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Freelancer Review - PC

Humanity and conflict have been threads that have woven the tapestry of our history. All too often the greed of mankind has seen great wonders destroyed and civilizations fall. It is no different in the year 2300 where after a 100 year war fate has tipped it's hand in the coalitions favour. In an effort to escape total destruction the alliance launch "sleeper" ships to the far reaches of the galaxy to establish a peaceful existence in the Sirius System. 800 years after this event we pick up the story where your character a " Mr Trent " narrowly escapes the mysterious devastation of Freeport Seven.

Gameplay

Freelancer is the exploration of space and is the next generation of the games such as Elite and Privateer. Like it's predecessors, Freelancer uses our fascination with space exploration, fighting and the greed for money - and has the power to captivate you for hours. Unlike it's predecessors however, Freelancer has employed more open game design which gives the player freedom over his choices how you are going to proceed through the game.

The indepth back story and immersing intro sequence allows freelancer to take you to a galaxy where you have to rely on your own wits to survive and if you're lucky thrive. Unlike similar games in this genre you will find that the open-ended design of the missions allows you to reveal the main story at your own pace so you can come back to the scripted plot when you want to. Often you will find that to achieve the main segments of the freelancer plot you will have to turn your hand to any trade you can to bring in the credits and increase your skills.

The main story line of Freelancer has plenty of twists and turns and the cut sequences really do the story justice. Although the cut sequences are rendered using the game's graphics engine the voice acting has a lot of depth with the talents Andy Sirkis (the excellent actor who provides the voice of Gollum in the Lord Of The Rings), Ian Ziering ( Edison Trent ), John Rhys-Davies, and George Takei. As the story develops and picks up pace you will find yourself getting drawn into the plot and where you will just complete this next mission to see what happens next. This can be very dangerous for those of you who work or study fulltime. So just remember to reserve your weekends as I am sure you will need them!

Digital Anvil took a small gamble with the integration of the mouse into the control system as it had the possibility of alienating the die hard sim fans by ignoring any joystick option. Being a flight/space sim fan myself I was intrigued to see if this would detract from the gaming experience. What I found was a ... (continued next page)