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This game came alone just at the right time to save the world from the disappointment of Master Of Orion 3. Actually, I'd give it 3.5 stars if I could. It's good and the storyline has a lot of depth. It is similar to Privateer 2 in both setting and storyline. The interface is managable and the game keeps the player well engaged throughout. The weapon selection is nice and the AI opponents are hard, but not impossible, to beat. All in all, its a very thoughtful game.

It still ain't no Privateer 2. The main thing missing is the joystick and force feedback that adds that "little something extra" to the kill. There's nothing like doing loops and rolling out to get on the enemy's tail and then firing your afterburners and smoking the opposition. Unfortunatly, there are no rollouts in this game. The ship selection is also pretty lame. (Where's Chris Roberts when you need him?)

Still, the game is worth a day in court if you liked Privateer. The only thing I can't understand is how Microsoft, who also sells the Force Feedback Sidewinder joystick, didn't think to include even a joystick option in this game. It would have been SOOOO much better with.

Back in the early 1990s, Chris Roberts made a bundle off the Wing Commander franchise. Production values in these titles broke new ground for the genre, but gameplay wasn't particularly appealing to the sim crowd. Imagine scripted space dogfighting against a race of buffed cat people. Most of us preferred to get our scifi gaming from the Star Wars and Mechwarrior brands, except for one Wing Commander title -- Privateer.

Privateer was different. The game cast you as a freelance trader in the middle of a vast galaxy full of competing factions and pirates. You could skipper a freighter, become a bounty hunter, smuggle illegal goods, go off pirating ... Privateer defined the open-ended space sim. There was a main plot line, but that was incidental. Privateer was about exploring at your personal pace, setting your own goals and objectives. A sequel, Privateer 2, was released in the mid-1990s, but it abandoned much of the open-ended role play that made Privateer so endlessly addictive (personally, I lost a good part of the winter of 1993-1994 to Privateer).

Now Privateer is back, in the guise of a Microsoft game called Freelancer. Chris Roberts began work on this title back in the late 1990s, after starting his own shop, Digital Anvil. Roberts left halfway through development, but the game retains all the earmarks of a Wing Commander title. Effectively, it's Privateer 3, and that's good news for anyone who still yearns to explore the stars.

Anybody who's spent any time at all with Privateer will instantly feel at home in the Freelancer universe. It's all here, updated with modern graphics and a slick mouse-driven interface. Players travel from planet to planet within systems using trade lanes, and between systems using jump gates. You can also engage cruise engines to reach waypoints manually, but that takes awhile, given the distances involved (and they are long). Money is earned by taking on fighter missions or hauling legal or illegal goods between planets and systems (drug smuggling is still an option, but slave trading isn't). The same Privateer career paths are available, along with a large inventory of vessels, equipment and upgrades. Equipment includes energy weapons, missiles, mines, countermeasures and tractor beams. Vessels range from fighters to freighters. You can interact with NPCs at planets or space stations, having pretty much the same limited conversations you did in Privateer. Enemy AI hasn't improved much, either -- it still favors the suicidal head-on pass. There's a main plot as well, but this time it's more compelling than the pedestrian story presented in Privateer.

The cockpit HUD looks mighty familiar, albeit simplified, and with more mouse controls. The weird Wing Commander radar is gone (not that it was particularly useful to begin with), replaced with -- nothing, really. There is no radar. Instead, onscreen pointers show whether individual bogies are to the left or right, along with a list of ships displayed on an MFD. This works better than it sounds; in short order you realize how limited a 2D radar screen actually is in a space sim. The other biggie is joystick control -- again, there is none. Piloting is performed through mouse and keyboard input, sort of like an FPS. Major maneuvers -- docking, waypoint autopilot, formation flying -- are handled automatically by clicking selections from a menu with the mouse. Keyboard equivalents are also available for mouse commands, and most can be remapped.

Mouse control sounds lame, I know. But it works better than you might think. After all, in space there is no ground, and there is no gravity. Given this environment, a joystick's responsiveness isn't particularly necessary. It's analogous to the way many of us ignored our joysticks in favor of using a mouse-and-keyboard combination for Mechwarrior. As a bonus, targeting is much easier, since you simply click to acquire. The mouse-keyboard combination takes a couple of missions to get used to, but quickly feels very natural.

Don't let the simplified controls scare you away. I've put in about 16 hours with Freelancer so far (the game keeps track of seat time for you), and I'm having a right blast. A nascent Freelancer mod community looks set to extend the good times. If you miss the original Privateer, Freelancer will give you your fix, and more.

Freelancer lives up to its name. Where others have failed, some miserably, Freelancer has not only succeeded, but raised the bar much higher for those to follow in its footsteps.
Even though this game has been ranked amongst the top pioneers, it does lack in some places, namely voice-acting, and planet environments.
The voice-acting is cheezy at best: characters in Britonia space will either speak in a fluent American accent, or an extreme stereotypical Enlgish accent. The action sequences contain dialogues that belong in the B-Movies.
The environments on the planets and other platforms (cruisers, trade platforms) are robust at first, as panels slide forth to help you repair and equip your ship, dealerships thrive with salespeople to help you buy a new spacecraft, and the ever present Bar presents the many possiblities of rumors, news, stock prices, and of course job listings. However, if you take into account the massive universe that this game puts together, the same formula applied to EVERY SINGLE planet begins to get a bit monotonous.
At the risk of seeming a bit too thankless for such a good game, I would suggest a bit more dynamic planet environment. Allow for some vehicles on the planet surface where the character is free to roam, just like in the space. This of course would add an extra dimension to the game (which is already immense), hence it would probably be easier to manage this by cutting down on the already present systems.
In conclusion, this game is awesome, a must-buy for ANY pc gamer, specially those who like Space Sims...All I have to say is, this is the first space sim I TRUELY enjoyed since Decent: Freespace...its positive aspects FAR OUTWEIGH any faults it may contain, including the ones I have mentioned.