
But really, I cannot stress enough, that if it's an open-ended space adventure game that you are looking for, X-Beyond the Frontier GOLD (which included the Xtensions expansion) cannot be beat, and Freelancer doesn't even enter the race.
(ps. if anyone has questions about the game, I'd be happy to answer them...)
Edited by - GoblinToe on 24-02-2003 02:02:10
At first I was really enoying Freelancer--the graphics were pretty nice, the ships looked pretty cool, and the sound effects were done well (after I spent about 2 hours fixing the sound issues). But sadly, Freelancer isn't nearly as open-ended as they claim it to be. In fact, once you see through the glitter, you realize that this game is just as linear as any other. After about 10 missions I realized just how linear this game was, and it went down hill from there.
The game haults your progress of the main plot by your net worth, so you can't actually go to new systems to try and find new ships or equipment until you've reached a certain net worth. The rub is this, once you reach the net worth required to continue the next level of the main plot YOU CANNOT TAKE ON ANOTHER MISSION until you continue the main plot. What this means is that you have the main plot shoved down your throat and there is no ability to just go out and make money to your hearts content so you can afford a much nicer ship. You continue down the plot line with just enough money as the developers want you to have and there is nothing you can do about it. In a word: lame.
Some of the ships are pretty nice, and look good as well, but you are, of course, limited to their access until you reach a certain point in the plot. This is very unlike the "Elite" games where you could buy anything you damn well wanted at pretty much anytime in the game. Now that's open-ended. Freelancer is anything but.
The NPC voice acting is so-so, but it's still better than all text. At least we have voice acting, so I won't complain too much. The plot is barely entertaining. It's your standard sci-fi fair. I won't go into detail as to not ruin the plot, but trust me, you've seen it a thousand times before. The way the plot is continued is incredibly lackluster as well. After mission 10 it's all ho-hum, the same old mission after mission.
The dynamic mission generator is quite literally THE SAME DAMN MISSION over and over, just in a different area of the sector. I kid you not! There are precisely TWO different missions: 1) attack and destroy the enemy base, and 2) Find and kill what's-his-name and retrieve the item.
The missions are utterly ridiculous and mind numbing after you've done 10 of them. Ugh.
If you were hoping for an "Elite" style game, forget about it. My recommendation to you is to go get X-Beyond the Frontier and the XTension expansion pack. Or just X-BtF Gold which has them both. Now THAT is an open ended game in the loving memory of Elite....but Freelancer is a joke compared to either of them.
I'm sorry to drop the hammer on this title, because I was hoping for more just like everyone else in these forums, but I recommend you read some reviews before you waste your money on this game. It will entertain you for a day, until the game slowly grinds down to a shrieking hault of boredom and linear emptiness.
The graphics engine is nice, and it does run well on lower end systems, but that is where the positive remarks for this title END.
When you play Freelancer, you realize that X-BtF is about 100 times the game that this is, so why play Freelancer at all?!
Here is what X-BtF has that Freelancer does NOT:
1) You can truly go to any sector of the universe whenever you see fit, from point A to point B after you've visited that area once already. In Freelancer you have to go from jump gate to jump gate. Going from one end of the game UNiverse to the other could quite literally take you an hour of INSANELY boring hops from one jump gate to the other. Who the hell designed this system?!
2) You can own FACTORIES in X, people! You can buy or hijack enemy ships and make them your own, and then send them to work in your factories in X. Is there anything remotely like this in Freelancer? Umm, no.
3) Once the intro stops in X-BtF you are plopped into the gaming world and, baby, it's up to you! Do whatever you want, make money fighting, capturing, and selling pirate ships, or build up your financial empire by building factories making a wide variety of goods. Or, hell, do them both!
It's total freedom and all depends on your ingenuity. In Freelancers you have one path. Do about 6 missions until your net worth is at such and such, then you're forced to continue the main plot. Rinse and repeat that until the game is over. *yawn*
4) You can own one ship in Freelancer. In X...holy ****, I don't think there is a limit. You can continue to buy frieghters, and fighters until your computer blows up from running to slow. Maybe there is a limit, but I've never hit it. My computer never slowed down, either.
5) The Universe in X feels so much larger than Freelancer. Freelancer is the same old canned sector after sector. Once you've seen two, you've seen them all. I'll admit that some sectors are pretty beautiful, but really, asisde from the space background there is nothing new in any two sectors.
Ok, I guess this review has turned into a comparison of Freelancer and X-BtF/XTensions, but you know why? Because after 5 hours of playing Freelancer, I promise you will say to yourself, "Why the hell am I not playing X? It is all that Freelancer is and 100 times more."
And if you haven't played X-tension, then, brother, do not walk, but RUN to your nearest online store and buy that game, because Freelancer has nothing for you that X-tension can't do tenfold.
In a nutshell this game is a disappointment. In the end, I realized that the pretty graphics just tricked me into wasting a couple days on this title, when I'd have been better off using my time for something else.
The graphics were nice, though, so in all fairness, I will give this title 7 stars out of 10.
But really, I cannot stress enough, that if it's an open-ended space adventure game that you are looking for, X-Beyond the Frontier GOLD (which included the Xtensions expansion) cannot be beat, and Freelancer doesn't even enter the race.
(ps. if anyone has questions about the game, I'd be happy to answer them...)
Edited by - GoblinToe on 24-02-2003 02:02:10
