60 Second Review of…

Freelancer

Mark's Review: Freelancer is something of a minor gaming miracle; that it arrived at all after the sea-change that swept over Digital Anvil amid the whisperings of financial malfeasance, the departure of noted designer Chris Roberts, and Microsoft's takeover; that the game discards all that is holy and sacred and phallic in space sims, the joystick, in favor of using a mouse-driven control scheme that works even better; and finally that despite all this the game is one of the best PC titles released this year and will probably be on a lot of top ten lists at the end of the year. What will propel you through the game's repetitive, bland missions and repetitve, canned chatter is so simple and so well done that it's amazing it hasn't been done since Privateer (ok, Hardwars too). You're just gonna want to fly missions and make cash and improve your ship. It's that RPG hook that doesn't exist in the Wing Commanders and Freespaces. Add to that a universe that, while not dynamic, is much more alive with movement and purpose than we see in most games, and Freelancer is a game that can take its place beside a classic like Privateer. It's about time. Oh yeah, fun co-op multiplayer too.

Tom's Review: There's a point when you're playing Freelancer -- maybe during the down time when you're cruising through a jumplane or sitting through another one of those docking cutscenes -- when you start to think of all the missed potential here. Freelancer is full of unfulfilled 'wouldn't it have been cool if...?' things. But most of the time you're soaring easily through space, blowing up shit, trying new missiles and lasers, watching traffic, appreciating the stuffed-full aesthetic of Digital Anvil's take on outer space. It takes quite a game to leap so handily over its own faults, but this is exactly what Freelancer manages to do.

Publisher: Microsoft
Developer:
post-Roberts Digital Anvil
Genre:
Diablo-esque space action
Requirements:
get over your joystick

March 6, 2003

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