Freelancer

A Liberty city view.

So you've always had dreams of being Han Solo? Flying round the universe saving beautiful women whilst making stacks of cash and out running the authorities? This could very well be the game you're looking for. A truly vast universe, many bases and planets, loads of NPC's and a very deep conspiracy just add to the fun. Strap yourself in this could get bumpy!

Long time, no see

One of your mighty ships. This one is particularly hard.

Originally announced way back in 1998, around about the time when the Wing Commander series was starting to get a bit old hat, this sounded like just the game those slightly bored WC fans were looking for. Then it disappeared. Totally. Nothing for months, years even. Then Microsoft finally announced that it hadn't been canned, but was actually alive and kicking, and very near a release. They sent out Beta preview versions, one of which I played. And now the final, full release version is here.

Win some, lose some

Other ships are everywhere, doing their own thing.

So, what is the point of the game? Why are you playing? In a nutshell, you were on a space station, Freeport 7, which was attacked by forces unknown. As the very immersive story pans out you discover who destroyed the base and why. Also on the station, but badly injured, is a business associate of yours who owes you 1 million credits. Obviously you don't get this, but why and what happens I'll leave up to you. Things are actually a lot more complicated than they sound though…

Once you've found yourself on the nearest planet you go looking for some work while your money-owing friend recovers in medical. It is here that the story really starts to flesh out and becomes much more believable. First you meet a Liberty Police lady who needs a Freelancer to do some "unofficial" house cleaning around the system. She's even nice enough to give you a rag tag bucket of bolts that vaguely resembles a ship to get you started.

15 seconds of fame

Space stations can be anywhere, even inside asteroids!

Each space station or planet is made up of the same places, the equipment dealer (weapons, countermeasures, missiles etc), the commodities dealer (stuff other than for shooting and killing) and the pub where you can catch up on the latest gossip, get given jobs by people in the pub or even watch the news to find out if your exploits have made you famous. Taking on a job is very easy; you either speak to someone who is offering or have a look at the job board. Once a job is yours, fly into space and shoot whoever you are supposed to.

This is where what I thought would be this games major flaw would render it unplayable. The control system sounds a bit strange to begin with and takes some getting used to, as the game doesn't even support a joystick. All the movement and combat uses the mouse. I have to say, I thought it would be rubbish with no finesse and very haphazard, but it really does work. Even to such an extent that I wonder why no one else has thought of it.

A Trade Lane. High speed travel, and more reliable than Virgin trains!

It does help that there are two types of flight available, instantly swappable with a tap of the space bar. Free flight is where your ship will fly straight and level no matter where you move your mouse cursor, the ship will only move when you click the left button. This is good as all the instruments on your HUD are clickable and you ship doesn't start doing cartwheels whenever you try to scan a freighter for juicy bounty. This method is rubbish for combat though. Good job the mouse flight mode is great. Basically the ship will follow your cursor wherever you point it allowing you to concentrate on finding your enemy to shoot at. The direction of your selected enemy is shown by a red triangle indicating the direction you need to fly to get some laser bolts down his exhaust ports. Anyone who's played X-Wing or any of the sequels will instantly feel at home.

Split personalities

The storyline really is good. You just can't beat a good conspiracy!

There are four major sectors in the galaxy, each one based on a part of the Earth (which was abandoned after a huge planetary war between two rival factions. Watch the intro movie.). There's Liberty, with places such as Planet Manhattan, Planet Pittsburgh and West Point naval academy, There's Rheinland with it's centre at Planet New Berlin, Bretonia with planets and space stations named after UK cities and islands and last of all there's the Kusari system. Asian people originally founded this system. Not much is known about this shadowy place, they keep themselves to themselves.

Have trade lane, will travel

Missions usually involve "cleaning" an area of bad guys.

Travel throughout any of these systems is available via trade lanes and jump points. Trade lanes are basically high speed "motorways" through space. You fly through one and it sends you at high speed to the next one, and so on until you reach your destination. The Jump gates are for much further travel and the game usually cuts away and then back again as it usually means a new galaxy or planetary system. The galaxies are very well done, all of them look beautiful and very well drawn with nebulas and stars all looking great. You can even tell what system you're in by the planets and other items floating about.

What I really liked is that life around you goes on, freighters fly the trade routes, pirates shoot at the freighters, and the Police and Navy shoot at the pirates. You can even fly right through and they'll leave you alone unless you start shooting as well. Then, depending on who you shot at, others will shoot at you.

You are not the centre of attention

Planetside graphics are wonderfully moody.

Often the trade routes are busy so you have to wait, or the docking rings for the planets are being used, forcing you to wait in the queue. It's a great way to show that although the game revolves around you, the universe doesn't. At least not until later in the game, anyway. There is a little RPG element built in as you can advance your level by increasing your net worth. Certain ships and weapons can only be purchased when you reach a certain level and often the main story will not advance until you "level up" by accepting jobs or running freight between systems. Different ships are available (and a necessity) as you progress, but spending your money decreases your net worth, so spend wisely.

There is also a multiplayer online capability but it's not exactly brilliant. Every time you play online, unless you choose the same server every time you end up starting all over again. Crappy ship, few credits, wimpy weapons etc. I joined a few servers, and there wasn't really much going on, a few people flying about, some mining for credits, but not much else. It doesn't have the immediate "wow" factor of the main single player game. I'm sure that once you get some friends together or get yourself known on a particular server that things will look up, but the single player game has all the trump cards to begin with.

Conspiracy theorists will love this game!

A nice cutscene. In game graphics are just as good.

I'm really beginning to like this game a lot. It's highly absorbing and the storyline is actually quite well planned and written, the voice acting and cut scenes are very well done using the game engine so it all looks and feels the same. The graphics are about as good as you expect. Space isn't hard to draw, but the ships and planet side graphics are wonderfully done and superbly detailed. I love the way that your laser cannons and turrets follow your mouse cursor wherever you point it. You don't even need a kick-ass PC to play it on either. Trent is a believable (if slightly flat faced) character.

You actually do start to get involved and want to get to the bottom of the conspiracy that seems to be all around you.

Trent quickly becomes a wanted man.

Is the game perfect? Have Digital Anvil and Microsoft reached gaming nirvana?? No, but it is still very good. It can get very hard in places, almost too hard. At one time I came up against three Rheinland Valkyries (über-tough ships) and expended all my shield batteries defeating them, only to jump through a trade lane and come across several pirates who also had a pop at me. This proved to be my undoing several times before I got lucky with some extra shield batteries from the Valkyries wreckage.

On more than one occasion it was a case of five or sometimes more against one (a simple mission later in the game: "Destroy the Rheinland Fleet"…) and when this happens it can all end very quickly in a mass of burning wreckage. It's immensely frustrating as there's not much you can do about it apart from trying to keep some shield batteries back and be nifty with that trigger finger.

The sounds are good, but the dialogue is laced with cliché and repeated phrases. I can't help it, but you can only ask people for information and give a different reply so many times. I did find one little bug, but a quick autosave reload cured that and I doubt it would happen again. Would I recommend it? Yes, wholeheartedly. If you're a space combat fan and have been pining for something decent since X-Wing Alliance, then this could be just the ticket. I'll certainly be playing it for a long time to come.