Never played P1 unfortunatley,but did get that buzz with p2 and am with fl and will with x2.Are the good old days u cant beat em,so good look pilot from one old fart to another.

Edited by - saber on 01-03-2003 21:05:59

Nice post!

I am a old Privateer fan also. And I know what you mean about the excitment from playing Privateer. I have the same feelings for Freelancer. Going on 14 hours playtime with just one save game file in the demo! I have reached the point tho were I really would like to upgrade my ship and make some more credits. Just 3 more days to go!

You haven't lived long enough if you compare Freelancer with a "new" game such as Privateer

It contains most, if not all, the features of the mother of all mothers of space trading games: Elite.



- Petter

Ahh, Privateer, a great game. I remember with a lot of the old Origin games you had to purchase the Speech Packs separately.

I was semi-disappointed with Privateer 2. Just did grab me like the first one did. I think part of it was due to the FMV,not to mention the dialogue. That game really needed subtitles, as it was hard to hear what they were saying at times.

On an Origin Sidenote, I was always disappointed that we never got a "Strike Commander 2". I loved that game.

Edited by - Cush on 02-03-2003 05:51:37

Mitchman, you have sparked an even deeper memory in my 7 Anthrax shot laden gray matter. (If you're in the military you might understand what I just meant. ) Anyway, I was stationed in Okinawa in 1987 thru 1990 and somewhere in-between I do remember my roommate playing Elite. I tried my hand at it and had the darndest time docking with space stations. I even think it was in CGA graphics. Well Mitchman, thanks for the reminder!

Now where's my Ensure and Depends.

I'm with you Cush about Strike Commander! I loved that game too. No doubt Chris Roberts was my favorite game producer!

Gunnery Sergeant Mark "Thorndog" Thornton
USMC

Ah Privateer, such a fantastic game. Elite Plus also, truly amazing work.

Mitchman:

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Freelancer, but how the hell can you compare it to Elite?

(Before you finish reading this, take into considering I'm looking from the POV of what's available at the time the game in question has been released, common concepts, working ideas, ability to create given the systems at the time)

Freelancer is a arcade style action game based around combat. Interaction outside of combat is limited to just shipping stuff from point A to point B, not nessecarily a bad thing if the game is dynamic, but many people have already proven the universe to be focused around the player. Even in combat you're limited to just blowing stuff up for no reason (unless in a mission), if you want to steal cargo all you can do is hope enough survives the explosion to earn a profit over the costs involved. Hell, you can't even take part in any sort of organization outside of the limited interaction in the missions. Would it really have been so hard to put in some random "Join in the mass firefight" missions (I'm talking battles on the size of those really big storyline battles)?

Elite was a simulation style game, focused around doing what you wanted, trading or combatting (of course it had it's issues with that, but most of those issues focused around the limitations of the time). The universe there was static as well, but at least they didn't try and hide that fact.

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Of course Freelancer could have been a match for Elite if someone had even bothered using their brain sometime during that long process of development. I mean I do enjoy the game right now, but quite frankly a lot of common concepts are missing from the game. Interaction being the biggest, I mean games over the past few years have been in a 'make or break' stage over the amount of interaction it provides. Plus the battles get pretty intense after a while but the AI seems to be exactly the same no matter how difficult the fight is. All the fights I've been in the enemy reacts in the same damn way. It sucks because I can always predict what the AI is going to do next (to a certain extent) which I shouldn't be able to do.

Agree with all above, when I cracked the manual...my name TOOO was there even with the right spelling:


GEOF HOWARD

aka Kivuli

Love that game

"If this is what you want to do, you'll do it, no matter how long it takes..........and usually the longer it takes the more fun you've had!"

Privateer is the game i enjoyed the most.
I had WC1,2,3,4... Priv 1,2 and Strike Commander which was also great.

Unfortunately Privateer does not work on my new computer
I tried to fix it since i would still enjoy to play that game. If you know a way...

If Freelancer looks and sounds much better, it seems to me it is not as good as Privateer on many other issues. I don't understand why they made so much mistakes during 6 years of development.

Arnaud

Oh the memories. I still have the original Privateer, in the box, with its little stack of 3 1/2" diskettes.

I agree. Dont get me wrong a game is great but it would be better to implement some thing from privateer in to freelacer and some thing like missions from Privateer 2. I am talking about more equipment, missions, different speed of boats, more realistic damage like in Privateer, Trade guild for cargo missions, dynamic economy...

yeah, do u remember the sounds in Privateer when the ship was getting hit while already badly damaged ?

It sounded like hammer hitting steel !

Speaking of Privateer, i have a tech problem maybe somone can help me with. I tried to run Privateer on my old computer, and it ask for me to calibrate my joystick. I thought you could play with the mouse in that game. I don't have an analog joystick, so i can't use a that. So, is there any way to bypass that screen? If you don't know what i;m talking about, it says, "move joystick to upper right". So, if any one can help with this, i'd be very happy. Thanks.