*NEW VIDEO UP FOR UNDERSPACE!* If you guys enjoy Freelancer and games like it, go check these one out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s_aaqUyg0lU.html
Almost 20 years, guys, and still one of the best games, in this genre. No game has managed that without a sequel ... And that's without Lootboxes, Season Passes and DLCs. That Game was my Childhood ^^
That's a really good point and not something a lot of people think about. Loot boxes, season passes, and DLCs dominate most of the industry these days. Hopefully soon we will get something that an capture that same feeling again.
Agreed.The open world of this game was enormous at the time, Remember this came out before world of Warcraft, so this game was amazing. There are other space exploration games similar to FL but none have bested it. This game should of expanded in to a open universe game by now.
Oh man I loved this game, ranks up with the (later) X3 series. I long sought a comfortable replacement to Frontiers: Elite 2 which I played as a teen and this was it for a time, I just got faintly irritated the few times the story railroaded me (usually with a reputation flip forcing you to move)
In 2003 this game was something really special for me, the sense of wonder and exploration, gripping save the galaxy narrative with really great writing, some really standout voice actors like George Takei of Star Trek fame as Lord Hakkera and Jennifer Hale as Juni who went on to nail it as Commander Shepherd in Mass Effect, John Rhys Davies as Tobias who has starred in so many great movies like the Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and although they were not the sort of TV shows I watched in my youth, Trent's voice actor was also very famous for several roles. These guys really did an amazing job and nobody at all phoned it in. The ambience was outstanding when you explored the Sirius sector for the first time with no knowledge of how far you could venture, it really did feel like it could be open ended. The first time I completed the storyline I didn't hesitate when I was dumped back onto Manhattan, I got straight back in my ship and continued to explore, you still hadn't seen the Omicrons at this point which was a really special discovery towards the end. Thinking back, unless you spent hours following patrol path lines on your navmap you never would have discovered much of what the game had to offer, the shipwrecks with special guns and wormholes. What an awesome soundtrack they put together as well, each sector had its own explore, danger and battle tracks which suited the mood, so you knew when you were in Bretonia's old and dimly lit mining sector, or Kusari a much younger and brightly lit sector with vibrant oriental tracks, and planetary landing tracks were similarly unique to each sector. Certain details have always stuck with me even after all these years, like some of the lines you could hear when fighting, the horrific screams as a ship barrel rolled into a death spiral and then exploded into a ball of flame, and the revenge lines like "That bastard just killed one of my wingmen!" It's those little things, the attention to detail that made it the standout experience it was. It's so easy to see why development took so long, I don't recall playing any other game at that time that had that level of attention to detail, but only if you really spent the time to explore and immerse yourself would you appreciate just how good it was. The disc still sits on a shelf here, almost 20 years old now, and although I would look at it through a different lens now, there's no denying I would still very much enjoy the experience, just not so much as on an old 1080p CRT monitor with crackly external speakers and twiddly thumb screws for alignment lol. Makes me so happy that people like yourself are still enjoying and reviewing this great game, amazing!
Yes I agree! It's really nice to know that people are still enjoying this masterpiece of a game all these years later. Hopefully, we will have something soon that we can call a successor because if there is any game that deserves it it definitely is Freelancer!
@@Timmy51m I did play the demo of it (and i might actually stream the game since i want to see more) and it seems like a really good game. I really wish it was multiplayer though.
You were on point with the omicon system and such. And the "following the patrol path" of npcs will yield unknown discoveries, this is exactly how i ended up with discovering the sigma system (the one where Freeport 7 used to reside). After that, I was shocked to see how many more undiscovered star systems there was.
There are clues as to why the ancient aliens left the area. The system in corsair territory with a neutron star is the remnant of a super nova. The aliens left to avoid it.
The saddest part about Freelancer and gaming is that nothing released to this very day managed to come close to it. But ofc everyone who's making a space game is name dropping Freelancer in their marketing. One would've thought in 2003 that it's only going up from there...
Agreed. It's definitely crazy to think we haven't gotten anything that captures that Freelancer feeling. I'm hoping Underspace will perform well, and someone mentioned their might be a hidden Freelancer projects in the works but we will have to see.
@@Aerali Absolutely. Go and check them out. I was always more of a "sim" guy but got fed up with it after all those years. I tried both games only recently and was really surprised that it's basically Elite Dangerous with story and arcadey controls. The first one doesn't have cockpit view and the spacecrafts are controlled like ships with broadside based combat, which i never thought could be fun, but oh boy, how wrong i was. After playing Outlaw where you control your ship from 3rd person view or cockpit view i searched for more games like that and learned about Freelancer. From the videos of yours and others on RU-vid, it's basically Rebel Galaxy Outlaw.
Imhave the software disc from back in the day. Its still in the original box but opened,I loved this game and played it for hours on a home lan with my buddy. We zapped many nomads for their cannons what a blast.
I work for Jorg Newman, the guy who helped get this thing published all those years ago. Been meaning to ask him his take on the recent Squadron 42 trailer and thoughts on sifi. We both work on Microsoft Flight Simulator, and he's often busy managing other development teams.. rest assured, I'll bring it up sometime either over a phonecall or in person meeting. Determined to hear what it was like, although I highly doubt there is a chance of it re-releasing with Microsoft. I've wanted to have that conversation with him for quite some time now though!! GotFriends Developer, - Mykrode
This game was AMAZING! My brother and I waited 2 years until we got a computer that could run it. We would stay up through the entire night and play it while our parents were sleeping. The storyline was so good we could stop talking about it during the day and wondering what would happen again when we played it. 10/10. Thanks for the review. You do a great job capturing the spirit of the game in the review.
@@Aerali thanks for bringing them all back. It means a lot. I'm 32, own a couple restraints, married, and have 2 kids. Your video made me feel like a kid again. : )
This game is a unique experience. Being on the run constantly while trying to figure out what is going on. Not knowing who is friend or enemy. Quite impressive for me back then.
Freelancer is the only that I've played over and over again. After 20 years thought, I think I've finally found a game that will match my joy for this game, and that game is Spacebourne 2. Despite playing the beta, I loved how it retains Freelancers feel while adding so much more to the game systems. I want as many people to know about this game as possible so the developer will continue working on it, and releasing more sequels in the future.
@@Aerali I forgot to preface my last comment by saying GREAT review! As for Spacebourne 2 it is in closed beta and will be releasing to steam early access on the 17th this month. If you'd like access to the beta, you can always DM the developer for a key.
The best damn Space simulator ever done, Simplicity and playability. Unfinished game with broken economy yes, but it was so much fun. Game companies can learn so much from this game.
2003. That was the golden age of my gaming days. War3(dota), Aom, Gta vice city, Sands of time, Splinter cell, Never winter nights, Nolf2, Mafia, Hitman 2.
Eternal game for me, even after a dozen of playthoughs from time to time, I still love it as much the first time and there isn't a space game that can top Freelancer.
Somehow I just had the mood to play this game again, and found this review. All the nostalgic feeling just come back all at once. What a time to be living in.
Oh man, I'm playing it for the 4th or 5th time now and it's still as great as it ever was, it has that '1 more mission or battle' addictive gameplay element not many games have (for me), especially not after a few play throughs. And its also still - and despite its flaws - so immersive, simply love it !
I think what I love about this game was the simplicity of the Interface. I really enjoyed replaying it recently, and it's not a game where you are having to juggle tons of controls and systems, and those that do exist are intuitive enough to not require much training before it's automatic, it's something that Everspace and Starpoint Gemini struggled a bit with. Add to that the amazing audio and what I still think are some of the best nebula effects in any space game and the only thing it really lacked was a more in depth trading system and the ability to own more than one ship at a time. I tried playing the Crossfire mod, I'll be interested to hear your opinion of it, I found single player kind of drags you along for the ride a lot of the time, and I'm _very much_ in two minds about the enemies using shield/armor regens during battles. It _should_ be a great addition, but often it is just infuriating. Great new ships, star systems and other stuff though, but you barely have time to experience them at first.
I 100% agree! It's one of those games that's easy to pick up because everything is pretty simple and straight forward and the game doesn't shove all this different systems and features in your face and expects you to understand them. It was really way ahead of it's time. The crossfire mod is honestly kind of pain to play through. It started out great but eventually because a total drag tbh. I do enjoy the new systems and ships and the idea of tying it more into the universe by including the factions and systems from the previous game but the missions themselves are incredibly boring. I haven't completely beaten it yet so it'll be a bit before I'm done but I'm definitely still wanting to make a review for it!
@@Aerali The crossfire mod made me laugh, the mission design is so awful its clear the creator had a lot of ambitious ideas but those did not translate well at all to gameplay. The Discovery mod back in the day was chopped together with stolen assets, but it was still a better mod imo. Nowadays, Discovery is an absolutely amazing mod.
@@kingenfuuken yeah sadly crossfire starts out pretty awesome but drops off once you get to the new systems. Missions are long and bland. Like you said though in concept their ideas were pretty amazing. I need to get back into the discovery mod but last time I played it was really really good. It really feels like an expansion to freelancer!
@@kingenfuuken Yeah, I ended up switching to God mode for Crossfire when I started encountering things like Shivans and Vasudans from the Freespace franchise and had missions that regularly consisted of flying 100+ km whilst being attacked by aliens with almost no way of replenishing supplies. Same as you, I liked the ideas involved, but I think the Author fell into a kind of story creep, rather than just picking one story and focussing on it. I'll give Discovery a go instead, I've been watching videos and it looks like an interesting place to explore, which is more along my line of game-preferences.
From the beginning of the video, the background ost just hurt my hearth. oh I finishied and play this game a dozen of times. Must play it again this year 😔😔 The sad part is that there is just one game with this atmosphere and this genre like this. no other game can compete with it or get in my hearth. not even near it .
Yeah the OST is amazing! It does a really good job of creating the atmosphere for the game! But hopefully soon we will have some games that might be able to be able to compete. A few games are in development that take freelancer as inspiration so maybe one day we will get a "modern" Freelancer.
This game alone had me back Star Citizen all those years ago and the promise of that game being so much larger than what Freelancer could be albiet we'll be waiting another decade before that vision is realized I feel.
I'm so glad you brought up racing. I remember going all the way back to Bretonia after a story mission took me all the way to Kusari just to discover I couldn't race :(
I would seriously check out Underspace. While it's not a remaster, it's doing a great job of being a very close spiritual successor to Freelancer, with some added things of course. I'm highly anticipating it's release which is happening in Q2 this year for early access.
thanks to my dad and older brother, this is one of my favorite childhood games ever! my dad would go on vc in discovery freelancer and would have a neat miner group, i think their name was GMS i don't really remember the graphics are definitely, it still amazes me every time i visit it! the ships are fun to buy and it feels so... wow
If/When/How Star Citizen releases i would love if they would focus on the next step and add a separate campaign as a remake of the Freelancer game with Star Citizen graphics and mechanics.
It's not a bad idea at all but at this point I would rather have someone else do it. I don't really have faith in that team anymore since the whole debacle with star citizen is a mess. But a remake of freelancer with updated graphics and more ships etc. would be amazing!!
@@CTE-6000EagleVeryHeavyFighter well I'll keep it in the back of my mind. I'm not a backer (thank God) but if it ever properly releases I'm sure it'll be fun for a while. Maybe it's even better than we think. But for those of us that really care about the genre and the freelancer in general there are other options worth pursuing. I was recently made aware of "Underspace" which looks promising and their latest developer log shows a lot of promise so i implore you to check that out. Meanwhile both Crossfire and Discovery are both still going so maybe show some support there as well. I know it sucks that we haven't gotten a true successor so I'm hoping at some point there will be something with the amount of people that are interested in this genre.
I hope in the future there will be a studio that brave enough to buy freelancer ip from Microsoft to remake(just like so many other remake of old game like crash bandicoot), they dont need to do a complete makeover and they also can hire and paid many existing freelancer modder for new continuation storyline and features for end game fun... Like joint work with both discovery mod dev and crossfire mod dev to make and mix both mod to become official... Discovery is really the best for making new faction lore, and new sirius system design, and also they did great job on making loadout for npc to make them really challenging but balanced(4.85 era). i fall in love with disco freelancer 4.85 when they introduced galia and its role. They did good too for multiplayer role play. And crossfire is the best for expanding main story line and making other new sector all together... The first time i jumped into hypergate into new sector... They got me there... I dont feel at home(sirius) all of the system are so alien it just so terrifying just to get trapped in the new sector.... If there a future where there will be a dev team studio that took freelancer and remake it with passion, i will leave the note here for em as diehard fan of freelancer: -Freelancer doesnt need extremely realistic graphic(like new game standard nowadays) just an enchanted graphic like the new great hd mod is really sufficient. - it doesnt need over the top REALISTIC effect, it doesnt need over the top game engine, it doesnt need 10:10 reality comparison (cause star citizen did that and where it is now? Its not a bad game(its good game) but... It still sad) - it doesnt need reality size space scale to have a good gameplay. - it doesn't need hyper realistic feeling of real world space because there are not yet any and many real human traveling wherever in space *yet. Freelancer give us a fantasy space atmosphere that bring us out of the world experience feeling making us wanted to explore it huge universe. And it focused on single player role over rpg experience of multiplayer. Freelancer once again is not a game that tried to become realistic game... It just a game of fun space exploration. And good lore waiting to be discovered.
I agree! I think for a space simulation game the graphics for 2003 we're already really good. They do not need to go over the top with the graphics. There is plenty of games that have decent graphics and don't take 10 years to develop so I agree for sure. It is a super fun game for sure. I'm currently playing through crossfire on my twitch channel and I'm having a blast!
Every few years I would install a game with spaceship combat, realise after 15min that the controls are horrid, reminiscing about Freelancer. Then I'd install Freelancer, finish the game, try some mods and MP servers, get annoyed with them and wait a few years to start the cycle again.
I agree with the comments about the interface. I tried X and Eve and quickly gave up on that tedium. I love this game, too, especially the wrecks. I once played it all the way through with just the Starflyer, the first little ship you're given. Booyah! I also loved online play on the old Freelancer Universe. My main criticism of the game is that the ships and weapons were unbalanced. Meaning, just one configuration is the overwhelmingly dominant one--an Eagle with the Nomad weapons. Also, it never made sense that the transports had weaker armor than the fighters. They're too easy to kill. Where were the other generation, transport ships from the intro video? The first was obviously in the middle of Manhattan. Another was a huge wreck floating in Spanish space. I never found the others.
Wow that's a cool challenge doing a Starflyer only run! I think I've seen footage of people doing this and it sounds pretty tough if you don't know the ins and outs of combat. There is a lot of little criticisms i have for this game but for something that came out in 2003 i think it holds up really well. A lot of the issues could've have been fixed if the development wasn't rushed or if they had continued to work on Freelancer 2, but sadly here we are. I think the rest of the sleeper ships are on the capital worlds of each region. So "new Tokyo" or whatever it's called for the kusari space and "new Berlin" or whatever it's called for the Rheinland space and so on. At least from what I remember since those were the starting points of each of the different branches of civilization in the Sirius sector. The Spanish ship was destroyed and like you said you can find the wreckage out in space as well. I'm also sad about them not tying it into the intro (or the previous game) at all lore wise but again that is something that more development time or a second game could have fixed.
@@Aerali One of the cooler things I did was, in New York space, get a very red reputation with the Bounty Hunters and a very green one with the Navy. So then, when hanging out around the Missouri, a bounty hunter would fly into the space and turn red to the Navy, and the Missouri would open up on them. In online play, one could call me a pirate, but the truth is...I was more like a "terrorist." Meaning, if I saw you and thought I could take you, it was on! Not interested in collecting money, just wanna destroy you. I remember moments in which it felt like I was really stalking others' ships.
Oh yeah, the saving grace with the Starflyer was that, while the gun mounts were weak, you could at least get the best mines in the game. That was where your firepower was.
@@dbryan1688 Haha sounds like some really good times. I have some seen some interesting interactions with the reputation systems. Sadly. I never got to play the game online back in the day, but I'm sure it was a blast playing this online with other people!
The moment GoG or Steam get the ability to sell this game, i will grab it and gift it to my friends, i spent so many hours playing this game that i wore the disc out it is in my opinion ine if the best space game that has been made.
I have not played starfield yet and I have not seen much about it but I've never been a fan Bethesda games. They usually are buggy and weird to me and most of the time you have to play them with a ton of community mods. I will probably pass on it until maybe a few years from now? I'm sure Bethesda is gonna rerelease it several times over anyways with how they do all their stuff.
It saddens me i could not find any game that was as close as possible to this one in every aspect. May not have been that in deph and hard space sim as some might have wanted. But it was a big breakthought to have a true open world space sim. One thing especially that was never replicated was the "atmosphere", no other game gives anxiety just flying in an asteroid field, or even more so a nebula. I rely hoped Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous filled its shoes but they don't quite cut it.
I completely agree! If you want to, you should check out Underspace on steam. It's in development and will have early access available next year. It's definitely the closest that any game has come to Freelancer as far as I can tell!
Hi love the video. Recently came back to this game and playing online on the discovery server. Have you happen to find another game thats online which is close to freelancer?
Ever space 2 just did their 1.0 release but unfortunately that's only single player as far as I know. I'm still waiting for Underspace to release which I believe will have multiplayer (and it's a spiritual successor to freelancer) so that's what I'm kinda waiting on myself right now!
I still haven't found a single FL review that does justice to the combat mechanics and how big role skill plays, the nuances, different ships adventage (looking at you drake)... Good pilot is impossible to take down
You know, that's actually a good point. The reason I don't talk about it, is because i never reached that level of skill, so it's not something that comes to my mind but I do know some people that are just amazing at navigating the nuances of the what freelancers combat has to offer.
@@Aerali fair enough, btw i heard that everspace2 is similar game - i'd like to see a review about it as well. Must admit still didn't try it myself though xD
@@mehomuiki3886 I've only tried the demo. While it is a good game, I feel like it doesn't quite scratch that Freelancer itch for me. Although, like I said, I only played the demo. I might actually play the whole game at some point and make a review but don't have any solid plans for that as of right now.
When it comes to Freelancer I was always very disappointed that the Ships themselves functioned on a level basis. Making the latest Ships in the game the absolute best. If I would install Freelancer again, than only with a mod that re balances all Ships, so I can fly whichever Ship I want.
I bought this when I was 23. The album art was better than the game itself. I still think about being a Freelancer when I drive food deliveries or play modern Space sims, but not because of the game but because of the album cover. The music is single mood dystopian crap.
@@canadianbakin1304 nice! It does pop up for me every couple of years, honestly. And i still really want to review some of the mods still which will hopefully satiate that for a while. But i definitely will try spacebourne 2 soon!
I love this game too, but some bits do disappoint me, I wonder if you agree with these. 1. The economy could do with being dynamic or at least changing. Once you find a trade route it's just rinse and repeat. 2. I found that the selection of items was very limited. They could have had way more upgrades for sheilds, and thrusters and could have included loads of optional additional systems you could upgrade and swap between I also found the selection of weapons essentially quite samey. And it could have been good to include a quality variance between the same weapons.
I agree with you for the most part. I think that for the time those issues are that prevalent. Compared to today's standards i think that those issues are a bit more jarring. I really wish we could've seen a freelancer 2 because i have a feeling they would have really worked out those minor kinks!
@@Aerali yeah, there is a kickstarter game called underspace that has a free demo, it's basically a copy of freelancer and they are planning on putting more items variation and a dynamic economy along with things like bosses etc. Another simple feature they could have added just to give longevity and variation would be equipment and weapon mods/upgrades. Essentially like find 3 super rare crystals and fit them to you chosen gun and it will do more damage of give an effect like 1% chance to stun the target for a few seconds, or disable their steering or their guns etc.
@@ryansmith9138 oh I've never heard of this! Thank you for letting me know I'll definitely check it out! And i really like that idea. That sounds super fun to explore and find those crystals and stuff.
Man I remember this old jewel, If it isn't at steam how can I play freelancer today? Or alternatively, are there other games just like freelancer? Which ones?
@@williamalvarez9563 Freelancer is considered abandonware and can be safely downloaded. The link is somewhere in the comments. In addition to that there are some great mods out there for it (Specifically Discovery which just recently had another update)
My last two Off-the-Shelf PCs came without disk drives. I have this game sitting in front of me as I type this, and I can't even make use of the disk. 🤬
Wow, that is indeed a shame. But check out the other comments, you can get the game as it is consider abandonware and is safe to download from that site, so that you can enjoy this game as well!
Great video great game. Have you done the mod videos? Cant seem to find them, would love to give this game a play through with all the newest add ons. Difficult to find them online for me
Thank you! Unfortunately, I have not! I tried playing through one of the mods a few times but quite honestly it's a drag. And then I ended up losing all the footage for it as well 😅 it's still something that I'm interested in doing although I do not know when this will happen. And the only mods I can find are all on moddb -> www.moddb.com/games/freelancer
Why does this game run so well on modern systems? Just about everything from 2005 and back is all but unplayable without heavy modding, F.E.A.R. has major stuttering out of the box, Max Payne 1 and 2 is a mess, Tie Fighter 98 with its fancy new Windows engine needs patching. Heck, even Descent Freespace 1 and 2 need a source port for decent performance. And Independence War 1 and 2, good luck with those. Freelancsr though, that runs just as well now as it did back in the day. The HD mod is nice, but you don't really need it.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's the way that they optimized the game or something? I unfortunately don't know how all that technical stuff works but that is a great question.
Freelancer actually feels like a lived in universe. Everything is unique. No Man's Sky is 10 things copied and pasted 10 trillion times. It feels empty.
I agree. They really nailed the atmosphere and lore in this game. It's feels so deep and rich. No man's sky does have that feeling but by the time you get to your like 4-5 planet, like you said, it all becomes so familiar and same looking.
Yes agreed! I recently started NMS back up again and it's a great game but compared to Freelancer it feels very alien in a way. Freelancer had ships with people and dialogue everywhere you went. There was civilization wherever you went and even off the beaten path you could still find the occasional ships flying by. NMS is great but it scratches a completely different itch for me.
I have not, but I'm actually revisiting this game now. So, I'm slowly making my way through Crossfire right now and hopefully I will have that review done soon.
You know, I think about that all the time how games these days are massive in size but aren't even as expansive as some older games. I mean, I know a lot of different things go into file size and but it's still amazing!
@@Aerali They just had to keep true to Freelancers heart if they made a sequel with the latest graphics optional camera cockpit views and cockpit radio stations, Ship and player customisation and able to meet up on planets or bars for personal trades. Able to sell map info to players from different sectors and the planets and stations able to change faction if another faction gains the upper hand in that sector. No DRM and hosted by your own server files this would even make people move from Star Citizen or Elite dangerous and it could all be done in about 5gb. No AAA title could compete and it would still be legendary in another 20 years but they would never do this they want yearly sequels they can make money off.
How this game came out feature complete for its time... Yet it took Star Citizen dev 10 years to add basic salvaging mechanic 😭 The only other complete space game is Eve online, nothing comes close to it so far. And Eve also came out almost feature complete and perfected it.
Although I haven't kept track in years, I do hope that when the actual release comes, that Squadron 42 (and Star Citizen for that matter) are really as amazing as they should be! Excited to see what's for it!
If it hasn't been said, Chris Roberts was behind the making of Freelancer, so this shouldn't be a surprise. Part of the draw of Squadron 42 and Star Citizen's early backing was that it would be a spiritual successor to Freelancer.
Reminder that Freelancer was only released after Microsoft bought out the game studio and ousted Chris Roberts. The 2003 release was 3 years overdue on a 2.5 year development schedule.
an amazing game, thank you for the review, i have the original CD XDXD, any idea if this can still be played online? i remember there were some servers, but lost contact with this any information regarding the multiplayer thing is welcome.
@@fockew you are welcome! Again I'm not sure how active they will be on there but it's worth a try. Also Underspace is looking very promising in that regard so keep an eye out for that
One thing I have to adress before I even finished waching, same thing bugged me while waching your original review. How can you say there is not much post story content? While you play the story you visit maybe 10 or 15 systems and fly, maybe, that many ships all low level. Everithing else is done after you finish whit a story. Exploring, trading, discovering new ships, places and factions. There are some very hidden systems also that you can not acces while you playing story missions.
While you might not be wrong having no story and the same 5-6 type of side missions after the main storyline it becomes a little stale. Yes exploration might still be pretty cool but there isn't much to do in those systems. Feels a bit pointless to have all these cool places far out there but nothing special to do in them. And i think the ship variety is a bit lacking. Yes you can get a few more ships during exploration but I would've liked to have seen more types besides fighters and freighters. With that being said that might be a very biased opinion since i have been aging the game for a long time and played through it many times so for someone that hasn't played it those aspects might not bother them at all. Also both reviews were pretty much comparing it to today's standards in gaming but it is a 20 year old game now so for those standards back then it was really good. But no one watching nowadays would be watching it for how it was back then but how it compares to now. Another point is I think people also have different expectations when it comes to these sort of things. I love freelancer and games like it and i think it definitely is one of the best space simulators out there but I think because of this opinion i set it to higher standards i suppose. But yes you are correct that the main story barely touches on a lot of systems you travel through and there is so many hidden systems and far off places to visit which might be super fun for some first timers even if I (in my biased mind) think that it's not enough lol.
I mean that would be great but they cancelled Freelancer 2 and never went back to it. I don't even know if the studios involved even exist anymore. Either way, Star Citizen was supposed to be the savior here, but also falls flat on its face (for now, we still have to see if it lives up to 10+ years of development) but there are other projects that hopefully will take up this mantle. I have high hopes for Underspace. If you are interested in Freelancer I would highly recommend to check that out, there is a link to my review pinned in the comments. But yeah I do hope that at some point we will get SOMETHING that can carry the Freelancer torch!
The freelancer HD mod is a must! It makes playing on modern screens so much better. And the 2 mods I mentioned (crossfire and discovery) are probably most known and most worked on with tons of stuff. I recommend checking out moddb.com and searching for freelancer. They have ton of cool mods including the ones I mentioned!
So after spending about five or six hours, a new ship, unlocking the galaxy and several missions; It's a'right. Everyone who says nothing else compares is pretty much looking through rose colored goggles, yeah it's good but Rebel Galaxy, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, and a bunch of other do what this does and in many ways better. Kind of like the people who say No Mercy beats every wrestling game forever, no not really.
I'm gonna start by saying I've never played Rebel Galaxy, but I did look at some game footage and while I agree that, yes it does a lot of things much better than Freelancer, I think the reason a lot of people think Freelancer is so irreplaceable isn't necessarily rose colored glasses but it's more about the "feel" or "atmosphere" of the game. Looking at Rebel Galaxy it looks very steampunk-esque in it's systems and menus which is something I really dislike, personally. I also didn't really hear music (I was watching mostly reviews from people, so I couldn't hear much of the game) but to me it just doesn't have that "feel" that I get when playing Freelancer. As I've stated before the only one that comes close to it would be Underspace which hasn't released yet but it's also a spiritual successor to Freelancer, so that's unsurprising. Although, to really judge it, I think I want to try Rebel Galaxy and see how it is to actually play because a lot of games are much different once you actually play them yourself. None the less, thanks for stopping by and maybe you gave someone something new to consider playing (definitely me).
@@Aerali I'll admit it's growing on me. The environments were practically copy pasted into a ton of games, including the ever popular Everspace. Btw, I highly recommend using a keyboard mapper like Joy2key to simulate Everspace style controls, strafe left/right, reverse thrust, and forward boost on the left stick, mouse aiming on the right. Works beautifully. Cruising speed should probably be mapped on the L3, but I prefer the left trigger.
@@docsavage4921 Everspace is defintely something I've been wanting to get into. I might actually start playing through some of these on stream. And I'm glad it's growing on you! If you haven't yet you could also check out some of the mods they have for the game. Some make huge improvements to the game.
So when he told you to go to the New London ship dealer were you scratching your head wonder why you couldn't just buy the exact same ships in town? Of course I totally bought a new ship right away before heading to New London, was just hoping to see some cool new ships or at least a story reason for going there. That Cavalier light fighter is f'n amazing though, the starter Heavy Fighter couldn't even handle level six missions, while the LF dances around 8-10 ships like it's nothing.
Don't play this game lol there is a group of toxics players they wait until you have good ships to troll u and fight u with groups, and you probably take actions to fight back and there is always rules so many rules and the server admins will punish you for that. better find something else don't waste your time here, as a player played 2 months i don't recommend.
@@BugsbunnyEh hmmm I haven't played the core game PvP in a long time. If you want to do PvP I would recommend some of the mods for it. Perhaps those are better and more active. Discovery especially, since it just had an update come out recently.
it being old yet still being relevant and still going strong after 21 years due to its dedicated community is a testament of how much attention it deserves, and people need to know about it - nothing in the genre ever came close to it in more than 2 decades