Pirates Of Sirius (Freelancer (PC))

Member Name: SlyClone2k

Product:	Freelancer (PC)
Date:	28/08/03 (650 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Its a big bad space, Plenty to do and see

Disadvantages: Storyline rushes and restricts

*****Why I Buy*****

Once upon a time in space there came a product that revolutionised the gaming industry, a game set in space, a game they called Elite. Some of you may remember it, some of you may have heard of it, some of you may have played it and loved it, lost countless hours in pursuit of the next ranking; dangerous, deadly, ELITE! – For those that do remember it, and it may be those slightly older than 16, you’ll also probably be aware that for several years the gaming world waited with baited breath for a suitably adequate sequel, whilst a second and third version were released they had massive faults and never really lived up to the potential that the first had. The fourth instalment has been in design for as long as I can remember but has yet to materialise, now I understand this is going off at a ramble but I’m going to pull it all in right now.

Fortunately, for those still waiting for that elusive Elite 4, Freelancer has come along and filled the void that the Elite franchise has yet to fill. Okay, I’ve been talking like you know what Elite was, but you don’t do you? Poor youth bought up on a diet of Gran Turismo that you are. Elite was different because it provided the opportunity for open ended gaming, set in space you controlled a ship and the overall intention was to earn money through the means at your disposal. This money could be used to trade in for ships and weapons to aid you further in your quest. Freelancer does this very same thing but it has a different story line and its taking up a lot more than the 32kb of RAM that Elite did!

*****Why You Buy?*****

Freelancer takes us into a setting far in to the future. A bitter war on Earth meant that the losing group sent colonists out into the void to colonise other areas. Four vessels that represent different sections of humanity flew off to the Sirius System. Recognition is instantaneous as
the different factions stamp their own mark on the buildings and surroundings, American, Japanese, German and British not to mention the personalities of the folk that you are likely to encounter. However despite having come from the same place the different sections are guarded from one another, and between systems the frontier has already descended into anarchy where pirates, bounty hunters and freelancers roam! (Paying a little attention during the installation will provide you with background on the different races, but isn’t essential to the game.)

The game opens with a rather glorious movie that sets the standard for further story developments, you’ll also meet your character, Trent who we find has lost all his money and belongings due to an attack on the space station he is docked at. We are led further into the story as he meets Jun’ko Zane, who hire’s your man and provides you with your very own ship, as the story develops you become entrenched in a huge conspiracy and it is from this point we are largely either on our own or immersed in the continuing storyline.

The single player campaign is something of a strange affair, your profile develops as your play, with key notes being your rating, which is based upon your aggregate wealth (credits, ship and stock worth) and alongside this your reputation-“o-meter” provides insight into who is or isn’t your friend amongst the police forces, factions, companies and pirates that operate in the space you know. This reputation shifts on the basis of the jobs you take and the actions you perform.

In theory you have the opportunity to follow one of many career paths, you can be a trader, pirate, miner or bounty hunter. Each path will mean that a different group are going to find you more favourable. However during the campaign the theory isn’t so true so while you may exist in a huge universe with massive options in reality your options are limi
ted. Unfortunately due to the nature of the plot at times you may find yourself limited to certain areas, meaning that the best trade lanes or planets are inaccessible. This is going to limit the spirit of capitalism and may leave you feeling frustrated. It certainly did me when upon finding a great trade lane I found the planet I needed to dock with wasn’t going to allow me to land, and sent several police fighters out to usher me on my way with a hail of gunfire. Not nice. Such blocking of trade routes also means you are going to experience similar issues with the purchase of ships and arms, but this will provide incentive to keep playing after the missions are complete.

The campaign itself takes place over 13 missions. For the most part these missions are broken down further into subparts meaning that each mission can take well over an hour or two to complete, on the whole the missions don’t provide a huge range of variety, largely centring on your getting from one place to the next without becoming dead on route. Missions become available based on your rating, so there are breaks in the plot where you are forced to provide for yourself, and it is here that you largely get the opportunity to see what the world has to offer. When docked on a station or planet the world is shown to you in glorious 3d, ships fly by and people idle about all very reminiscent of The Fifth Element or Blade Runner (What futuristic worlds aren’t!) Access to the various people you may want to speak to is provided by a button bar that will show you who is about, be it the Bar, Goods Merchant, Weapons or Ship seller. For the most part early on you’ll probably want to access the bar where you will be able to pick up jobs from a variety of sources. You will be able to glean useful information from the people there, or maybe even pay a bribe to increase your reputation with a faction who isn’t currently joyous about your existence.

As you might e
xpect the early jobs don’t pay big money, but then they don’t present a huge risk either. Largely you’ll be employed by the local constabulary to clear the area of pirates, by decimating their ships, storage yards or hunting down and assassinating one of the leaders. It is quite important that you properly equip your ship, and as may be expected the range of products available to you is limited by two factors; firstly your level and secondly the level of your ship. Certain lasers and missiles won’t become available until you have reached a certain stage in the game, and then unless you have bought a suitable ship you may not be able to mount the weapons on board. Extra strength shields and thrusters provide additional protection and layers to your overall kit.

From here you may launch upon your mission, your map of the system will show you the way points that you’ll need to follow to get you to your destination. You’ll enter into the big world and experience the curious method of transportation. Now space is big, particularly the Freelancer part of space so travel is going to be something you are doing a lot of, fortunately the colonists have built massive docking rings that transport you to different sections of the system at an increased rate, bigger rings will take you between systems and if all else fails you can activate your cruise engines to coast at a steady 300 er… somethings! Free flight (outside of the rings) will be anything from 80 to 200 (of the somethings) 120 being provided limited boost from your thrusters (better thrusters provide better times and quicker recharge rates). Outside of the realms of missions an extremely comprehensive system map is presented to you, allowing for various filters and such there are two main settings universe and system, clicking universe will allow you to choose the system you want to fly to and having selected the system you can choose the panel. Quickest known way-po
ints are rapidly generated and you are rapidly on your way. As you close in on the objective of your mission you’ll need to fight.

Control, curiously, is all mouse. Well I say all mouse, you’ll also need the keyboard for some functions but largely the mouse. This was somewhat surprising at first; however the experience is remarkably intuitive. Firing upon enemy vessels is controlled by pressing the right mouse button and direction controlled by depressing the left. A cursor indicates the line of fire and the smart HUD display indicates where you need to fire in order to damage your target. The cursor is also employed outside of the combat arena to allow access to the various menus and weapons that you have, in effect you could remove the need for the keyboard at all, but at what cost? Unfortunately at the cost of controlling your ship! Movement, firing and selecting missiles to counter measures requires you to move the cursor from the screen and release the left mouse button so you can engage it again on the service you require.

On the whole this might not present a problem, but in the heat of battle, and it does get quite hot sometimes, the last thing you want to worry about is dropping a flare to counter a missile at the risk of being blasted because you can’t manoeuvre out of the line of laser fire. Still that’s what the keyboard is for isn’t it and after all you’ll still need to use the keyboard for thrust if nothing else!

Of the plot I have one more gripe, whilst it is necessary to occasionally go away and amass wealth, once that target is achieved and the story kicks back in it does so with a strange sense of urgency that may quickly find you making a rendezvous that sees you back in battle with foes that massively outclass your level. Quite early on I had reached a stage where my ship had been adequately handing all the pirate missions, but I was thrust into a scenario where I was simply outclasse
d by the ships and weaponry of the CPU, I actually had to resort to cheating to get through an extremely difficult stage. For the most part the plot also gives you the opportunity to decline going further, but occasionally it doesn’t and you may be getting ahead of yourself simply by launching from the wrong place.

The system is as mentioned earlier quite huge. It ranges across four main areas, each area having around 10 different systems, each system having a range of planets, battleships and space stations that you can dock at to trade, pick up jobs, upgrade or buy new ships and weaponry. Only when docked can you perform saves that may save you half an hour of your life, particularly on some of the longer trade routes. Docking also mean that information relating to that station is downloaded into your “neural net” making future trading more accessible as market prices don’t appear to fluctuate too heavily.

The different zones, alongside different architecture, also provide different types of ship. There are four main classes, light, heavy and ultra heavy fighters and freighters, providing you with the means to pursue the career of choice. Within the categories each zone provides a unique styling to the ships you’ll be able to buy from the slim line Piranha to the behemothic Humpback. As well as providing some wonderful (if not rather outdated) stereotypical personalities (what about those Rhine-landers, who could they possibly be like?!).

Freelancer, perhaps, wouldn’t be complete with out one or two secrets in its vast space. Hidden wormholes can act as great shortcuts across galaxy cutting trade routes in half. For the hardy and adventurous there are wrecks that can be further decimated to relieve them of their even rarer prizes, cargo, weapons and moneys.

Perhaps I’m easy to please but I was impressed with the graphics, with all the settings turned up to their fullest space becomes q
uite pretty. Like a graphically enhanced episode of Star Trek you may encounter auroras, plasma clouds, asteroid fields, planets atmospheres and rings like Saturn, lens flare from nearby stars occasionally flickers across your cockpit. Textures all look convincing and people look like people with suitably impressive animations. The game maintains a wonderful uniformity with few glitches to angry up the blood. One doesn’t need to work hard to suspend disbelief.

Online play is available. You’ll find that your game has its own unique ID meaning that you can play online at one of the many servers. Game play is very similar but cuts out the storyline leaving you to earn money and explore the universe at your own pace. The online world provides that added element of other human characters and rules generally apply to different zones outlining what you can expect, for example if you are a pirate you must clearly display your colours in your name tag and there are certain zones that are out of bounds. This allows for those wishing to develop in relative safety (only having to deal with the largely inefficient computer controlled pirates) the time and space to do so. In space you can trade with others for their spare or rare weapons. You may be a trader needing to hire the protection service of a hired fighter; those freighters don’t make for great fighting too! The people I have encountered have largely been friendly and willing to help a newbie.

On the downside this really is one for the lucky broadbanders, playing across a modem just doesn’t do you any favours. When it lags you find yourself suddenly stuck waiting for an immensely important gate to open with banditos running you down all guns blazing. I’m guessing that your connection to the server is connected to your location at the time. Should you become disconnected you’ll usually find yourself where you left off. Should you die you are reincarnated intact, but m
issing your stock, so if trading is your game this does present some real fiscal issues. As for combat with real live people, well I haven’t got that far yet. Three hours of real time play has got me to level 21, the average is around 35 and I hate to imagine what those guys are driving!

Sound and music also provide a suitably immersive experience. I keep my music turned off as it just provides extra noise that I don’t need. A few years driving a car with no stereo means I can quite happily drift along without the need for stirring renditions emitting from my speakers. But that’s okay because space isn’t quiet; your radio almost constantly emits banter from the ships and crews that occupy the space around you. The police, pirates, escorts and convoys forever converse. As well as being nicely presented graphically the plot-line cut scenes are also well presented aurally with decent voice acting!

*****Conclusion*****

Without a doubt Freelancer provides a great gaming experience. Essentially it is just another shoot ‘em up, but with the diversity of career choices and ways of earning money it provides adequate depth to inspire desire to play. The artificial intelligence to be found within the game does make you forget that you’re playing a simulation, with crafts and crews occupying space around you, flying about their business and occupying the gates which you might like to use. In short, life goes on. Police will fly to your rescue should you happen to be attacked near their space and you may quickly become the enemy of the law.

While the story line might not be particularly original (alien artefacts anyone) it does provide a convincing enough vehicle for your progression through the early ranks. It all ends with plenty left to do, systems that you won’t yet have seen and wrecks and relics to hunt down. Ships that you’ll want to purchase and weaponry that you’
;ll want to mount upon your turrets. Coupled with the ongoing opportunity for online gaming this could see itself as one of those you’ll want to come back to just to see if there is anything you’ve missed or another foe that can be obliterated from the skies.

Graphics - 9.0
Sound - 9.0
Storyline - 8.7
Replayabilty - 9.0
Overall - 8.9

£27.99 on Play & Amazon!

Summary: