Freelancing

Microsoft's Freelancer is one big tease. It appeared out of nowhere as the new and enthralling brainchild from Wing Commander legend and luminary, Chris Roberts, then stuttered its way through development for the years that followed. Indeed, Roberts himself left the project about a year ago (officially to pursue his Hollywood career), leaving the game to be finished by various designers, some new and others involved since the beginning.

In our first hands-on for almost a year, we can confidently report that... it's looking pretty much the same since the last time. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The engine is gorgeous and capable of showing off the truly immense scale of space. Most games, for instance, will add nebula or anomalies in space to make things look pretty; in Freelancer, every phenomenon far in the distance is real and can be flown to. There are the conventional jumpgates that let you traverse large distances instantly, but if you wanted to, you could actually fly uninterrupted from one end of the game universe to the other (okay, so it's not infinite). It would, er, take a while, though.

The developers at Digital Anvil are also touting a massive, living universe of over 100 systems with thousands of people that can be interacted with. There are also four evolving factions that are broken down into over 50 subfactions, many of whom are involved in some conflict with one another.

A reputation system is what lends itself mostly towards creating the illusion of a living universe. How you behave, especially towards members of various factions, impacts how you will be treated, what missions will be available to you, etc. For example, if you attack an enemy of one faction, they may warm up to you and offer to let you join their wing if you bump into them on future missions.

Much like the Privateer series, Freelancer will have a linear storyline that progresses as you complete various missions - the pace at which you complete these is entirely up to you. All dialogue and cutscenes are played through the in-game engine, and these will actually include interaction with non-story related NPCs. So walking into practically any bar in the Freelancer universe will usually result in real-time rendered cutscenes and voice dialogue. When the main plot is done, the game theoretically will keep going forever with a working economy and hundreds of randomly generated freelance missions - whether things will get repetitive remains to be seen.

Trading is often a big part of these space explore em ups, and Freelancer is no exception. One interesting implementation of this includes "trading lanes", which are sort of mini jumpgates within systems to get you quickly to the various planets and starbases. The trade lanes have the feel of a (ultra) high speed interstate or motorway that you travel on auto-pilot - the catch is that pirates can attack you while traveling a trade lane (or you, as a pirate, can attack other ships). At the start of the game, you'll know very little about the galaxy, where jumpgates and trade lanes run - you have an 'automap' of sorts that updates when you garner information from people at various outposts.

Upgrading your ship is another tradition in these types of games, and Freelancer once again doesn't break the mold. You'll have 20 ships to choose from and a host of upgrades, weapons and shields to invest in. Money will also apparently be useful for bribes.

The most unique -- and controversial -- element of Freelancer is in its controls. Usually, you would pilot these small scale fighter-style craft with a joystick and throttle, but Freelancer's interface uses the mouse to control ship navigation and combat. This control system was one of the first things demonstrated when the game was first announced and it actually appeared to work very well. The problem is the mouse is something you use to "manage" a ship's operations rather than take direct control of them. It works well for the most part, when maneuvering isn't particularly crucial and you just need to set your ship to autopilot along the nearest trade lane, but in combat there's definitely something missing. Dogfighting by dragging your cursor to the screen edge and having to constantly click on enemy ships to fire just doesn't have the visceral feel of games like X-Wing and Freespace. The controls are still being discussed between the team, though, so maybe it can be tweaked or have joystick alternatives offered.

Multiplayer support is a definite. It'll use a standard client/server system, but won't be massively multiplayer. The hope, however, for the number of players on one server is very high. The theory is that the way the virtual universe works, it could cope with any number of human players added to the mix, making alliances and enemies with NPCs and affecting everyone's game accordingly. The only restriction will be the capability of the server machine itself and the bandwidth required. Digital Anvil said it's still working on how death will be handled in multiplayer - the single-player game simply auto-saves at every outpost, but in multiplayer, you obviously couldn't restore your destroyed ship without repercussions to the rest of the game world.

Overall, Freelancer looks to be very much like a cockpit-view space trader that, instead of being particularly innovative, does the whole Elite cloning routine with higher production values than any game in the genre to come before it. The size and completely free exploration of the universe itself is also more ambitious than anything tried before. Other than the more hardcore oriented Battlecruiser Millennium and Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos, there hasn't been a new title on the market in this genre for years, so the idea of a Privateer Plus isn't exactly unwelcome.

Whatever you want to classify it, Freelancer still looks destined to offer exciting gameplay, significant longevity and that always treasured "wow" factor on a technical level. The saddest part is that the wait is not yet over and the final product won't be available until autumn 2002. Have faith!