Brillig
03-07-2003, 02:15 PM
Time played so far: 5 hours.
Long ago, there was a game company called Origin. Long ago, there was a game called Privateer.
It's back, in spades. First, the nitty-gritty:
Graphics: The space flight portion of the game is gorgeous - keep in mind that I'm running a fairly high-end system (P-IV 2.4GHz, GeForce 4600). Ships, weapons fire, explosions et. al. are all rendered crisply and with good frame-rates at 1280x1024. The color palette produces breath-taking backdrops and bright, but not cartoonish, visuals. Interior environments are a little less breathtaking, the game engine isn't quite up to the task of rendering interiors and people. It's adequate though, just nothing to write home about.
Sound: In-flight sound is very good, the music is atmospheric, non-intrusive for the most part. Planetside sounds are quite nice as well. Dialogue is voice-acted - this is a definite weak point. Not only do the voice actors sound sedated, but the dialogue for non-plot points is incredibly repetitive. There are a number of minor NPC's, and a fair number of voice actors for them, but the *dialogue* is all the same. After the 100th time you've heard the same line, you may feel like hitting the mute button...
Gameplay: Real world physics is out, fun is in. The designers obviously had no interest in producing a game that resembled the real world, and instead went for fun and playability all around. Now this doesn't mean that the game's physics are unintuitive, simply that all of the "traditional" errors of space simulations are here (ships turning without momentums, asteroid belts with ludicrous densities, etc...) The space combat is even more frenetic than in the classics, such as Wing Commander, X-Wing, becoming almost console-like in some respects. This is not a bad thing, but it's close to being one. It's possible that further on in the game, the pace of combat and the difficulty will combine to make the experience unpleasant.
The game is open-ended, with a main storyline threaded through it. To give you an example of what is possible, in my first five hours, I did 3 missions along the main story, ran a few independent cargo missions, explored the starting star system, picked up a good number of independent contracts to clear out pirates, traded up to a better starfighter, upgraded my weapons numerous times, travelled to a neighboring starsystem, bought the location of a lost navy patrol from a local informant, and did a little asteroid mining. I suspect many will say that the game is deep, but for the moment I'd rather describe it as broad. There are apparently a huge number of possible things to do, but none of them seem to be exceedingly complex, except for the main storyline.
The main storyline itself seems to be pretty well written - all I can tell you so far is that Something Ominous Is Going On. Although you have essentially unlimited opportunity to play the game without following the storyline, I'm constantly drawn back to the main missions in order to see what happens next. The designers have done an interesting thing in inserting small break points within the main storyline that force you to step away from it at times in order to make a little money. Although this is an artificial way of producing a time delay, it serves as a great way to encourage you to explore and do whatever you want.
The game has a significant RPG aspect, aside from the typical "buy and upgrade your ship" mode of space-sims. There is a complex faction system (thankfully visible to the user) that shows what the various groups in the universe think of you. Since new factions are only exposed when you meet them, I don't know how extensive the system is yet, but I've got about 20 entries already. There are two "Captain's Log" type systems, one of which tracks your current mission progress, while the other tracks the main storyline.
A possible problem with the game is one it borrows from console RPG's - random combats. It seems that harrassing attacks are relatively common in the game, and over the course of time, they could come to be annoying. However, it seems to be very location dependant, so perhaps I've just been hanging about in the bad part of space...
Multiplayer: Well, it has multiplayer, but I haven't tried it yet. The main storyline doesn't exist in MP, it's just the open universe. Anyone want to start a server?
Summary: I loved the Wing Commander games, I loved Privateer. It's not surprising that I love this game too. This is a game that conjures up the distant memory of space sim classics gone by, an open-ended space sim for the 21st century. Sure, whoever wrote the NPC dialogue should be beaten with a thesaurus, and the random combats can be a bit much, but this is definitely going to chew up substantial amounts of gaming time over the next month or three.
Long ago, there was a game company called Origin. Long ago, there was a game called Privateer.
It's back, in spades. First, the nitty-gritty:
Graphics: The space flight portion of the game is gorgeous - keep in mind that I'm running a fairly high-end system (P-IV 2.4GHz, GeForce 4600). Ships, weapons fire, explosions et. al. are all rendered crisply and with good frame-rates at 1280x1024. The color palette produces breath-taking backdrops and bright, but not cartoonish, visuals. Interior environments are a little less breathtaking, the game engine isn't quite up to the task of rendering interiors and people. It's adequate though, just nothing to write home about.
Sound: In-flight sound is very good, the music is atmospheric, non-intrusive for the most part. Planetside sounds are quite nice as well. Dialogue is voice-acted - this is a definite weak point. Not only do the voice actors sound sedated, but the dialogue for non-plot points is incredibly repetitive. There are a number of minor NPC's, and a fair number of voice actors for them, but the *dialogue* is all the same. After the 100th time you've heard the same line, you may feel like hitting the mute button...
Gameplay: Real world physics is out, fun is in. The designers obviously had no interest in producing a game that resembled the real world, and instead went for fun and playability all around. Now this doesn't mean that the game's physics are unintuitive, simply that all of the "traditional" errors of space simulations are here (ships turning without momentums, asteroid belts with ludicrous densities, etc...) The space combat is even more frenetic than in the classics, such as Wing Commander, X-Wing, becoming almost console-like in some respects. This is not a bad thing, but it's close to being one. It's possible that further on in the game, the pace of combat and the difficulty will combine to make the experience unpleasant.
The game is open-ended, with a main storyline threaded through it. To give you an example of what is possible, in my first five hours, I did 3 missions along the main story, ran a few independent cargo missions, explored the starting star system, picked up a good number of independent contracts to clear out pirates, traded up to a better starfighter, upgraded my weapons numerous times, travelled to a neighboring starsystem, bought the location of a lost navy patrol from a local informant, and did a little asteroid mining. I suspect many will say that the game is deep, but for the moment I'd rather describe it as broad. There are apparently a huge number of possible things to do, but none of them seem to be exceedingly complex, except for the main storyline.
The main storyline itself seems to be pretty well written - all I can tell you so far is that Something Ominous Is Going On. Although you have essentially unlimited opportunity to play the game without following the storyline, I'm constantly drawn back to the main missions in order to see what happens next. The designers have done an interesting thing in inserting small break points within the main storyline that force you to step away from it at times in order to make a little money. Although this is an artificial way of producing a time delay, it serves as a great way to encourage you to explore and do whatever you want.
The game has a significant RPG aspect, aside from the typical "buy and upgrade your ship" mode of space-sims. There is a complex faction system (thankfully visible to the user) that shows what the various groups in the universe think of you. Since new factions are only exposed when you meet them, I don't know how extensive the system is yet, but I've got about 20 entries already. There are two "Captain's Log" type systems, one of which tracks your current mission progress, while the other tracks the main storyline.
A possible problem with the game is one it borrows from console RPG's - random combats. It seems that harrassing attacks are relatively common in the game, and over the course of time, they could come to be annoying. However, it seems to be very location dependant, so perhaps I've just been hanging about in the bad part of space...
Multiplayer: Well, it has multiplayer, but I haven't tried it yet. The main storyline doesn't exist in MP, it's just the open universe. Anyone want to start a server?
Summary: I loved the Wing Commander games, I loved Privateer. It's not surprising that I love this game too. This is a game that conjures up the distant memory of space sim classics gone by, an open-ended space sim for the 21st century. Sure, whoever wrote the NPC dialogue should be beaten with a thesaurus, and the random combats can be a bit much, but this is definitely going to chew up substantial amounts of gaming time over the next month or three.