Freelancer

The game starts with a space station mysteriously blowing up, as luck would have it though, you survive (would be a short game else!)A member of the Liberty Security Force ofers you some work & a basic ship, and from here the game begins. There is a central storyline which is based around a mysterious artifact & the disappearance of all the other survivors of the explosion which you are free to follow, and will help to keep the action fast paced.

The way to advance in the game is to make money, which you can do either by trading with different planets or by undertaking jobs for various employers, the choice is yours. However, one mans friend may be another mans enemy, so choose your allegiances wisely. More money means better & bigger ships, more powerfull weapons and bigger & better bribes to keep people on your side.

The visuals on this game are just amazing, you thought freespace 2 was good?? this will blow you away, but to really appreciate it you will need a really high spec system, otherwise you just wont do it any justice.

The controls take a bit of getting used to, its the first 'space' game ive played which uses only the mouse to move about, which kind of turns it into a first-person-shooter rather than a space-combat-sim, but once you do get the hang of it, its kind of easy. There is no roll though, which still leaves a kind of unnatural feeling to turns & im still not 100% convinced that an option for joystick movement shouldnt have been included.

This has to be the best looking & most wanted game for the PC in a long time, the space combat 'genre' has been neglected for a while, but this offering more than makes up for it. Definately going to be around the top of the sales charts for quite some time.

Buy it, play it, keep playing it!!

This is basically what Freelancer is all about; you start the game with a very basic craft and sod-all money and it's your mission to improve both of these. There are many set-piece missions at various intervals throughout the game, which drive quite an interesting and compelling storyline through the whole thing.

Between these missions it's up to you to tootle along to the bar on whatever planet you're encamped and tout for trade amongst the locals, improving your bank balance and reputation. These missions are invariably of the 'Go here, kill him, come back' type and there's very little variation involved, whereas the set-piece missions can be quite long and challenging.

The game isn't compatible with any joysticks at all, relying instead on totally mouse-driven flight, which may make any space combat purists out there decide not to touch this game with a bargepole. Think again - the mouse flight system works so wonderfully that you'll be wondering why nobody's ever done this before. Flying is extremely intuitive and smooth and you'll find yourself pulling off manoeuvers you didn't think possible. Brilliant system, which can't be properly described - just check it out.

The game is set in a MASSIVE universe, which makes itself ever more available to you as you progress through the set-point missions. The graphics are crispy, detailed and VERY smoothly animated and don't necessarily need a top-end system to look good on. Flying through a fully 3D asteroid field with 4 wingmen against the backdrop of a multi-hued nebula can be quite breathtaking.

All in all - an excellent game that'll have you wasting away hours at a time. It isn't perfect (the planets' surfaces are far too samey), but it's pretty close. Add a great online multiplayer option into the package and you're talking a game that's destined to be a massive hit.