Gameplay continued…
Enemy A.I.
The A.I. in Freelancer is more than adequate for the job, though not mind-blowing by any stretch of the imagination either, but then in saying that it doesn't really need to be. How the enemies live up to your ability depends on which faction you are fighting and what type of ship you’ve targeted for your quarry. Some basic ships will fly around the immediate area trying to dodge your fire. More advanced ships seem to break out of formation and send one ship forward as bait, as you try to tail it and destroy it, the other ships fall behind you and fire everything they’ve got at you, whilst the ship in front starts to lay mines slowing down your pursuit.
After a mere moment of tailing the front ship turns and makes a suicide run at you which you have to try and dodge. A good shield will deflect the suicide attempt but it’s just best not to be there when the enemy comes hurtling at you. The enemy ships do a lot of ducking and diving around asteroids and stations, and so keeping up can be a little tricky, but you have to try and hold out until a window of opportunity presents itself. After a lot of dodging, the enemy ship will be far enough away from you that it thinks it is safe, but it is still well within your firing range. The enemy ships then seem to stall on their current heading, and now is when you close in for the kill. But you had better be quick because once they realize the pounding on their hull is your fire and not their mum shouting at them to turn the stereo down, they soon go back to dodging and weaving.
Whether this ‘window’ is a flaw in the AI or whether it was designed this way on purpose is yet to be known. I would however bet on the latter as even the greatest hardcore gamer might find it difficult to keep up with the more advanced enemies, and so I think this ‘flaw’ was added to allow for a fairer game by making it easier to target the enemy ships.
I’ve lost my left wing, Damn! And there goes the right one.
When targeting an enemy ship, the ships key systems are target specific in this game, so if you manage to fire repeated shots at an enemy ships left wing turret, the turret will either be destroyed or will be blown off the ship, and will float around in space until someone collects it as cargo. You can repair and use the retrieved item (Only at a space dock) or you can later sell it if you have no need for it. This is also the case for any other cargo dropped after a ship is destroyed.
When it comes to targeting, some ships have certain weaknesses to exploit; one typical example is Rheinland ships (Rheinlanders are a vicious and deadly factio who are best avoided if possible). These ships are big and slow with massive rear engines, if you can fall behind one and target their primary engine, you’ll be eating Rheinland Soufflé for dessert in no time! Rheinland are extremely slow and will cause you little difficulty in keeping up with them, however it’s the smaller ships you should be more concerned with.
Now where’d he go?
Keeping track of an enemy ship is not as difficult as it might first appear by my description of a typical space battle above. All enemy ships are marked by a red bracket. Click on a target ship and this ship will be marked with a larger bracket, labelled as your next victim. If a selected ship goes off screen then a large arrow appears at the edge of the screen-pointing in the direction that the enemy ship has gone. This is an excellent method to keep track of enemy ships as it allows you to concentrate on one specific ship, it’s all too easy to lose concentration and start firing at another ship that happens to wander by. The best tactic I’ve found is to destroy one ship at a time. If you move from ship to ship without destroying any, each ship has time to recover before you attack it again.
If the ship you’re after makes a run for it activate your thrusters, instantly propelling your ship forward in a massive speed jump. And if the ship makes for a full retreat don’t give up just yet, for your ship is also equipped with what’s called a ‘cruise engine’.
Just Cruisin’
A cruise engine takes a few seconds to fire up, but once going nothing can outrun you as you fly through space like a speeding bullet stuck up the back end of a bat out of hell! One small note though, whilst your cruise engines are active your weapons are disabled so in order to re-engage your target you will need to drop out of cruise speed. I tend to leave dropping out until the last second, as it’s harder for the enemy ships to target you at higher speeds. It’s not quite ‘warp speed’ from Star Trek or the ‘Hyper Drive’ from Star Wars, but if you want to get somewhere fast, the Cruise Engine is your best shot.
However don’t be too taken back by it’s speed, sure it’s fast in the escaping/pursuing sense, but you have to remember that space is big, it’s damn big, and flying to another star system for example would take you hours (in real time). Luckily you can avoid this by the use of a Jump Gate. There are two types of Jump gate, a local one that transports you around the immediate star system, and an interstellar Gate that transports you between star systems. You dock with jump gates like you would dock with a space station, however docking with a Jump Gate pushes you forward at an immense speed. The speed counter on your screen reads (---) as your speed is no longer measurable by your equipment. Unfortunately, even with the use of jump gates, traversing a star system can take time. Depending on your current location to where your destination is, it can take between 20 seconds (if destination is local) and about 5 minutes (if interstellar). This has to be one of the games very few down points. You’re ready for action, your ship has been patched up, you’ve just bought a new rocket launcher you want to try out and……you have to spend 5 minute just flying from point to point. As many gamers know 5 minutes with nothing to do can seem like an eternity. But thankfully the long trips are few and far between, giving you plenty of time to improve your flying skills.
Right, now I’ve learnt to fly…
Now you’ve mastered seeking and destroying the enemy, and the basics of general flight, I think it’s high time we got back to the story line once more.
You start to make a few friends and allies when suddenly people who you were speaking to not long ago, just……..disappear. Erased like they had never existed! Old acquaintances turn up out of the blue to ask for help or start to tell of things not being right in the universe around them and within the same heartbeat they are killed. One such timely death leaves you in possession of an artefact and this is when the tides really do turn. It seems now that the entire universe is out to get you. With the few friends you have you are constantly jumping between star systems, all the time fighting off deadly assaults from different factions.
The key - to the fighting, to the disappearances, to everything, must lie in this artefact, and you must find out how. So along with Jun’Ko, you must seek out a scientist who can perhaps shed some light on this mysterious artefact that people have been quite literally dying to get hold of.
Phew! Well that’s the story line, whether you choose to go along with the story or make up your own adventure is completely up to you, or if you’re feeling brave you can join an online server and battle (or in fact team up with) complete strangers, as you struggle for supremacy in the multiplayer mode.
|
