Freelancer

[Wham Valdez]

Has been pretty fun so far. The story is one dimensional though and the multiplayer is pretty much the same thing over and over, buy-fight off pirates-sell. Then again, I haven't progressed very far. Hopefully there will be more depth.

But I have to go to work, so I'll add to this later.

[Eagle3]

Wham, anything more to report on Freelancer? Just curious how/if it compares to Elite.

[JBMoney]

PCGamer did a whole thing on Freelancer this month, also including a Demo CD. Didn't try it though.. yet.

[Eagle3]

Found the demo on MS's Freelancer website. I'll try it tonight.

I've been looking for a good Elite replacement for many years.

[Eddioboy]

Thumbs up.

I played Freelancer, and enjoyed it right through. It is fun to play, and I like the mouse-control ship fighting. There are a lot more planets than you even see during the normal course of the story missions. These you could visit during freelance missions between story missions. However, I didn't really see much of the unexplored areas because I didn't feel the need to stray too far from the system where I knew the next story mission would come up. I would engage in a few freelance missions between story missions, and usually stayed in-system. Doing this, I got plenty rich enough to get the top-of-the line goodies when they were needed.

One thing I didn't care for was the repetetiveness of the freelance missions. They all involve killing off all the ships, and that's it. I actually like escort missions (which others hate), because it calls for more dimension to your tactics. They don't have any. I would have liked some escape type missions where you just have to survive for a period of time, then escape, or sneaking missions using cloaking and teleporting, or non-lethal recon missions, whatever. Just some variety.

By the time I got to the end, I had pretty much the best kind of ship, best stuff, I could buy. After the story (a good, long story) was over, I didn't feel I had any other motive for continuing to play freelance missions, except to explore other planets, but they are all fairly similar. As far as I could tell, no other ships were going to give me too much resistance. I might be wrong, but I felt I hit the ceiling, so I stopped playing after the story was over. But it was a constant challenge throughout the story missions, especially toward the end, and that's what counts the most.

[Wham Valdez]

I think Eddioboy pretty much sums up my feelings about it. The game was fun and has lots of flair but not a lot of replayability or any incentive to do your own thing.

We played multiplayer for awhile but you can only blow up so many things...
For awhile we tried blockade running - seeing how far we could make it with the crappiest ships.
I did enjoy exploring and finding old space wrecks was a nice touch. There are a couple of interesting planets and the secret bases of the pirates were pretty cool. But once you've seen them, you don't really need to go back. And NOBODY helps you. I figured I might get a hand if I was under attack but nooooo, only the cops will sometimes fight with you, but mostly they get pissed and tell you to get lost.

It seems like the people who created this game paid a lot of attention to the ship combat and the visuals - and I'm glad they did - but not a lot of attention on actual gameplay as it's very one dimensional.

[Eagle3]

Thats Eddioboy and Wham. I played the demo for a few hours last night.

It's an alright game but I'm not sure it's a replacement for Elite. Seeing as this was done by Chris Roberts I understand why Freelancer has Wing Commander traits.

Few questions. When trading in commodities do the prices fluctuate at a planet between visits? Say you sold something for 500 credits at New York, would the same item have the same price the next time or are the prices fixed? Do you get any kind of ranking or promotions as you go? Are there bounty missions and how are the missions you can pick up from the bar? Can you trade in contraband and make more money?

Thanks

[Wham Valdez]

The prices at all planets are static. I think it would be more fun if they did fluctuate a bit, again, something they may have thought of if the game had been developed further.

If you want to know the prices for various items go here:
system list (http://www.lancersreactor.com/t/flsystems/default.asp)

click on the individual systems to see their goods and prices. Spoiler though.

No ranking, no promotions that I recall. Everything is measured in how friendly or hostile a faction is towards you. They are fickle, you merely have to attack their enemies to raise faction.

There are bounty missions, but basically they just randomly select a position in space and populate it with a few ships when you get there. Turkey shoots. Every mission is like that with only slight variations, ie: shoot the ships and pick up their cargo, shoot the ships and pick up the fugitive in teh escape pod, shoot the ships and let noone escape.

it's fun the first few times. After awhile I just drove all over the map and checked out the funky galaxies and asteroid fields.