Freelancer demo is out!

[IGx89]

Just today, the Freelancer demo came out on FilePlanet (exclusively, unfortunately :():http://www.fileplanet.com/files/120000/120389.shtml

I've played it for about an hour already, and it really does live up to all the hype :clap:.

[-=DVS=-]

Yep just completed first mission and done some other free missions , pretty fun to play , controls are very easy that is good ,
Graphics not bad but poly count and textures are low could be better , since i am getting with AA abd AF over 150FPS in intense combat :rolleyes: maybe retail will have better graphics , Overall very good game i think ;)

[demonized]

so fileplanet is the only one hosting the demo?

[wysiwyg]

get it from filefront ;)

[Gehenna_CA]

Its pretty good so far. It still has one major flaw that all other games of this genre have as well. Any faction that you are an enemy of is constantly jumping you. They seem to have an unlimited supply of ships that just keep attacking you every few minutes. It gets old real fast. If the enemy factions had that many ships they'd rule the freaking galaxy instead of being the criminals. I am also getting alot of ctds. I hope the release version, which is supposed to be out march 4th, is better but I don't see how they would be able to fix those problems in time.

[St Lobus]

I just grabbed the demo from Fileshack today. Messed around with it a little, and must say I am impressed. I've never thought space combat games needed good graphics, and feel the ones in Freelance suit the game well. The game play is what really got me going, though. At first, I hated the mouse scheme, but by the end of the first mission, it was natural. I am impressed they've taken a space flight game and made it very playable and enjoyable with mouse and keyboard.

I have had problems with some of the dialogue just not being there. I'd hear the main lines, but some of the background chatter during the missions is missing. I was wondering if it was the demo, which would make sense (cuts down download size and makes it available to more people) or if it's a problem with the demo I had grabbed.

All in all, it's a cool game and will most likely earn my forty or fifty dollars.

[digitalwanderer]

It's awful pretty, and it has a nicely polished and finished feel to it...but I don't know if'n I could ever get used to the mouse aiming system!

Mebbe if'n I try it with a joystick...time to dust off the hardware. :rolleyes:

[demonized]

anyone else experiencing any stuttering in the game. when i first launched the demo it wasn't doing it. the game crashed when i clicked the girl in the bar that was talking to someone. when i launched the game again it started stuttering and the game still crashes when i click that girl.

[-=DVS=-]

I totaly love Mouse control in this games moust amazing thing ever :p

Anyway games runs extremely well with no sutter or crash, had sutter first time i ran the game but fixed it by moveing down Hardware acceleration by 1 notch , ATI have a bug with bitmap acceleration in newest drivers :rolleyes: but its cool no problems after quick fix ;)

Game could use more polys and biger textures for us who have alot of horsepower :p right now you can run it at 6x AA and 16x AF and get 100FPS in intense combat isn't this sweet :cool:

[The Baron]

Wowie. Needs more polys, but Wowie. If multi is good, HO MAN, bye-bye Freespace 2... ;)

[SavagePaladin]

this guy should be awesome. i've got 9 hours left to download, according to my proggie, which really means more than that cause my current modem is unreliable

Tom Chick said in a preview thingy it had a very narrative style to it, and stuff. And the freeform multiplayer sounds cool too (me and my brother always play cooperative/team stuff)

[-=DVS=-]

Demo doesn't have Multiplayer mode , sure hope FullVersion will have it :(

[silence]

Originally posted by -=DVS=-
Demo doesn't have Multiplayer mode , sure hope FullVersion will have it :(

after reading this i'll get it as soon as it comes in *caugh* stores *caugh* around here, good multiplayer would be great bonus for my lan parties.

i was hooked on freespace and played independence war 2 alot.
always liked good space game.:D


btw......if u liked homeworld >> get O.R.B.

[Greg]

Anyone know how to get sound to not cut out in cut scenes and in flight? I though it was just the demo lacking files to keep it small, but friend said he didn't have the same problem.

[SavagePaladin]

The sounds aren't supposed to cut out, but they ARE supposed to remix to take a back seat.

As they explained it, when the main character speaks, you should hear the main character. And who wants to hear the engine full blast the whole damn time?

I dunno if that helps, anyway, but thats whats supposed to happen.

[DaveW]

Originally posted by St Lobus

I have had problems with some of the dialogue just not being there. I'd hear the main lines, but some of the background chatter during the missions is missing. I was wondering if it was the demo, which would make sense (cuts down download size and makes it available to more people) or if it's a problem with the demo I had grabbed.


I encountered missing sounds too. Its that fricken LAME Fraunhofer MP3 codec (usually installed by Nimo), it screws up the sound in NOLF2 also. You have to totally remove the LAME codec (including reg keys) and reinstall the official M$ codec.

[Greg]

Originally posted by DaveW
I encountered missing sounds too. Its that fricken LAME Fraunhofer MP3 codec (usually installed by Nimo), it screws up the sound in NOLF2 also. You have to totally remove the LAME codec (including reg keys) and reinstall the official M$ codec.

Hey you're right, I tried the NOLF2 demo and the sound just stopped here and there throughout the cut scenes, I didn't have a clue what what going on.

(Edit)
I checked add/remove progs and found:
Mpeg Layer3 Codec FHG-Radium v1.263
Is this the thing to remove?

[DaveW]

Yeah, thats it, the radium MP3 codec, nuke it and reinstall the game.

[Greg]

Originally posted by DaveW
Yeah, thats it, the radium MP3 codec, nuke it and reinstall the game.

Hey Dave, could you please confirm that all I have to do is uninstall the codec and reinstall the game? So far I uninstalled the codec, mp3s still play in media player, and the game still has no sound during most of the intro. Do I have to do some registry editing, or install another codec?

[-=DVS=-]

Greg read the README.TXT that comes with the demo :rolleyes: at the end it says it all.

[SavagePaladin]

Holy kickass! I love this game! Preorder, here I come

[Greg]

Originally posted by -=DVS=-
Greg read the README.TXT that comes with the demo :rolleyes: at the end it says it all.

Done! Fixed all sound problems. I feel pretty dumb, I planned to read the readme when I first encountered the problem then clean forgot about it.

Now the question is....

Does this game get boring doing the same thing over and over, or is there lasting appeal? By the way, I never finished Diablo2, got 3/4 through and was so bored I didn't bother finishing... but I'm sure if I played for another 5 minutes I'd get that next weapon, level, upgrade, etc. :) I'd like to do a bit of trading, but watching docking sequences repeatedly might make me more want to take a more agressive path.

[DaveW]

Greg, I did the same thing with Diablo 2, got to the last act, then got bored.

Freelancer isn't entirely open ended (like Elite), it does have a linear story line which seems interesting. What happens is you will get a couple of missions from the linear story, then you employer says "thanks for your help, have a large sum of money, I may call on you later" ... then you are free to trade / bounty hunt etc. Then when your status or worth as a pilot reaches a certain level, you get a few more missions from the linear story. So you are not just stuck trading, fighting with no object other than to get the best ship possible, the storyline allows the game to be "completed" eventually.

Kind of like Hardwar... anyone remember that game? It was cool! I wish they made a sequel.

[Edge]

Hmm, as much as I like the game, I think I liked Independance War 2 better (I'm suprised noone else brought this up. has NOONE played this game?!?). The mouse control in Freelancer is...well...interesting, but I just can't get used to it. Oh, and I like the way that in IW2 you can shoot up a cargo ship, have it release it's cargo for you, then you have to call in the tug to haul your loot away. I got bored of the game, but it was still fun.