Background/Summary:
 There
are times where I love what I do, because I have a chance to review some
of the hottest games to ever be created. But then there are those games that I would rather run full speed into a bob-wired fence than play it any further (see Alfred Hitchcock's Final Cut). Luckily, this isn't
one of those moments, which was obvious when a copy of Freelancer arrived
at my office. But nothing could have prepared me for what I was about
to see. With a story of epic proportions, mouth-watering graphics, and
gameplay that is too good to be true, Freelancer has emerged as a must-have
for any action oriented/simulation gamer, and has clearly taken the lead
as one of the best games of the year.
The story first begins in the 23rd century,
where an ongoing war forced the inhabitants of Earth to launch 4 colony
ships into a new system to start all over again. Eight hundred years later,
the four colony ships have blossomed into wondrous space regions, but
conflict has been going on and off again between each faction. But thing
would get intense on a station called Freeport 7. An unknown class of
fighters suddenly appeared, and wiped out nearly all of the people onboard.
Your character is Edison Trent, is one of the remaining survivors, but
he soon learns that every survivor is systematically being exterminated,
and your time will be coming soon.
I must say, that it was kind of hard to
talk about the story, because it is so easy to spoil it. It starts off
a little chaotic, but once you gain some experience you will start to
see the pieces of the puzzle come together. This is one big adventure
folks. Think of it as Titan AE taken to the tenth power. The cast of characters
in the story isn't that large, but it works, because you will be moving
to a lot of places, and won't have time to identify with everyone. I found
it quite hard to pull away, because events are constantly unfolding. I
won't give away too much, but let's just say that you'll probably know
how Osama Bin Laden feels right about now when you are finished with the
game. The missions are interesting, if not a bit repetitive. Some are
assassination missions, raiding missions, bounty missions, and extermination
missions. You can speak with people in the bar to hear rumors, which can
provide some insight into the rest of the game. Or you can look at the
sector news, to find out what is happening in the region. There's even
a little ticker showing the current trading prices of certain commodities
in the sector. Overall, expect to put in Grand Theft Auto 3 type of gameplay
hours in this game.
Gameplay:
 Like
the title of the game, your character Trent is a freelancer. So in order
for him to survive, you must accept missions (sometimes dangerous) in
order to earn money. Your main employer, Juni, will probably give you
the most difficult missions to accomplish. Her missions are also the only
way to progress the story. Every so often, she will contact you to discuss
a new mission. While you don't immediately have to go to her, avoiding
her request of your presence will not help your situation. Other missions
can be found in the local bar, or job board. Some of the missions will
reward you with money, and then on the other hand, there are missions
that your life will be the reward. But don't take just any mission, because
you have your reputation to worry about. If you take frequent missions
from criminal organizations, your reputation with law enforcement and
the military will decrease. When one has a severely bad reputation with
one faction, they will attack you on site. Good and bad factions have
advantages and disadvantages, but the path is totally up to you. One can
become a bounty hunter, trader, explorer, or a pirate, allowing unique
experiences for each gamer.
Money talks in the world of Freelancer, and Trent is going to need lots of it if you want him to advance in the game. Since your ship is where you will spend most of your time, those monies that you earn are used to refit your ship. You can buy lasers, cannons, missile launchers, mines, etc. You also will need to buy ammo for some of these weapons, as well as shielding to protect your hull. One can also invest in nanobots, which can either repair your shields or hull. Most people won't probably think it is important in the beginning, but relying on those little nanobots could be the difference between survival and reloading your autosaves. The money that you earn also works as experience points, and when you reach a certain value, your experience level will increase. But the only thing you get is recognition and access to more advanced (and expensive) technology. At some point, your default ship will no longer be able to withstand the impact of enemy hull ships. So when going to a station with a shipyard you can purchase new ships. There are a lot of ships to acquire in this game, but it takes a while to gain access to them all. There are different classes of ships, with varying types of weapon slots, armor class, and cargo space. The cargo space can be useful because items that you find in your travels may have significant value in some sectors. The thing that gets frustrating is that you cannot keep more than one ship (like you can in Grand Theft Auto 3), forcing you to give up ship when you buy a new one. The commodities would have also been nice to store away, because some have significant value, but are far too bulky to carry around all of the time.
 Once
you have your ship refitted, and your mission briefings, its time to head
on out into the populated space. Controlling your ship is similar to an
FPS, where you use the traditional WSAD setup to accel/brake and strafe,
and the mouse is used to open fire. The spacebar acts as a free flight
toggle, where, you can keep your ship nice and steady, or you can move
the ship wherever you like. Each ship is also equipped with thrusters,
which gives you a tremendous boost in speed. If you need to travel great
distances, then one can activate their cruise engine, which acts like
warp speed a la Star Trek. However, even with cruise engines activated,
arriving to a destination can still take some time. To help this Freelancer
provides you with jumpgates, which projects your ship about three times
as the cruise engines to your destination. This is the best way to reach
a destination within any given time. But if you decide to make it a long
trip instead of using jumpgates, be aware that enemy hostiles are frequent
in the uncharted zones, and with no jumpgates in sight, it may be a long,
hard fight.
Speaking of fighting, the AI in this game can be downright brutal. However, it does an awful good job of hiding it. For the most part, you will never face an opponent where you are outmatched. You would be surprised how easy taking out three or four ships can be in this game. The odd thing is that none of the ones that I have ran into use nanobots, which kind of takes away the challenge. Also, running away in the later levels is never a good idea, because some ship is always equipped with a disruptor, shutting down my cruise engines. The artificial intelligence really kicks it into high gear whenever you take on one of Juni's missions. Without giving away too much, the enemy ships will pounce, and pounce, and pounce on you for minutes on end. Ships move with amazing skill, making you miss even when it's right in front of you. They fight to the death too, so don't think for a second that you can intimidate them. If you're not get with memorizing keys, all I can say is that after playing this, you will be. Remember those nanobots that I mentioned earlier? Gamer's may rely on these buggers a bit too much because some of these weapons will have you crawling in space with one shot.
Graphics/Sound
 If
I had one word to describe the graphics, it would be stunning. I think
that I have taken well over 200 MB of screenshots, because just when I
would think that I have seen something awesome, another picture perfect
moment appears. But even the screenshots could not do the game justice.
The models are great. All of the people display some excellent clothing
textures, giving them the illusion that they are actually polygons. The
mouth motions are almost always in synch with the dialogue, but not to
the point where you can read their lips. The models faces do appear to
be a tad outdated, but it's nothing that gets sore on the eyes. The planetary
environments that you come across are very beautiful to look at. There
is always something going on, especially if you are landing onto the dock.
There is bound to be ship traffic, factories spewing out exhaust, and
buildings flashing with their logos. But as great as it looks, going into
space will change the way you look at games based in spaced. First and
foremost, the planets have been scaled to an unprecedented level. These
guys are extremely huge. You really won't notice just how small your ships
are until you actually fly near a planet. The bases and stations are also
quite huge. A lot of times, I found myself just staring at some of the
architectures, just to appreciate how much fun the designers must have
had designing these behemoths. The texture quality is grade A stuff here.
You can even see the metallic luster when flying near a light source.
When you fly into nebulae, it looks and feels dense, as if it were a foggy
morning. There are even flashes of light, that briefly shows objects further
ahead. And don't let me get started on the asteroids and debris. There
is so much of it that little pieces will even fly off of your hull when
moving fast. There is so much going on in space, that you would think
that this is an MMO game. Ships are always entering/exiting jumpgates,
docking with stations, or fighting each other. It's amazing what has been
done with this engine.
 The
effects also deserve some mentioning as well. While we briefly talked
about the reflective surfaces and lighting within dense areas, the explosions
is also a treat to look at. Since there are so, so many to look at, you
kind of get treated to any and every type of explosion that a game can
have. The larger structures explode much better than the little ones,
because the method in which they explode is actually believable. Some
explosions, you will see a huge ball of fire shoot out of one end of a
station, whereas another one you will see the ship fall apart while exploding.
The little ships are a bit different. First off, your ships show damage.
And when I say show damage, I mean parts of the ships can be blown off
if struck enough times. It's something that you won't notice until you
are firing, and wondering why only half of your guns are shooting. What's
cool about this is that when the hull integrity is low, your ship looks
like a big ball of flames. A ship that you are about to destroy has the
same effect, and is the perfect signal to fire the kill shot. The weapons
effects are also quite good, with each projectile having a unique look
when fired. With all of these effects, one wouldn't be wrong in questioning
the game's overall performance. Well, for the review, I tested Freelancer
on a P3 1gig/Radeon 8500 setup. With everything (and chief means everything)
turned to the max, except when numerous up-close explosions in big battles
would occur, Freelancer ran smooooooth. But like many will find out, the
in-game menus are very sluggish for no apparent reason. This appears to
happen with all of ATI's cards, so lets cross our fingers that this gets
fixed. If this may have been your concern, you shouldn't fret. The graphics
in this game run at a level that can be enjoyed by everyone, while still
looking remarkably great.
The sound is probably the anchor to this battleship. The voice acting is quite good, and well written. I'm just so surprised that there is so much of it packed into this game. Characters all sound unique, and all possess their own personality. There is even some hilarious dialogue in the game. When you are flying in space, military officers and policemen/policewomen will randomly speak to you as to your destinations, or if they need to check your ship for cargo. But as good as it was, there are some parts where the dialogue can get very repetitive. In the bar, you will occasionally hear, "we don't run this place, but we have an understanding with the people that do." When fighting in space on bounty missions, the bad guys tend to have the same lines as well. The first couple of times, it's ok, but eventually it gets nerve wrecking.
The sound effects are really good, as you always know what's going on in your surroundings. If you don't hear an incoming missile, there is your ship's alarm that will alert you. Each weapon has its own unique sound, which helps when trying to determine what kind of weapon is knocking out your shields at an alarming rate. Overall, a rock solid effort in the sound department.
Multiplayer
 Well,
Freelancer's multiplayer is probably the closest thing to a massively
multiplayer online game without having to pay a monthly fee. Freelancer
comes with a dedicated server option, which greatly reduces the type of
lag that occurs from a player/host. If you just want to have your own
Freelancer world at a LAN session, then you have the ability to do so.
First, you must create a character. This character will maintain its stats
on any server that you join, but remember that the server stats cannot
be combined with each other. Once you have joined a server, you can elect
to go on missions alone, or group up with others to tackle some of the
harder missions. The community kind of reminds me of Phantasy Star Online,
where everyone finds suitable partners, and then goes out into the dangers
of space to eliminate the toughest criminals. The server allows you to
work your way up to lvl 20, but after that, there is no more advancing.
This is probably the only crutch, because Freelancer doesn't come with
any additional mission editing tools or scenario editors. I would have
also like to have seen some form of group bonuses in the form of stronger
shields, faster refire rate, etc. which would at least make the grouping
option much more appealing.
The Wrap Up:
 Well
what else can I say? Freelancer has delivered on all fronts, and in some
ways has exceeded its expectations. The story is very intense, the graphics
are something that truly can only be experienced while playing, and the
gameplay while not original, is more refined than any similar type of
game on the market. The bar in simulation games has been raised yet again
with the release of Freelancer, and I don't think that any space simulation
will be able to touch it this year. When it's all said and done, Freelancer
should not be missed, and certainly not forgotten when the Game of the
Year ballots arrive later this year.
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