Freelancer Review - PAGE 1

There are more things that I don't like in this game than the mentioned ones in the review;
for example the gameplay is almost the same as 'Tachyon' but that game was much better. Also no joystick control in the game.

IM(NS)HO, this game has some serious structural problems.

I mean, it's pretty and all, but there are some questions I have about design decisions *and* the flight model they use in the game.

1) Why, I mean, why is there no support for joysticks? Joysticks, in one form and on one scale or another, have been the default control of choice for pitch and roll as long as mankind has flown and any flight simulator (space based or otherwise) that omits this should have a very good reason for doing so. Personally, it feels to me as if the designers needed to hobble the player in order to keep the game balanced (I suppose lobotomizing the player's ability to accurately and precisely and intuitively control his craft is easier than actually improving the game).

2) What model could the designers possibly be using for space flight that *stops* a craft dead in space *sometimes* (when you reduce power to the drive), but leaves it coasting at other times (when you just shut off the drives). The model is inconsistent and confusing. Transition from thruster to cruise, for instance, is jarring in that you can be tooling along at 200, hit cruise and your craft *slows* to 80, then accelerates to 300. WTF? The argument that it takes energy to charge the cruise drive is just wrong-headed because it takes energy to *slow* the craft. It's as if the designers have secretly modeled this whole universe as being filled with pancake syrup and if you don't constantly apply forward thrust, you stop. Again, except if you just turn off the drive, then you coast at whatever speed you've attained (a neat trick, by the way when you're outnumbered is to run away, turn around, hit cruise and get up to 300, shut off the drives, and blast back though the pack dropping mines and loosing missile willy-nilly).

3) The scales are screwed up big time. I get 80k to a docking ring. I don't know what a "K" is, precisely, but the scale drops to integral units when I cross the 2k threshhold and it *looks* from the animations and general appearances as if that's kilometers (K) and the integral values are in meters. So why are there planets 80k from one another? What, are these plants the size of cricket balls? Am I a mote, an angel what can dance on the head of a pin? Very strange. It's as if a hoard of computer programmers who once saw a physics book in a library got together to write space-based flight sim and combat game. Very odd, very jarring, aggressively nonsensical.

4) What's with the complete lack of fire control? Most ground-based weapons' platforms with *today's* tech have at least rudimetary fire control. With a single-pilot ship in a hostile environment where military style weaponry is available and people make a living hunting and killing other people, why is it forced on the players to do so manually? I mean, it's a game, but it should be an intelligent game, not a "how fast are your fingers" game. If I wanted an arcade game, I'd still be playing Ms. Pac Man.

5) What's with the complete lack of any serious autopilot. I can make my Cessna 172 follow a GPS track and make course changes at waypoints *now* - certainly the computer (which knows about my waypoints) can handle the transition of reaching one and heading out to the next one.

6) Why, oh why, oh why does this idiotic game expect me to stay and fight the entire Manhattan military (when Juni kills one of their officers) instead of running (which, considering this is SPACE - you know, wide open, lots of places to hide - makes a heck of a lot more sense). I still haven't quite figured out why it ends the game if I set course for Planet Pittsburg except that the game designers want me in that particular battle and couldn't find a good reason for *me* to want to be it so they say "stay and fight or we pick up our marbles and go home."

This is a very, very pretty game, very, very poorly implemented. The lack of joystick controls is actually advertises as a 'feature' (but it really, really sucks to omit even support for joystick controls in a flight based game). The story line is at times rigid and requires actions that can only be described as suicidally stupid on the part of the main character. The movement model is chaotic, confusing and couterintuitive - not remotely resembling the vectoring of an actual spacecraft (although it does a darned fine job of simulating a submarine).

One final question. Why do all the male contacts in the bars and such look like escapees from a Village People fan club. I realize they're animations, but I get the distinct impression that every male character in this game was modeled after the same gay underwear model.

<let the flames begin>

Dude, not every game is going to be perfect, some lack in realism some lack in replayabilty some lack in fun. Do you pick apart every game you play? yes it is a little pricey for what it offers, but it's just a game. What other game is out there that is like this or better. please let me know. I like games like this (wish there were more). Smoke sum weed and play. But don't be so tech. I like the game and you don't. to each and their own.

privateer 1 "sp", ya the game that came out like 10years ago is much better than this one. A space flight sim withought a possablilty of using a joystick. That is just stupid. way to go again microsoft.

I bought this thinking it was like privateer. I got home and then saw on the box "microsoft" and immedeatly felt something bad about this game. Microsoft, please stop making games. You have only created one good game i can think of, cfs2 . cfs3 is a joke.

In the article you stated that you wish you could plan more than one star system in advance..

well, you can. Just when in the map screen, change it to Star System map and click the system you want, then click your destination and set best path. It sets waypoints so you can jump to the gate and such, then the next gate etc. until you reach your destination.

I find no need for joystick control, and maybe if you focused more on combat and less on the distace between plannets, you wouldn't mind have to blow up the Liberty Navy. Heck, that would be fun. Plus, microsoft has made the Age of Empires Serries, very entertaining. I completly agree about flight simulator though...

PhirePhly, you own a Cessna172 and you can take the time to write this sort of ollocks. You've lost the plot mate.

The story line was to short. *sigh* It was a fun game. But after the story ends it gets old real fast.