Freelancer developed by digital anvil and published by microsoft game studios is a spiritual sequel to Starlancer.
Overview: Freelancer is a space combat game set in the far future around the 24th century. mankind was split into two sides The Alliance and The Coalition they had been fighting for quote "so long that no one remembered what we where fighting for" unquote. the coalition manages to gain the upper hand and forces the alliance to flee to a new galaxy to start again. this happened 800 years before the game begins.
Graphics: Freelancer did come out quite some time ago but for the time the graphics look ok, there not dazzling or terrible but a happy medium draw distance is excellent in part being that there's a constant background of stars and nebula's to look at, and planets can be seen from far away. one problem though is planets and space stations pop in when you get close enough and disappear if your to far away. the graphics could have been better but there satisfactory.
Audio: Freelancer sounds very good the weapon, impact, engine, and shields on your ship sound as realistic as sci-fi can be. not only that but when you bring up your nav-map or inventory the sounds that are made make you feel like your actually navigating a futuristic computer.
Storyline: without spoiling the storyline i can say that it is interesting a few plot twists, and deep characters make it a sci-fi triumph.
Gameplay: unlike some games Freelancer allows you to control your ship in real time as if you where flying it. the entire game is real time and there is no pauses where you contemplate your next move. a huge galaxy to waits to be explored, how big? with approx 50 solar systems to visit and explore each being about 100,000 Sq kilometers (a kilometer is approx Half a mile) there very big. with a playing field this big how do you get around quickly? Your ship travels at a speed of 80 kilometers per hour at max Engine output, but by purchasing a thruster your ship can accelerate to 200 kilometers Per hour for a limited time, for an even faster travel activate your cruise engines to zip through space at 300 kilometers per hour. but that's only what your ship can do, by useing "trade lanes" you can follow the lane from point to point at around 1000 kilometers per hour. jump gates and jump holes are used to travel from solar system to the next where as trade lanes are just from planet to planet or space station. but just because your in a trade lane doesn't mean your safe, pirates can "disrupt" the trade lane which pulls you out of it and back to normal speed. there the pirates will shoot at you or leave you alone depending on if your hostile, neutral, or friendly with them. with around 45 or so Factions/organizations that will be hostile, neutral, or friendly towards you based on who you shoot, who is hostile, neutral, or friendly to you and where you buy equipment or trade with. after and during the story of the game you are allowed to free-roam limited at first but after the main storyline is finished you can go anywhere. you can trade, and take missions from planets and space stations, with over 50 different ships to choose from. ships range from Civilian Fighter Light, Heavy and Very Heavy, Military Fighter light, heavy and very heavy, Various fraction specific Fighters and Freighters, And Civilian And military freighters. Fighters are for direct combat with much smaller cargo holds then freighters. Freighters lack in combat but can carry A hell of a lot more then fighters. AI in the game is pretty good for the time, house police will scan your cargo bay for illegal artifacts, if they find any they will shoot at you, but police just don't appear out of know where every ship you encounter has a Patrol or trade route that they are following or they may just be going some where completely random. weapons come in four classes: Gun- are laser weapons that have unlimited ammo but do not seek there target. Missile- projectile weapons that do have ammo but seek there target. Mine- are dropped behind the ship and explode we a ship fly's by. and Torpedoes- larger missiles that do far more damage but are slow and don't seek a target.
Overall i would recommend Freelancer to anyone be you a Sci-fi person or not if you can find it give it a try.
Player 2 looks through Microsoft's back catalogue of games to determine which titles should be brought back to life.
Some good picks here and there is definitely a wealth of potential MS could pull from and just ride the nostalgia wave.
Crimson Skies and Mech Assault are no brainers and should have been released already. They have been requested by every fan for the longest.
Brute Force I can really see coming back and paying homage to old school arcade shooters. Make it an arcade type game, third person shooter, with a Contra gameplay style. Make it over the top and action packed.
Jade Empire...interesting....what if that is the game Playground is supposedly working on...
I'm not sure but I thought MS owned Jade Empire since Bioware made it before getting bought by EA.
Besides, it really doesn't matter, MS could still contract a third party game from EA/Bioware.
Nope. Backwards compatibility is moving backwards. You wasting resources on BC rather than making new games.
Bioware owns Jade Empire... they even made it into an Android Game in 2016: http://toucharcade.com/2016...
EA bought VG Holding Corp which owned Bioware so technically EA owns Jade Empire IP.
Mechassault is the only *Great* game on the list imo. I had a blast playing that back in the day. Crimson tide was mediocre at best
I’d rather see Fable 4 actually get confirmed before I act like it’s a real thing. And that Age of Empires remaster isn’t even coming to Xbox One.
Age of the Empires 4 is the game I was referring too and its mention is to emphasise the point that MS is actually looking at their back catalogue. AoE4 may not come to Xbox but it will be apart of the Xbox ecosystem on PC.
Xbox ecosystem on PC? Lmao!
Unless it’s on Xbox One so it could be part of the Play Anywhere label, the “Xbox ecosystem on PC” shouldn’t be a phrase that is ever muttered.
Age of Empires isn’t even part of Microsoft’s back catalogue of franchises since it’s been a series they’ve been handling in recent years now. So it’s even more unnecessary to bring up unless you’re also going to say Halo, Gears of War, & Forza are part of their back catalogue as well.
If you brought up Microsoft releasing remasters of Voodoo Vince & Phantom Dust last year as a sign of them looking into their classic franchises, that’d make more sense than saying an ongoing franchise that isn’t coming to Xbox One and an unconfirmed rumor of game were signs of this awareness.
Of course it is an Xbox ecosystem. Every game Microsoft releases on PC these days is apart of that whopping big Xbox store at the bottom of every windows 10 screen. What else would you call it? Phil spencer even refers to it as that. As for Age of Empires, considering there hasn't been a new AoE game since AoE online about 7 or 8 years ago It is a pretty fair statement to make. To me it just seems like you are being agressive without reason and you have take one line in an article and ran with it to make a ranty point.
Out of roughly 1000 words about games from Microsoft's past you go on a rant about this????? I think you are missing the point of the article dude.
Xbox ecosystem
http://n4g.com/news/1920150...
From MS themselves. Also if you call re-releasing old games with only resolution improvements you have a lower standard of handling than I do. Also For Fable I never said it was confirmed, I said all but confirmed, considering there has been a fair bit of evidence pointing towards that, it is a fair comment to make. But mainly I really want to ask, what is your thinking behind this, somewhat off point rant? I mean the article barely mentions the two games you have ranted about, it is about actual MS games that I would like to see come back and yet you feel the need to go off on a tanget? I am not being nasty in asking this question I legitimately want to know. What is it you hope to achieve?
@PhoenixUp
"I’d rather see Fable 4 actually get confirmed before I act like it’s a real thing."
Fable 4? Could take a while. Playground´s Fable will more likely be a reboot. ;)
Ooh i have a good feeling it might come to the Xbox one considering the Mouse and keyboard support. So thays of no concern, it would be megaton if turned out 😁
Moving forward by admitting that sony is right "exclusives matter".
Sonny is wrong, multiplayer matters.And they are goddam awfull at it lol. PSN hacks
Account hacks, software update bricking.
Fine by me. I'd love if they bring back old series. Give me Fable 4, Crimson Skies 2, Mech Assault 3, Voodoo Vince 2, etc. Would even like to see Halo go to a developer who will make a game that is like 1,2,3 instead of whatever 343i is trying to do to the series because it's not good.
Chris Roberts, the head of Cloud Imperium, talks to Kotaku's Nathan Grayson about why the game is taking so much longer to complete than anticipated. Former employees of the company claim it's because of Roberts' overly lofty ambitions, but Roberts maintains it just comes down to the demands players keep making for more and more features.
It's called milking it... why release the game when people keep throwing millions at it.
Same reason we haven't seen Detox. Game will never live up to the hype. Oh and you aren't wrong about the money thing either.
Not really. Star Citizen started near the ending of 2012 after it got crowd funded in terms of stronger development push.
Thats barely 3 years, consider Destiny was worked on for 6 years on a ground up engine. They are using CryEngine 3 and making it useful for their needs, they even half part of the team that built the cryengine working with them.
Now consider they got all of what they've gotten done in as little as 3 years and their scope is larger then any game conceived on PC as of yet.
Taking so long? You mean how is is shaping up as fast as it is? I mean...do we not all remember when it was first shown at GDC in 2012 and we are as of this year seeing lots of those concepts coming to life? That is quite fast if you again factor just what Star Citizen is and just how short of a time we've actually known of it.
if 3 years is "taking so long" what is a faster development of a open world MMO in space? I mean...does any one really have an example of some game that took 1.5 years to make? lol, really, really understand exactly what is being done and how much it actually cost and takes to create such a game.
I'm fine with a 2016 release from this team, its something unlike any other game to date. Mind you, many 2016 titles have been in development for longer then Star Citizen.
Horizon Zero Dawn has been in development longer then Star Citizen.
When Destiny was released, it was in development longer then Star Citizen is now by 2x.
http://www.gamespot.com/vid...
It wasn't even suppose to be a space type game, it was suppose to be fantasy originally.
So when folks keep whining over Star Citizen's development...understand that Bungie and Guerrilla games got publisher backing, they can work in secret as they have funding.
Consider if Horizon was kickstarted in 2011 and came out in 2016
Consider if Destiny was kickstarted in 2008 and came out in 2014..
I mean...what is really "taking so long" when you factor exactly what it actually is? They must crowd fund, gamers merely heard of Star Citizen first....doesn't mean it was in development longer, you merely know of it longer.
As we speak...many big developers have been making games in silence for likely years and years and we clearly don't know about it. Its merely about perspective. For what Star Citizen is and what I saw at Gamescom...they can take their time, its amazing and greatly appreciated.
Genre and generation defining concepts are worth the wait.
It's called developing a game.
Only people who are ignorant about Star Citizen expect a AAA MMO along with a Single Player campaign to be out only after what ? Barely 3 years of development.
Not even 3 years of development. 3 years of building a huge company and a crowdfunding platform and slowly acquiring funding, external studios to help.
I don't know why it's so hard to understand. Ofcourse it's going to take years and years to make. Why do you expect anything else ? There isn't even a debate here, it's just common sense and logic.
EDMIX said it perfectly. The only people who give Star Citizen crap for 'taking too long' are people who have no idea about how long it takes to develop a game.
I don't have any problem believing the story about the features. As a software developer, I know all too well that constantly adding new features ends up taking much longer than anticipated. Less experienced devs will often take on new features on their client's demands. It's better to draw a line to know when the product is finished or it can go on forever. And forever is not an exaggeration. A lot of teams never get out of this cycle.
That said, it seems to be an advantage for this particular team and many others who deal in early access games since people are throwing so much money at them xD
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PJ: "Freelancer is one of my all time favourite games, holding the dubious honor of being the first game I actually owned and being the game that introduced me to the world of space sims. Coming from the mind of Chris Roberts, Freelancer offers an open world with a wide variety of factions, locations, and ships - once you’ve completed the story that is. Said story begins simply; 800 years ago there was a great war that consumed our solar system, and the losing side (an alliance between Britain, North America, South America, Germany, and Japan) sent out colony ships to find a new home, eventually settling in the Sirius Sector. Here the four ships that survived claimed their own territory - Liberty, Bretonia, Rhineland and Kusari - the Hispania never making it completely."
