Freelancer

Moby ID: 8565
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Description official descriptions

The war between the Coalition and the Alliance depicted in Starlancer had raged on and the Alliance forces were losing. A final plan was organized to punch through the Coalition attackers and send five colony ships across space to the Sirius Sector. 900 years have passed since then and the Sirius sector has been colonized by the surviving ships, dividing the area between four major nations: Liberty, Rheinland, Kusari and Bretonia. The fifth sleeper ship, Hispania, suffered a malfunction in flight, and is thought lost. In the spacelanes between these nations borders and outside of any specific jurisdiction lie undeveloped solar systems, pirate bases, corporate outposts and the neutral Freeports. One of these Freeports has come under attack and been destroyed by an unknown enemy attack. Survivors of the attack, including a freelancer Edison Trent and his business associate, Lonnigan, are evacuated to Planet Manhattan, capital city of the Liberty nation. Once there Edison hears rumors about military buildups and friction between the Sirius nations. It will be up to Trent to seek employment, rebuild his lost assets and discover the meaning behind these rumors.

Freelancer is a third person or first person space simulator and trading game, much like Elite or Wing Commander: Privateer. Players, taking the role of Edison Trent, will need to visit several locations on each planet in order to trade cargo, buy and repair equipment as well as obtain information. In space, Trent controls his spacecraft from either a first person or third person perspective and is able to use primary and secondary weapons. Destroyed enemy spacecraft often leave behind cargo which can be tractor beamed into the cargo hold.

Freelancer is a plot-driven game that slowly becomes completely open-ended. As such the player (eventually) has the freedom to fly around 150 planets across 40 solar systems looking for profit. As Trent trades cargo and undertakes missions (following an expanding story arc), he will affect the faction status of over 50 different groups (comprising of 3000 NPCs). Faction status will affect their attitudes towards Trent, including interaction planetside and in space.

Spellings

  • 星際遊俠 - Traditional Chinese spelling
  • 自由枪骑兵 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Videos

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Credits (Windows version)

177 People (157 developers, 20 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 84% (based on 39 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 93 ratings with 9 reviews)

Such a long wait for this game and all in waste....

The Good
Not much I liked about it - the storyline was pretty good if typical - government abducted by aliens and sinister plot, but I liked it anyhow. Music was up to date also, can not say same about graphics at all times, but they were at least decent....

The Bad
Horrible experience for me. I expected something like Privateer reborn, but instead got more or less shooter, and on top of it - one you dont even require joystick to play with, so it feels like one of the free windows all-mouse games. Missions are way WAY too repetitive, only 3 kind exist - kill someone, destroy ship and capture escape capsule or kill all alltogether. I am talking about the random missions of course, 13 plot missions are fine - but 13 is such short number. People in bars talk in same sentences (and voices) - there is abundance of weapons, but unlike in Privateer where you could just feel difference between shooting laser and tachyon cannons, they feel all same. Even ships are same, with only difference that larger ships are making mouse slightly more clumsy to turn around, creation illusion of bulky ships. Its an Earth and Beyond, stripped down and called Freelancer and just like Earth and Beyond it gets very boring after relatively short time.

The Bottom Line
If you are old Privateer fan like me, dont get this one, better to dig out two old Privateer games or Elite ones, or even X-tension (or what was its name) or at least decent space shooter that doesnt pretend to be Privateer reborn. No hard feelings, Microsoft, but trying appease everyone in crowd never really worked out fine.

Windows · by Marina Shoykhet (6) · 2003

Some Freespace, Wing Commander, and secret spice all mixed together!

The Good
The control of this game is flawless! Never have I had so much control with my fighter. The game's graphics are not top-notch, but they get the point through. The coolest thing is that there is basically an endless opportunity of things to do within the game. The RPG/Space-Combat touch is real nice, and the performance of the game is wonderful. Voice-acting is accurate, and the game itself is just a joy to explore. (FYI: Hot-keys are plentiful)

The Bad
The sounds and music could use work, and that means a lot. The story may seem linear to some, personally it did to me, but there are many more things to do than the average "missions". The trouble of travelling through "trade gates" gets tired after a while, but the occasional "firefight" pops up here and there. The final flaw of this game is the shortness. It may seem endless, but it all comes to an end before you realize you wanted to do some "off-the-subject" gaming.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game is absolutely a must-buy. Fans of space-combats, simulations, first-person shooters, and RPGs will certainly enjoy what this game has to offer. Take your time in the game and explore what the developers made for you. This is truly a work of art. Go out and get Freelancer and start blasting rogues today!

Windows · by Josh Miller (6) · 2003

Good graphics and plot, but not enough real "Freelancing."

The Good
The graphics on this game are pretty good. Each system that you go to is unique, and there are many different types of missions to take on. The story missions can be long, but are never really hard. The totally unique thing about this game is that they didn't copy ships or forms of transportation from Star Trek or Star Wars like several space games have. They created everything from scratch, so it makes everything more believable.

The Bad
This isn't as opened-ended as the box leads you to believe. You can't join any groups, and the worlds just have five places to go. You can't walk around the streets or anything. Also after you beat the game, there is really nothing left to do. Your only choice is to go from system to system taking on random missions over and over again. There are also some cuss words in here that really didn't help the game at all.

The Bottom Line
This is a good sci - fi game, but not totally open ended. If you find it for twenty bucks buy it, but otherwise don't waste your money.

Windows · by Jester236 (34) · 2004

[ View all 9 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
88 Flak - Awesome Mod! John Doe Apr 21, 2009

Trivia

Intro (Spoiler!)

There's a previous version of the intro video. Alike the final release version, the intro told the story of how the Alliance was losing the war to the Coalition and launched five sleeper ships to the Sirius sector. Unlike the final version, the story continues where the Alliance retreated all the way to Pluto to make their final stand. Just when they were about to engage the Coalition ships, a large alien vessel appeared... and destroyed the Solar System! There was a young Alliance general who survived the destruction and headed to warn the colonists at the Sirius sector... saying that mankind has finally found their real enemy: The Nomads.

For certain reasons this version of intro was changed into the final release.

Mods

If you have issues with how controlled the jumpgates are in relation to the plot or how pirate shields never regenerate or how you never see battleships patrolling the spacelanes... then rejoice! There are player-made mods to address all these issues. New Systems, New Ships... even options to turn off the plot and explore the galaxy like a real freelancer. See related links for mod sites

References

In Freelancer you can talk to many, many people. Most of the time in bars. And all of them have names... sooooo many names had to be invented for all those people... why not take real names from real people, might have thought the designers and gave some people in the bars vip's names like Erin Roberts and Martin Galway. - There is one planet that mimics the movie Planet of the Apes and can be found somewhere in the Fringe system, but beware of the nomads there.

  • Before Freelancer's release, Bargib, aka Christian Koerner, a site admin of Freelancer fansite The Lancers Reactor, requested to be featured in the Freelancer release. He got his wish; the bartender on Planet New Berlin is named Christian Koerner.

Awards

  • E3
    • 1999 - Best of Show
    • 1999 - Best PC Game
    • 1999 - Best Simulation
    • 1999 - Outstanding Achievement in Graphics

Information also contributed by Arvin Chandra, tsukasagoeth, Twilightseer, WildKard and Zovni

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Related Sites +

  • Freelancer
    Official Website
  • Lancer's Reactor
    A good source for Star/Freelancer information and a growing collection of player-made MODs, editors and utilities.
  • Project UberLancer
    A Freelancer community wide project to build the ultimate Freelancer mod

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 8565
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Arvin Chandra.

Additional contributors: Rebound Boy, Indra was here, Felix Knoke, Shoddyan, 梦迪 高, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 4, 2003. Last modified August 7, 2023.