Everything about Freelancer Computer Game totally explained
Freelancer is a
space trading and combat simulation computer game developed by
Digital Anvil and published by
Microsoft. The game was initially announced by
Chris Roberts in 1999, and following many production schedule mishaps and a buyout of Digital Anvil by Microsoft, it was eventually released in March 2003.
The game allows players to pilot a
starfighter and visit many
star systems. They can engage in combat with other starfighters to protect traders or engage in
piracy themselves. They can also visit
planets and
space stations to look for jobs and to engage in
commodity trade. The
single-player story ties up the player, in the role of Edison Trent, in a series of missions to save the Sirius sector from a mysterious
alien force. As the story progresses, restrictions on player activity are gradually released, and total freedom is granted at the story's completion. Players are given total freedom from the beginning in
multiplayer mode.
Originally Roberts promised features such as a multiplayer mode with thousands of players, automated flight maneuvers, and dynamic economies, but they were cut from the final release. The game's initial technical demos impressed reviewers, but after the Microsoft buyout and Roberts' departure from Digital Anvil, critics were
doubtful of the game's release. When it was released, reviewers judged it technically good but failing to completely satisfy their expectations.
Gameplay
Self described as a
combat action game with
roleplaying aspects, and an engrossing cinematic story,
Freelancer starts the player off with a small starfighter, a partial map of the
galaxy, and the freedom to make money by any means. The player's default view is that of a "third person behind the ship" for better situational awareness. the starfighters follow "arcade" flight dynamics instead of realistic
Newtonian physics. However, the game allows the player to utilize
Newton's first law of motion by cutting power to the engines and turning to face any direction while continuing to move along the starfighter's original path.
The game can be fully played by "
pointing and clicking" with the mouse, and a few keyboard commands. Moving the ship in any direction is just as easy as pointing there, while shooting an enemy is simply pointing on the lead indicator and clicking to shoot. Multiplayer mode takes place in the same setting as the single-player mode, except there's no campaign story. A
personal computer can be a
game server and host up to 128 players.
Persistent galaxies can be maintained, but a player's progress can only be saved and resumed on the same server. In a bid to escape the
civil war, the Alliance faction sent their people in
stasis on an
exodus from
Sol. Heading towards the
Sirius system, the exodites settled and transformed the surrounding space (the Sirius sector) into a region of political intrigue and opportunity. Named after the sleeper ships they arrived in, four political houses were formed with their
societies bearing distinctive marks of their
ancestries: House Liberty of 1920's
United States, Bretonia of
Victorian era United Kingdom, Kusari of
Shogunate era Japan, and Rheinland of
Second Industrial Revolution Germany. The fifth sleeper ship, Hispania, suffered a en-route and had to be abandoned in deep space.
To avoid complicated
three-dimensional maps,
Freelancers first public showing was well received by the gaming industry, and won four
Game Critics Awards at E3 1999, including Best Game of the Show. The early demos and preview builds excited reviewers who only had a few misgivings over Robert's ambitious promises. He was criticized for his monotonous delivery, and making all his characters sound alike. This wasn't helped by the game's dynamic conversation system creating the same badly strung sentences and stringing them into a corny dialogue. GameSpy stated these fights were incredibly fun and should extend the game's longevity in multiplayer. IGN pointed out while this system suited the game's focus on exploration and fast combat, the "pointing and clicking" limited possibilities. It disallowed
jinking or barrel rolls, resulting in
dogfights being reduced to overly simplistic and repetitive "chase or be chased" sequences which pale to those in other games of the same genre. AtomicGamer also pointed out that the multiplayer side will only likely appeal to a niche group, as only a small group (as compared with massively multiplayer online games) can play together in the vast playing space, a situation which UGO describes as a sense of loneliness.
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