Freelancer

Since this game hasn't gotten a thread yet, much to my surprise considering its success, I've taken the liberty of opening one.

The main thing I remember about it is the final mission.

THAT'S NO MOON! THAT'S A PLANET! AND THAT IS A HUGE FREAKING DYSON SPHERE!

Fantastic game though. Probably the best mouse and keyboard scheme for a space sim I've seen in a while as well, although the grind on criminals could get a bit dull at times.

I think before Star Wars Galaxy I played this game... enjoyed the dog fights.

Well, it's old...

Really like it though...dogfights are fun...and the missions just get progressively larger and crazier...

Anyone here did Rhino run?

It's old, simplistic and a ton of promised features were lost due to Executive Meddling.

And yet still, it is awesome.

I got this game new a long time ago. For only 2 euros. Best 2 euros ever spend.

Shame there isn't much to do in post-game, but I really liked it while it lasted. Good story, graphics that aged pretty well, cool setting, very nice gameplay. I could especially appreciate the controls, that were easy enough for a monkey to learn, but still simply worked whenever you needed to do stuff.

Anyone else thought that the lasers that target the enemy shields were a bit overpowered? Using those felt almost like cheating.

Not much to do? Once the story is finished, you can do whatever the hell you want! Although there is a still a limit as to what you can do, there's still quite a lot of things to do and see!

And what do you mean by lasers that target shields?

Me and my dad played the mutiplayer. We were a awesome team of two

The only stuff that is still to see is stuff that is pretty much the same as what you got before. I once tried playing along with it, and got a Very Heavy Fighter out of it (Junker Eagle, I believe), and then I more or less got bored of the whole thing. By that point, you are pretty much the biggest badass in the universe and there is just no where else to go but run missions that you have done a billion times by now, except this time there is no real reward for doing so.

I completely forgot the names, but certain types of lasers did almost no hull damage, but obliterated shields in a second. While this seems like a reasonable trade-off at first, it meant that you could stick only one of these lasers on your ship and hack away directly at the hull with all your other weapons.

I got it because it was listed as a pseudo-sequel to Starlancer, which I could never finish due to crashes on the two ion cannon levels, and I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, as it was really streamlined and simplified, I could never really get into the X Universe games even though I really wanted to.

Ah, Freelancer. I wasted many a happy afternoon playing this game. To be honest, I still love it, and I wish Freelancer 2 had been able to come to fruition.

One of the things I like about this game is the mods (even if I can't access some of them due to being unable to access multiplayer). So much variety...

I just wish Starlancer had gotten its sequels so we could have found out a bit more about the Nomads. They were supposed to attack Earth, and some of the footage from the extended Freelancer opening survives.

I had fun with this game, never got around to finishing it though. If a sequel is released I'd be all over that.

There probably still isn't a game that I've spent more hours playing. The multiplayer community was thriving and the sheer variety of mods available was insane.

I remember the mod that allowed you to purchase and fly battleships, that was great.

Man I love this game.

The plot, while not Shakespeare, is very FUN, full of interesting and awesome moments, the missions are great and epic, I still can remember the soundtrack despite not having played the game for a while and the game feels very alive when you're travelling through space.

My only problem with the game is the same as the other troper said, once you finish the storyline there's not much reason to keep playing, you've got one of the best ships on the game for free and you're probably bored from doing random missions to raise money through the whole game. That's acceptable tough, the game is pretty open and big, if shallow, but if it were mission based game like Freespace or Wing Commander, it'd still be great so it's not that big of a problem, all you have to do is treat the wide open sandbox moments like an extra and the main part of the game is the storyline missions.

It'd be great if they made a sequel that fixed those problems, they could make a simplified x game, I love them and I love complex games, the x series is one of those that I think would be better if it were simplified a little.

Fuck Freelancer. How about a next-gen remake of Elite?

And I don't mean EVE Online.

Who has Elite license anyway?

The closest substitute is probably Vega Strike or Ad Astra...

The X Universe is pretty similar to Elite.

What's the difference between Elite and Freelancer? They're both the same concept.

Freelancer is way way way more linear. While Elite does have a story, it's barely there. Freelancer was originally supposed to be much more like Elite, but due to Starlancer's failure and the overreaching design team, Freelancer was scaled way back and the story became the main focus.

So THAT'S where all the gameplay went! Juni and all the rest of them owe me BIG TIME! I could have owned a Freeport if it weren't for them!

The topic is now career paths.

I usually take a combat oriented approach to the game, since the barebones economy is exceedingly boring (except if you're smuggling, where you have to stay on your toes to avoid patrols). I originally pursued a career in piracy and had roosted with the Outcasts in Omicron Alpha. In recent years, I've turned over a new leaf and became a Bounty Hunter, killing pirates and smugglers for the highest bidder. Either way, I preferred to be a greedy bastard who would kill anyone or anything for the right price.

Sometimes, if I find some valuable cargo (usually smuggled goods), I go out of my way to sell it at the place where it sells for the highest price possible. Often, this usually involves me travelling the length of the Sirius Sector.

I usually go for combat as well, if only so that I don't have to switch ships with every story mission they throw at me.

I really wish this thread hadn't been created when it did. I've just re-emerged from a solid Freelancer binge. Currently playing the SP campaign again, and I'm trying to get the Mollys neutral without pissing off the Bretonian Police too much.

Is there any place that sells this game as a digital download? I checked Steam and gog.com, but they weren't selling it.

Amazon's selling it for 5 bucks.