Microsoft Games Studios’ bounty of PC gaming classics delivers yet again with this week’s release, Freelancer. In Freelancer’s opening cinematic a fleet of unknown combatants attack and destroy the space station housing Edison Trent’s (our protagonist) starship and most of his money. Stranded on the planet Manhattan, Trent finds work with Liberty Security Force and begins his stint as pilot for hire. From there you can progress through the linear story by taking story missions or earn cash and loot via a seemingly endless supply of side missions.
There is a lot to love about this game and despite its age, Freelancer holds up very well. Bringing together elements of various space sims from the previous decade, Freelancer feels like an amalgamation of TIE-Fighter, Wing Commander, The Privateer, and its predecessor Starlancer, with a touch of the addictive point-click-loot hook of the Diablo series. Throughout its 6 year development, designer Chris Robert’s ambitious vision of what Freelancer could be changed drastically and though the final product never lived up those initial concepts, the game that was released was leap forward for an often underrepresented genre.
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little this game rocks
not without its flaws, but still one of my all time favorites in the genre, one that i still come back to time and again. the storyline is entertaining, but really hamstrings the game… there IS a “no story” mod, but i dont know if its possible to use that with the gametap version or not… if not, it would be a shame, because it turns freelancer from a “very good” to “fricking great” game.
theres still a reasonably active online community as well, but most servers arent stock, and require the same mod as the server, so again if you cant use mods, youre kinda stuck…
but even without mods, the game is well worth at least one play-through…
Agreed to all above, and yes, multi-player is an experience much different to the single player campaign. I have had this game since about ‘02, and still play it. Yes, even sometimes the single player campaign.
@Radio_Babylon: As an alternative, I used to start my own server, and play on that, instead of using the “no-story” mod, but I wonder if the GT package will allow that.
Oops, almost foregot to mention that the single-player campaign allows you to continue plying after the story is complete, so you can explore the rest of the “universe.” A nice treat for those who finish, and want to go explore more, look for wrecks, pirate, and find new and exotic places that weren’t available in the single-player campaign.
This game looks to have an interesting premise. I’ll probably be downloading this just to have it lol
i am enjoying freelancer very much and i agree that it could be better with the addition of mod play. the other titles from microsoft games such as starlance and others would be a great addition to GTW. so when will we start to see them?
Haha! I bought this a few years back and i have the CD! Let me tell you, as much as the game is AMAZING on it’s own, Mods make it so much better. I Recommend Trying it on gametap first, and then going and buying a cd. Bestbuy sell a few ya know.
^^ ill second that. freelancer is a game worth owning, especially for the mod support.
i tell you what, if gametap got starlancer, that would be enough to get me to sign back up again for at least a month. it would save me the trouble of getting my dreamcase out and crawling around behind the tv to hook it up when i want to play…
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