Freelancer

The young may look cool, but the old guy has the grace. Simply and humbly the best space simulator!
Gendre: space simulator

Format: PC 

Publisher: Microsoft

Development: Digital Anvil

Release: 01/03/2003 (PC)

Players: 1-128 (200 with mod)

Requirements: 600 MHz CPU,128 MB RAM

Site: www.microsoft.com/games/freelancer

Since the days of Wing Commander are long passed, few are the games of its type that actually made history and survived the fierce competition, by offering something that will make us stick to our screens for hours. Freelancer, according to many, is a worthy follower of this genre. Freelancer passed its own Odyssey until it gets published, staying down in history as one of the most anticipated titles for the PC (1999-2003).

Plot

The game's story takes place in the Serious sector, where a section of people fled to avoid the destruction and devastation brought about by the third world war that raged in our solar system for over 100 years. Five transport ships, called sleeper ships, managed to escape in this sector: the Liberty, the Bretonia, the Kusari, the Hispania and the Rheinland. Our story takes place 800 years after these events. The player enters the role of a freelancer called Edison Trend. Our character is in a space station which, for reasons unclear, it gets destroyed, suggesting how to unfold the plot of the game. The contract Trend was about to close breaks down, leaving him penniless and without a spacecraft. The rescuers will leave him on planet Manhattan, which happens to be the governing planet of Liberty. There, a commander of the local police will recruit him for missions against local bandits, until things get deeper and together they will discover what lies behind all these strange events. The plot takes you to the territorial sovereignty of different factions which means that sometimes you will be forced to become a pirate, prosecuted as the number one wanted criminal in Sirius.

Gameplay

One of the advantages of Freelancer is its quick and easy to use Interface. You will handle spacecrafts, with which you will engage your opponents, trade or even blow up asteroids. Much of the game, totaling approximately 9 hours, you will spend on different planets, stations and giant warships of the visiting systems, where the main character would interact with NPCs depending on what you decide to become: a pirate, trader, mercenary or military pilot. The heart of the title is its dogfights within different systems, asteroids and nebulas. The game is completely open to exploration and what you do depends entirely on you. You can do missions for a faction, having members and allies to help you in battles and give you their own equipment, while the enemies of that faction will try to destroy you. The handling of every vessel is quite original and very easy and it’s by, exclusively, using the mouse and a few hotkeys on the keyboard. Use your mouse to navigate the infinite space and lock opponents or the station / planet you want to dock/land. Freelancer has 4 different modes of navigation in space: Free-Flight, Mouse-Flight, Rear-View, Turret-Mode. Each one has advantages but also disadvantages, which we will let you to discover.
After some missions of the main campaign, you should do some missions to collect money for better equipment or a better vessel in order to meet the mission’s requirements of the script. Also in the single player part of the game you will also notice a lot of role playing elements such as the different levels that go up as you accumulate wealth and accomplish missions. The variety of fighter crafts is huge and the arsenal you can mount is vast, allowing you to build the vessel in response to your style.
It's also worth mentioning the existence of "physics". What we mean is that depending on the speed you move, a collision with a stationary object can be fatal, if the shield is switched off/down. Similarly, if you fire a torpedo in front of the enemy (against his movement), this will do more damage than if you throw in the rear of the ship.

Multiplayer

Freelancer's multiplayer will leave you speechless and really intrigue your interest even more. This is solely due to modders work, because Microsoft did not take any interest at all, by creating various mods such as the Discovery Mod, which is the most popular and award wining mod. In this mod, developers introduced new spacecraft of all sizes, even battleships, new systems, new commodities to trade and took the plot much further. If you want to play on the Internet then it's worth trying this mod.

Graphics/Sound

The graphics of this game are very beautiful and you will be mesmerized. Systems, spaceships, stations, nebula clouds are thoroughly designed and are a delight to your eyes. But it can’t be said as well for the design of the characters, where attention was paid only for the main characters, and yet it could have been better. The game's sound effects are extremely nice in order to offer you as much realism as possible. In the cutscenes, total length of 2 hours, the game voiceovers are accompanied by professional actors and are beyond all expectations.

Finally, we can say that after such a tumultuous period of development is logical that the game will not offer what was originally promised to, but that it is one of the most addictive and innovative kinds, with good gameplay-scenario, that few games succeed, much reason may be done for the hundreds of mod titles that offer additional hours of gameplay and give new interest by adding numerous new items as we mentioned above. The game’s world is not as free and dynamic as we had hoped for but sound, graphics and animation, if nothing else, are rewarding for any mistakes that have been made. Freelancer has all the features that make a great game really great. Buy safely and ... .. "Freelancer ALPHA1-1 you are ready to lunch. Good luck out there! ".

Pros: Addictive, deep script, sound effects and music, graphics.
Cons: static world, does not give enough reasons to continue after the main campaign, unless you continue to multiplayer.

Grade: 8,5/10