I think some just bash the game. While others are upset at whats missing, not that freelancer per say is a bad game, just that things are not there, that they thought would be there, or hoped would be there.

In this economy, with higher gas prices, higher living expensives. People are being careful with their money.

Therefore some people will have a wait and see attitude with FL. I am in that camp, I am going to wait and see how much support FL gets before I decide to buy it. Because although This game looks really awesome, there are some troubling issues brewing.

And as most people know, once you buy the game and use it, you cant return it.

Freelancer is a great game and I have only played the demo. There is only 2 things I can see that would be nice if they would fix it later with a patch....

1. The "turret " should be a true turret view. Or atleast have the turrets fire automatically.

2. More random missions than just the "kill this badguy" thingie.

But even these are minor issues. As a whole..the game rocks!

My little and to the point review of the Demo.

The Great, Good, and awsome:
Controls
Combat
Graphics
Sound
Main characters as seen in the Demo
Cutscenes
Main Missions
And I assume the Story will be great.

What they did bad:
Repetitive Diagloge
Only a Few Different type of side missions-
- Assinated a person by destroying their ship
- Kill every enemey target at a certian waypoint
- Destroy a persons ship and trackor in his escape pod
No Dynamic Economy (I was expecting something like what they did in Privateer 2).
Have to be at a certian level to get certian ships, weapons, and other items.

The limited kind of side missions is the big one for me. If they change that one in a patch or an expansion pak, that would make me a very happy person, and will really make this game shine.

Things they didn't put in but would be nice to have. But it doesn't affect how I feel about the game:
Own more then one ship.
Be able to have a home bases that I can buy or rent to hold all my extra ships in.


If they had not talked about it being a dynamic universe. If they were not the same ones that did Privateer 1 and 2 then I would not have expected more different type of side missions, and I would not have expected a dynamic economy.
What I have expected that they would have worked to make this game better then their past games. But instead they did not out due themselves.

But I will buy this game hoping that they will eventually outdue themselves with a patch or an addon.

the addition of better random missions would go along way for improving the game FOR ME.

Didnt someone say that there were 3000 different random missions?

no offense but 3,000 random missions that basically kill the XXXXX doesnt sound intriguing, but then again, I have not played the full game yet. I am holding back my buying or not until we get some reviews up.

One problem is expectations. It was one of CGM's Five Games That Will Change Gaming, and under its original spec it could have. Right now its prime innovation is the mouse control (imo.)

The feature set is not as expansive as privateer which is disappointing, there isn't as much to trade, combat, or piracy as you could hope for. That said It is fun and by no means a bad game.

But 6 years... maybe will get the SDK.

You want a review ?

Here's one :

I expected a game like EVE but then one without the lag from eve's beta.
I expected inverted mouse (actually I'm a stick lover ahhhhhhhhhhhh).
I expected to be able to fly big ships too.
And I did not expect an arcade-like game.

Other then that.. its still addictive, great story line, open ended, great team spirit in multiplayer games and I will spent many hours in FL.

Conclusion, I expected other things, does that make this game bad ?
NO, its good, just have to get used to it.

Want more prove ?

I started playing yesterday around 5pm, its 7am now and my wife is going to be very pissed that I ain't in bed yet :p
(yes, I played all that time)

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One problem is expectations. It was one of CGM's Five Games That Will Change Gaming, and under its original spec it could have. Right now its prime innovation is the mouse control (imo.)

The feature set is not as expansive as privateer which is disappointing, there isn't as much to trade, combat, or piracy as you could hope for. That said It is fun and by no means a bad game.

But 6 years... maybe will get the SDK.

---

As a matter of fact, this game may very well already have "changed gaming".
In case you hadn't noticed, the space-sim community is still the smallest gaming-community out there...
This game is well on it's way on reviving our numbers (think: sending in replacements).
Or haven't you noticed the enormous amounts of "outsiders" that all of a sudden love space-sim's, just thanks to the DEMO?
(well if you haven't... i have).

This game is putting the genre back on it's feet, the only way to do that is by simplifying the gameplay.
If this game sells good (which it will), the community will be growing again and thus the "field" will be open for other developers to create space-sim's without losing tons of dollars on it...

So to cut it short: the demo alone is already "changing the gaming world", let alone the full version...

Ive just got off from playing freelancer for a good 18 hours, the demo mind you.
First off i got to say i am disappointed in it, way back when this game was in progress i got the impression it was a space sim, but its far from it, all it is, is a space shooter, theres nothing wrong with just shooting things, but i was really looking forward to exploring planets, i mean by actually walking my character onto a planet and checking out NPC's, the city's, towns, space ports, walking into shops and interacting with the locals, doing a little theft and maybe hiring another pilot to join you in space, but there is nothing like that, or is there?.

The combat system is perfect, thats what i love about it, but too much shooting all the time means repetitiveness, and boredom. Conidering this is from microsoft i was expecting so much better, example: FS2002 , mechwarrior series, very good games. The game just lacks variety, all the missions you do come down to one thing, shooting. There really isnt much exploration apart from going to different galaxy's and visting space ports, after a while once you have been through one galaxy im sure you know how the rest will be, theres no surprises, you know what to expect, simply more space ports and planets to dock at to look for jobs and minimum NPC interaction, theres no other chit chat, either they have a job for you or they dont, or they have a rumour, thats it.

Something has gone wrong and microsoft must of been in a hurry to release this because i reckon they should cancel the release of this game and put more work into it.

Im holding back on this game until one day my dreams come true and a true space sim arrives. Heck, atleast Battlecruiser 3000 let you fly over the surfaces of the planets

Thats my two sense

Strike - you are changing/hijacking the topic... Please comment on WHAT IS IN THE GAME, not what SHOULD haven been in there....

Best Regards
Christian "Bargib" Koerner
Editor in Chief, The Lancers Reactor

We can hope that this is the game that revives the genre. Derek Smart is leaving the field which leaves us with Hard Light Productions as the only active party. Right now I would guess the bulk of forum traffic is starved Space Simmers. People who bring up elite and complain about the lack of a dynamic economy are old timers.
The signs of hope are in the absolute blitz of prerelease media coverage. Hell Tom Chick (if you remember his review of Deus Ex or his recent review of MoO3) really likes Freelancer. Microsoft also has a strong commitment in the game.

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We can hope that this is the game that revives the genre. Derek Smart is leaving the field which leaves us with Hard Light Productions as the only active party. Right now I would guess the bulk of forum traffic is starved Space Simmers. People who bring up elite and complain about the lack of a dynamic economy are old timers.
The signs of hope are in the absolute blitz of prerelease media coverage. Hell Tom Chick (if you remember his review of Deus Ex or his recent review of MoO3) really likes Freelancer. Microsoft also has a strong commitment in the game.

---

I've been keeping a part of the dutch gaming community up-to-date on Freelancer (announcing the demo release, forum topic, etc.)

The demo alone already had an impact on many gamers...

Both news announcements (demo on fileplanet & demo elsewhere) drew A LOT of attention, one of them made it into the list of "most active news topics".
That's quite a big deal, considering the fact that it's mainly a FPS/console gamers website, which dousn't even have a space-sim board...
Well over 3/4th of the people who replied, thought space-sim's where boring and to tough to get the hang off, after playing the demo they came to the conclusion they loved it!

The topic i posted on it's General board, is currently the most active topic on the entire forum (all 16 boards or so)...
Mainly of people talking about how they love the game, or how they never thought they'd like a space-sim...
Afcourse there was a minor warez-discussion, after some people started talking about the warez version, but they got 'silenced'


So to cut it short, it's already working...
Okay, i may have exaggerated a bit, but not that much



EDIT: Oops, this was an understatement!
There are 24 boards in all, not 16

Edited by - Droniac on 27-02-2003 10:14:03

It's a fun game no doubt. First 20 hours are great. After that the repetetiveness of it starts to wear on you. Every mission is identical (the fact that they didn't even bother to add missions for traders/explorers is flabbergasting). Every planet/station is identical. Every battle is identical (and it doesn't help that the AI is rather poor, all you have to do is launch torpedoes at charging fighters slow down a bit and they will go right into the torpedo) with you fighting 1-4 enemy ships, and sometimes 1-4 more come. That is it. I wish there would be much more involvement with huge battleships and spacestations, those kind of battles work great in Tie Fighter, Freespace and Wing Commander but here you don't see them at all. So there is definately not enough variety to fighting in this game, all enemies ships are the same size roughly, the move at exactly the same speed and use the same tactic every time. Seen one and you have seen them all.

You also level up very fast once you hit a lucrative traderoute. I got a lvl 10 ship already and have found loads of level 10 weapons, and I haven't been in hardly any of the outer systems. Now there is very little incentive for me to continue. I know I won't find better ships or weapons (multiplayer).

Space is very 2D in the game. Every planet/station/point of interest is in the same height, which really breaks the illusion for me.

The universe is completely static. When I play multiplayer I can go away for 1000 hours and let others play and when I rejoin the game it will be identical to when I left. The same traders go to the same destinations, the same fighters spawn and patrol the same route. There will never be a power shift anywhere in the universe, the same fractions will own the same stations/planets no matter what happens. There will never be a station/base that is destroyed (though ironically they seem to be under attack quite often). The same trade routes I used to amass wealth will give me the same revenue 1000 hours later. The universe is just a static backdrop in this game, where nothing any player ever does will change anything.

Good things about the game: Great interface/controls, good graphics, fun first 15-20 hours (when you discover new things, after that you just rediscover the same thing in other locations, ie first ship wreck was fun to find, the 30th not very exciting).

I am mostly talking about multiplayer. I have basically only played it because most people said single player was a dissapointment with being forced to do missions and it was short. So I mostly played it in multiplayer with a bunch of friends as an openended spacegame. I would recommend people to play it, since it is pretty fun initially.

Edited by - Freud on 27-02-2003 10:17:08

Try formating with patrols into debri fields and asteroid fields. I love it. Mine and shoot up every pirate scum in vincinity, while still patroling around. Great way to explore to.

I dont have any negative things to say yet. I take the game as it is and try to be positive. Its not about what the game dont have. Its what it have that exites me.

DA has done a good job, and the mouse control is amazing. The WASD control just LAYS in my fingertips from playing all the 1 pers shooters.

I Rule!!!!!