X2 -vs- Freelancer

[Oyarsa]

At this point both games are available for sub-$20. Are either worth it in the not so humble views of Codex denizens? Neither seems to get any consistent love and both clearly have their detractors here, but is that at full-price or any price?

 

[Fez]

Freelancer if you get it cheap. It at least has some decent controls and the odd bit of entertainment.

 

[Spazmo]

X2 is rigorously horrible and I've heard much the same about Freelancer.

 

[Fez]

It's kind of like picking between having a shit rubbed into your face or licking one.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

freelancer is crap.
man i waited 5 years for this game and they release a stupid action shooter in space without a bit of complexity or depth.You can only control your ship via mouse and keyboard. it works quite well but i don't want to play a fucking shooter, i want a spacesim. the trade system is complete shit because the prices of goods don't change dynamically. They are static so you can make a huge amount of money by doing always the same route and trading always the same goods.
As if this wasn't bad enough, there is another problem with the game. the Player Character is gay and stupid.
oh yes and the story sucks too. The only thing which saves the games from total cackness is the fact, that ummm... no there is nothing. total crap. a yeah and its very short. This game designed for stupid 6 year old shooter-retardos who have never played a spacesim in their life because they are too young and too stupid.


x2, the game is very much about economy and trade, very complex in this areas but i don't like it. i think of it as the extreme opposite of freelancer. Complex, deep but boring as hell. Don't expect exciting dogfights or a good story from this game.
it's more like a economic simulation from first person view.

 

[Fez]

The economic simulation in X2 is crap and broken anyway, don't buy it for that. Freelancer does have a very good mouse-based control system and the odd bit of decent combat, just don't expect it to last.

Freelancer is the lesser of two evils. Whether that is licking the shit or having it rubbed in your face I shall leave entirely up to your imagination, or careful experimentation.

 

[PennyAnte]

Freelancer has no shelf life. It's very cheesy and linear. You'll get bored fast.

On the other hand, there are quite a few mods out there for it. A few are even comprehensive and good.

Check Lancer's Reactor for the mods. Some mods have their own site.

 

[wesleyclark]

I'd agree with Fez.

Freelancer was a little fun at first, the controls were good, but I wasn't able to force myself to finish it. It doesn't take long to realize there is exactly one mission: Go Kill That Guy.

X2 is much deeper, but it seems to take forever for anything to happen. Also, some of the decisions seem a little weird – there are Jump Gates between sectors but a Docking Computer isn’t standard equipment on a ship? I couldn’t get into it. And, I think it would have a fighting chance for First Place in ANY contest of World’s Ugliest Cut Scenes.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

They both were disappointments, but Freelancer was at least fun for awhile. X-2 stopped being fun pretty quickly.

 

[Dhruin]

X2 is a superb game for the right player if you understand what it offers.

Freelancer is a farce - it's OK as an action game but nothing is real. All prices are static, ships don't actually fly where they say they are going and the campaign is quite linear. Pure action game.

X2 is more focussed on empire building and management than combat -- that is true -- but you can still get some decent dogfights, especially with the v1.4 patch (essential). No other sim has the range of options X2 has; own unlimited ships from scouts to carriers, own unlimited factories and stations producing dozens of different items, every ship is real, every factory is real.

It is slower paced and some people can't handle the sandbox nature...but it's well worth a look if you would like something more than a space combat game and have some patience.

Re the docking computer - I don't think you understand what that does. Every ship can dock automatically (target the station, shift-D); the "docking computer" instantly "jumps" you into the station. ie., it saves you the time of the docking sequence. Many players (including myself) prefer to play without it for the "realism" / atmosphere.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Freelancer was a little light on the controls, but X2's controls were fucking awful. If you slapped Freelancer's control system in X2, you would have had a better game.

Freelancer totally botches the economic system by thrusting a generic space system style mission campaign system over top of the "world" in the game. You might find a good route in Freelancer, but then you do a campaign mission and it kicks you out of that sector of space. It does this three or four times and there's only five sectors. That's Freelancer's biggest fault, IMHO.

 

[Fez]

I'd suggest reading around on some of the space sim or unofficial forums where X2 has been a major topic. You'll see all the ugly flaws appear. X2 just hides them better at first, but it is not worth buying, the empire building is broken, dull and boring. Pretty shallow too. I really can't recommend such a bad game. There are better ones out there.

The more you play X2, the more frustrated you'll become. Freelancer's problems are obvious fairly early on, and they've been covered already.

 

[Oyarsa]

Thanks all.

*pockets money*

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

good deciscion

 

[Fez]

The best value I've had out of a flight sim recently was the IL2 games. They can be bought for bargin bin prices now and there are lots of mods and addons.

It's a WW2 combat sim though, nothing to do with space or trading. Fun if you only want dogfighting combat. It has a decent multiplayer system too.

 

[Oyarsa]

Nope. Looking for a solid space sim with trading, pirating, intrigue, lots'o ships, lots'o equipment, etc. First person EVN or Beta Blocker kinds of stuff, aka Frontier/Elite/et al.

 

[Fez]

Well, you are screwed then, we've been waiting for the successor to Elite for ages now.

 

[Shagnak]

The best value I've had out of a flight sim recently was the IL2 games. They can be bought for bargin bin prices now and there are lots of mods and addons.

It's a WW2 combat sim though, nothing to do with space or trading. Fun if you only want dogfighting combat. It has a decent multiplayer system too.

Yep, the original had CO-OP!! (I'm sounding like a broken record as far as co-op goes... )
As far as WW2 flight sims go, I reckon it is one of the best.

Haven't played the sequel (Forgotten Battles?), but it looks like it takes it in a fictional direction, the same way BF1942:Secret Weapons of WW2 did for BF1942. Played it? Any comments?

As for X2 vs Freelancer, I would much rather play X2 over Freelancer any day. As long as I had masses of spare time that is - if you are into carving your own little empire there are masses of hours to invest.
Freelancer felt so damn shallow in comparison. And everyone here seems to like the controls...but I felt the whole outside-view-with-mouse-and-keyboard felt really artifical.
Gimme clunky space controls, where I can use my clunky analog joystick (including the hat), while I do clunky docking etc, anyday!

Well, you are screwed then, we've been waiting for the successor to Elite for ages now.

Yep, sure have. Freelancer was going to be that successor, but then it got so compromised that it was beyond belief.
For me X and X2 are the current successors; its just a pity that the implementation is a little rough. When X2 first came out it had massive performance issues, but now they are largely fixed (and made bearable by modern gruntier cpus and video cards).
But if you want a "solid space sim with trading, pirating, intrigue, lots'o ships, lots'o equipment" and in "1st person" 3d then X2 is the only thing around at the moment. Its big, and its fairly open ended.

Come back Mr Braben!!!!!
(Whatever happened to him?)

 

[PennyAnte]

Best spaceship game I've played as far as flight controls was Terminus (except for the friction deal to make sure you didn't speed up into infinity).

I'm just talking the pure controls, zero grav, Newtonian 3 D, spin around in a sphere and fire in any direction while continuing in a straight line in another direction. It had vertical and horizontal thrusters, etc.

The rest of the game was pretty much garbage, as I recall.

 

[Dhruin]

Braben's Frontier Developments makes the Rollercoaster Tycoon series (well, some of them. Elite 4 has been on their site for more years than I can remember but not a thing has happened.

It might be flawed but I still stand by X2 as worth alook, provided you are patient (and have v1.4).

 

[Fez]

If you have X2 you should get all the mods you can for it. It seems the mod making fan community can make better content than the crappy developers. There are lots of "game enhancing" mods, which should have been part of the damn game to start with.

They made Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and a very poor addon pack for RCT2 (which was described in a review as "A great game ruined"), they had nothing to do with the others or the original, and the first one is the only one worth playing. Chris Sawyer made the original and the first not so good sequel.

Braben needs to stop making shitty sequels and make the game we've all been waiting for. There's already a fan base waiting for it. It would sell well if he did it right. Looking through what Frontier Developments has been putting out over the years, I am not holding out much hope.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

X2 was alright at first and the promise of open endedness really excited me, but then I realized the only real open endedness to be any good was the whole business aspect. The combat system was gronky at best and so that pretty much left out any sort of combat options like piracy or such as being viable options.

Maybe I should look into the mods though. I really wanted to like the game.

 

[Shagnak]

gronky

Hmmmm...."gronky"? Interesting new word!

I'm gonna go mod hunting as well. Meet you back here :wink:

 

[Fez]

The mods mainly help in trying to ease or automate some of the duller aspects of the economy, or try to spice up the pointless freeform parts. It's still broken though when you work it out, or get to high enough levels to see it clearly.

The mods don't help a great deal with the combat and controls, sadly. The mods won't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you might get soup or cruschiki.

 

[Shagnak]

This seems to be a good source of mods:
http://x2source.com/mods/pafiledb.php?a ... egory&id=1


There are quite a few mods that try to address game balance and improve the general gaming experience. For example combat enhancing mods like the "Faster Lasers Mod":

This Mod will increase your lasers speed so You and your wingman will acctually hit what your aiming at.

The Race Wars mod sounds like it makes things a little more exciting:

NPC races will build capital ships to protect their sectors and to invade enemy sectors. Races will also begin to collect tax income from their stations to support those ships

There are only a couple of economy mods there, however.


Edit: what the fuck is a "cruschiki"?