Wing Commander: Privateer

The Good
Ability to play any way you wanted (merc, pirate, merchant, unpaid militia, or even friend of the Kilrathi). If you want, you can change, too.

It has elements of all types of games from action, adventure, sim, RPG, sci-fi, and strategy.

Graphics are superb. Sound creates an atmosphere and adds to the game. Clues are even given by changes in the sound.

Gameplay is balanced, and the entire game can go on without the actual story line ever being touched (although the story does offer some really nice perks).

Upgrades, different planets, trading, and merchant and mercenary guilds. The guilds really add something extra to the game, doling out credits for successful completion.

A little bit of a twist in communications. You can use your communicator to send ship to ship messages in an attempt to change a hostile ship to friendly, or vice versa.

With a linear story line you can stop the story, go get a better ship, and pick right back up where you left off.

The Bad
Privateer 2. It made a lot of good improvements in the game, but overall just didn't click.

Getting picky, here are some things that could have been better: more ships, more races to encounter, even larger universe, ability to actually make a large difference in the universe, time-line triggered events (like have new weapons be discovered as you progress throughout the game - as it was in P2).

P2 had a lot of improvements, but it totally lost the balance and flow of the game. It was basically just a movie turned into a CD-ROM game.

The Bottom Line
It is NOT another Wing Commander game. Sure, it has some parallels to the WC series, but it's totally different. It's just a well-designed game that actually works! It has a good deal of replay value as you can pick different ships, and you can always try to do something really strange like be a Kilrathi ally. It's really hard to find a game where you can ally with the enemy.

The Good
The gameplay is immersive. This is one of the few games where it's more fun to avoid the main plot and just concentrate on exploring, trading, and upgrading your ship. Getting to play blockade runner with a hold full of illegal drugs by dive-bombing a planet on full-afterburner with a half-dozen confed ships on your tail is still possibly the most fun ever offered up in a WC game. Plus the idea of being able to switch "sides" at will between several competing groups is nice - it's theoretically possible to be allied to the pirates, the Kilrathi, and Confed all at once. And the music was some of the best MIDI work they had.

The Bad
The gameplay is blatantly ripped from Elite. I'm still amazed David Brabden didn't sue Origin - every aspect of the game EXCEPT the plotline is straight out of that classic, even down to most of the specific items you can trade in. Also, it got mind-bogglingly difficult towards the end of the plotline, with missions that took more than an hour to complete and far more bad guys than was really necessary. (and the add-on mission pack took that difficulty and upped it further. I know VERY few people who managed to complete it.)

The Bottom Line
Want to play Elite 3.0? Here ya go. Skip the plotline and just explore.

The Good
The first thing that snatched me is the complete customizability of your ship. The ship that you chose to fly with towards the end of the game really managed to demonstrate to the rest of the galaxy what kind of privateer you were. And, the accessories you purchased determined how much money you were making and how good you were at making it... The second is the availability of missions. Although, the plot-advancing missions were some of the best in the game, the fact that there was always something to do in every starbase (from cargo running to bounty hunting) really enhanced the lasting appeal of this game.

The Bad
The limiting number of ships you could fly. It would have been great to fly a military surplus Broadsword, or even the Militia/Retro/Pirate craft, the talon (even if they seemed to be made of paper). If they had made all of the ships that you encountered playable, that would have given this game even more permanent value.

The Bottom Line
Think of this as a version of Wing Commander 2 - only sleeker and a lot more fun. Also, it's a lot less rigid in terms of gameplay since you do everything on your own terms. My favorite Space Combat games (for instance, Star Control 2) are always games that offer customizability and variety, and Privateer is no exception. From what I've heard of Privateer 2 (I haven't actually played it), I'm rather disappointed that not only does it have nothing to do with the original Privateer, but it also took a step backward in gameplay.