So, I am a big, huuuge fan of Starlancer. Great game, nice visuals even for today, superior voice acting and all that.

So after many years I decided to play Freelancer, which is some sort of a sequel, at least it says something about the great war in the intro. (the intro infuriated me as well, because it's a kick in the nuts. It says Ruskies won the war, so nothing you did in Starlancer even mattered)

And what do I get.

A story about some fucking EGG I don't even care about. I've played it for 10 hours and the whole story is about this motherfreaking EGG. Voice acting is half amateurish, but that would be ok.

If not the space battles. WHO ON EARTH though that firing space ships should all sound like "pew pew pew!". There is no POWER in those ships, unlike in starlancer, where torpedo launch gave you shivers every time, and blasting the enemy with full guns felt powerful as well.

I would like the free roaming aspect of the game, if sidequests were not the same FOUR quests over and over again. FOUR.

God damn it, Microsoft, you let me down.

I don't understand why the game has such a high reputation either. I tried to get into it many times, because it's one of my favourite genres, but its just arcade crap.

I wanted to like it as well. I'd heard so much about the "open world" and "free roaming". The reality of it was that not very far into the game it locked me into a completely linear series of battles I couldn't get out of, with no possibility of repairing my ship between battles. I think I died around the 7th consecutive inescapable battle, quit, uninstalled the game and never went back to it. "Free roaming", my ass!

Freelancer is NOT meant for hardcore fans of the space sim genre.
It's a game with fairly simple gameplay and a decent sized world you can mostly freely explore at various points in the game (yes there are other parts where the game will lock you into storyline missions, the free-roaming is between and after those).

Personally, I enjoyed it a lot, but it's definitely not the same type of game as Starlancer or Privateer.

The open world is a lie as well, because once every each main quest you are left to do "whatever you want to do", but after you complete like 3 or 4 sidequests, it forces you to go for the main quest anyway.

And what's the point of free roaming when planets are pretty much the same (same locations, same quests, same armory), trading is boring and shallow.

And it wouldn't be that much of a problem if a main quest wasn't about some EGG.

and the battles are not entertaining, mostly because they are pretty much the same every time. And the missiles don't have any power as well. You shoot a missile, it hits a target, drops a little bit of its health and that's it. I dropped using them a long time ago.

Sometimes I use a torpedo on larger vessels but sometimes.

And I just can't stand weapon sounds in this game. They're horrible.

btw. the open world concept is made badly for one more reason - travels. I have a feeling that I am flying to the mission destinations more than doing anything else. And since flying is done mostly on autopilot, I just stare at the screen or browse the internet on my phone.

I don't believe I can take it any much longer. One of the weakest space "sims" I have ever played.

Junko is cute, though.

Actually I enjoyed Freelancer quite much. I was craving for a space sim at the time (my favorite kind of sims since I first played Wing Commander and X-Wing) and a friend who have it borrowed it to me. Sure it has limitations, but I was also able to enjoy Deus Ex: Invisible War by itself (though it's was pale shadow of its glorious antecessor). ;)

But if you have Starlancer in so high concept, despising Freelancer so much, I think I've lost a true gem there. Hope someday Microsoft will sign up for GOG and we'll see both games here.

*flees before the angry mob could catch him*

This is never going to happen. Just download Starlancer from somewhere, they don't care about their old games anyway.

just for your info, Starlancer focuses pretty much only on ACTION :P but is way better at simulation than TurdLancer.

Yeah, unfortunately that's true of so many developers... :(

(I'm looking at you, LUCASFILM!!! Yeah, I know Disney own Lucasarts now, but I'm still angry with them, nodaways) Don't worry, being a space sim, doesn't matter if focuses itself on action or simulation, it suits me. ;)

(same with sci-fi movies, I watch even the bad ones) :D

I love Freelancer, REALLY love it.
Guess I'm a dork. :D

You like the pink space and little ships doing pew pew pew, don't you? ;p

Dont worry... It hates you too.

Oh, you reminded me. One thing I like about this game are random encounters. Sometimes you will find two sides fighting each other and you may interfere and help one of them.

But they won't even say thank you afterwards. Bastards.

does anyone else think the OP and some of the comments in here are ACE? :D Thanks guys really! i know right thers just something about a REALLY bad scifi movie. Iv decided its due to Sci-Fi fans being left out in the cold for so long that well accept ANYTHING ANYTHING AT ALL if its even remotely Sci-Fi related.

No, it doesn't. It gives you a location for the next story mission but you can ignore it. I know because I did for quite some time.