This is, quite simply, a mammoth of a game. With dozens upon dozens of star systems and routes to explore and navigate, more ships than you can shake a stick at, choices of game or freelance missions, weapons, engines, counter weapons, shield etc etc etc. There is almost no limit to the number of possible combinations available to the player.

Set sometime in the future, Freelancer is, put simply, a space based combat and trade simulation. Created by Microsoft and Digital Anvil, the game is simply fab!! I love it - the only thing I had to complain about at all was that it wouldn't run on my laptop PC, despite it being well over the required minimum specifications. Well, ok, it DID run, but was so jerky, it was completely unplayable - in my personal view - the same thing...

The game does have a set sequence of events contained in it if you want to follow the official story, but there is nothing that says you have to. Personally, I did, and it took me two attempts to get through it, as I was too busy playing around to get my ship upgraded fast enough to survive the poundings you face in the later missions. This is, without a doubt, one of my games of the year... In fact, of all time. It's been quite a while since a game held my attention as well as Freelancer did.

I am, and will remain, a bit Elite II-Frontier fan, and to me, Freelancer is everything that a 21st century version of that game would be. There is no point comparing the two directly, as the time between them is about a decade and the technology and graphics capability of computers has come on so far. What I will say though, is I thought Elite II - Frontier really pulled out all the stops to give you an enjoyable engrossing game within the limits it had, and I think Freelancer is what it could have been with today's technology.