Tuesday, February 25, 2003

Freelancer First Impression -- 11:20 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I really haven't had much time to play the Freelancer demo yet. I got it (and DirectX 9) installed and fired it up. It runs very smoothly on my system at 1024x768 with all the options cranked. It's probably going to take a little while to master the control scheme, but it seems to be very powerful. As I was playing, I kept thinking that it looked like Parsec. Hopefully I can devote a bit more time to it soon.

J.t.Qbe comments: I played it yesterday for an hour or so myself. It works under DirectX 8.1, but I hear that multiplayer requires DX9. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the demo ran very well on my Athlon 800; at 1024x768 with all the options at 75% or so I didn't see any stuttering. The game is very pretty; the graphics are great. Combat is very fast-paced, more like the old X-Wing games rather than the Wing Commanders. Freelancer is trying very hard to be like Privateer and Elite, but with more of a storyline. I'm still not sure how that'll work out; it didn't work too well with Privateer II. And I didn't like that I couldn't skip past any of the cinematics once I'd already seen them.

It's impossible to sum up a game after an hour of play. The beginning of any game is going to be more story-heavy just to get you into the game; I hope that there's more interactivity than I experienced. I didn't get much chance to play with the trading system, since most of the first hour is cinematics and combat. I'll play the demo more this week. Offhand I can say that I probably wouldn't buy this on release day, but would wait for a decent sale. So far it's a good game, but not a desperately-must-have game.

Monday, February 24, 2003

Freelancer Demo . . . For Real -- 11:47 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The non-FilePlanet version of the Freelancer demo has been released. It weighs in at a rather large 150M. I'll download it, try it, and give you my opinion. There's also a mirror on 3D Gamers and FileShack. Thanks Blue's News.

J.t.Qbe comments: I just grabbed it myself--I love my cable modem (just not the cable company). I'm hoping to try it tonight (Tuesday) and will post my opinions too.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 11:16 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

As of earlier this evening, I am the proud (?) owner of a minivan, a 2001 Ford Windstar SE Sport. I was made an offer I simply couldn't refuse. Hopefully this will last a good long time. I'm also hopeful that I won't have to go car shoppinj anytime soon.

In other news, my personal hero, Steve Yzerman, played in his first game this year for the Red Wings. All the other teams in the Western Conference should commence ph34ring in an orderly fashion.

Past Two Days' News

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