Just playing the first mission. Wow this looks fantastic on an iPhone 4, voice acting also puts gameloft to shame! Have had to change to touch controls though, no quick way to calibrate accelerometer/gyro controls, and i move around alot! Touch controls though are very acceptable. Like the way I was heading for Eden prime, straight out of Mass Effect! the mining mini game.. way more fun than mining in mass effect 2
Slow as in intentional pace of the gameplay. I would rather say it's part of the game mechanics... the idea is that it gets harder as you advance. As you get money, you can upgrade your ship (or get a better one) and fight harder missions. You can also control a squad of wingmen and all this will lead to epic battles.
realistic is a relative term. If you lived 1000 years in the future, do you think that things would be as they are now? Don't you think things that are unrealistic now would be much more plausible then? Just because we don't know how to do something, doesn't mean it can't be done. It's only a matter of time. A side note: did you know that most of the technology that we have now were inspired by star trek and star wars? They brought about change by simply inspiring people to try new ideas. That is all.
Yes, get the app now and whithin a few weeks the universal update will hit. You will get the update for free. The game is on sale for a limited time though, the real price is 9.99
Ok, a few questions for anyone who has already played: Is the "open world" aspect open from the start or are you forced into completing missions? Are you able to do any manual take-offs/landings, or are they skipped via cut-scenes? On the same note, do missions abruptly end after, for example, you shoot down your last target, as in the first game? Does the game "cheat" as it did in the first game, by resetting your way point if you do something other than what IT wants you to do? For example: if you choose to outrun enemies towards your objective way point instead of engaging, it resets the way point thus forcing you into combat before allowing you to proceed. I guess the problem I really had with the first game was that the game world was fairly transparent and far from convincing. I'm wondering if that has been improved in the sequel or not.
Game Impressions First impressions: Voice acting is a bit of an overstatement The game is durned pretty. The first battles are slow in pace, but feel incredibly fluid and responsive. I've yet to play a space sim (or flight sim) that feels this good on an iOS device. However, some advanced maneuvers would not have been out of place. Rolling, vertical u-turns, etc. It would have contributed immensely to the fun of combat. There is an OpenFeint slot among the save games! I've yet to find out how to save to it... but there is an OpenFeint slot among the save games! Very little info available in-flight. I can check the cargo hold and my active mission, but nothing else. It would have been nice with some ship stats, weapon info, my character records, medals, faction info, and my statistics (all available from the station menu). I'm probably and hopefully wrong, but the current lack of in-flight info reduces my hope for free-roaming gameplay, since the game seems too tied to the stations (giving me the hopefully erroneous feeling that I'll only be leaving the stations for specific missions, not the possibility to travel and go anywhere). The autopilot is convenient and nice, but it could have been more so with the option to speed up travel time (a staple of Elite-style space sims). There are no speed controls. The ship just keeps flying at the same pace, unable to speed up or stop. This is a shame, and a wasted opportunity. Makes the game feel less like a space sim, and more like a simple action shooter. It is also incredibly annoying when mining, since you have to keep the crosshair on an asteroid for a while to scan it for minerals, and the lack of speed settings for the ship often causes you to either have to break off and break the scan, or run into the asteroid and destroy it. Short loading times. Nice. Off-game achievements give in-game money. Very silly, and breaks immersion. Only one freelance mission at a time. Silly and cumbersome. With a proper in-flight status interface (missions, stats, medal, being able to view equipment and ship, etc), a mission log would not have been much of a problem to implement. Medium ship customization. Weapons, armor and equipment, but no switching engines, etc. Ships have a "handling" stat, but no speed rating, which makes me wonder if all ships fly at the same speed. I truly, really hope not, for currently, the space battles are really slow (in spite of feeling so fluid). You can't outrun enemies, nor chase them down. All ships just chug along at seemingly the same slow speed. This will make or break the game for me, in the long run. No communication with NPCs in-flight. I'm assuming that attacking them will lower reputation and possibly cause the law to come after you. The universe does feel rather alive, with NPCs flying about the place. The game is NOT fully voiced. All story dialogues are, but chatting with NPCs in bars is not fully voiced. The bar is very nice. Not only does it offer missions, but even opportunities to purchase smuggle goods and profit from circumstance. The little arrows that show if a ship has better stats than your current ship are a good idea, but I'd gladly see them replaced with a coloured (red for worse, green for better, white for same stats, as per the current coloured arrows) number within brackets showing my current ship's stats. Now, I often look at a ship, exit to check the stats of my current ship, then look at the new ship again. And, if I am particularly unfocused, I repeat this an additional one-two times The writing is actually bearable at all times, and occasionally rather good. I've found the humour to be surprisingly, well... humorous The mining mini-game is actually pretty clever. I'm sure it will be both bothersome and tiresome after a few days, but at least it is fun to begin with, unlike many mini-games The mechanics of the mini-game also pertain to the actual mining process, which is nice. Rotating 3D starmap! Rotating 3D starmap! I've never wanted co-operative multiplay in an iOS game any more than right now. Being able to co-exist in the same galaxy (even if one player is demoted to wingman), Star Battalion-style, would be a new kind of iOS experience. And the idea of battles against other players over WiFi makes my head AND my ship spin...
alright, I have a question. One thing that bugged the heck out of me in the first one was the fact that if you wanted to buy a new ship, you had to sell your old one. I ended up having all file slots filled with games each with a different ship because I couldn't choose; I liked them all. So, my question is, is there a feature like in warpgate where you can buy and ship and sell it back at full price so you could test out new ships without feeling stuck with them? Or maybe the ability to store ships at the stations so you can go back and swap out ships whenever you want? I'll probably still buy it even without these features, I was just curious to see if anything new go implemented.
Just bought this myself I liked the first one and I'm a big fan of freelancer on the PC this is actually the first game I've been anticipating and kept store credit for. Unfortunately no time to play it at the minute but when I get the chance to I'll note any impressions If it's an improvement on the first one I'll be happy enough.
your positive you cant upgrade engines later that enable hyper speed or whatever it was called from the first game, i bet that is the case and since you just started your ship blows....
Except for a short introduction, the world seems open (although there is a constant storyline to follow, but it seem fairly optional). Missions do not end after the last target goes down, instead requiring you to return to the station to cash in rewards. I've yet to be able to test if the waypoint reset mechanism remain, but my guess is you can do whatever you want. All in all, the openness of the world seems greatly improved. In fact, my only TRUE (as in, possibly game-breaking) gripe is the lack of speed controls for ships, and the worry that all ships fly at the same speed. There are definite differences in maneuverability, but if all ships fly just as slowly, there will not be any chases, and combat will remain as slow as it is at the beginning of the game. Yeah, it truly blows :-D And there seems to be quite a number of upgrades, among them engine upgrades. But no... deep level hardware customization (re-arranging weapon placement, switching engines completely, sacrificing armor for the sake of cargo space or the opposite, etc, etc), if you get my drift.
You are given access to the whole system after completing one of the first missions, not sure if it's the 2° or 3°. You can ride asteroids to mine ore. About the missions, they take place near the space station, so when you shot down the last enemy you can continue flying, or just go after somebody else. There are always ships flying around, neutral ships, allies and at times random pirates that you can fight with. I didn't quite get your question on this one. The waypoints are just part of the missions, sometimes you will have to deal with hostile people in between those. This game is a lot different from the first one. Even if the basic genre stays the same, there are a tons of things you can do. There are a lot of new missions that you can play as a freelance simultaneously while following the story, you can mine asteroids, you can hook goods from the ships remains, you can stop everything to take a picture and upload it to facebook. There is OF and GC integration. Graphic quality is adjustable, trading system works very well, you can sell AND buy goods in the different stations to your convenience. In the space lounge you find strangers with missions, deals or offers for you, etc. There are just way too many amazing new elements and stuff to name them all. I noted a huge improvement over the first one (that I also loved)
Nigra, what about ship speed (of which I ramble in my first impressions post, above ). Is there a way to control your ship's speed, and actually slow down to a stop in space? Also, do all ships fly at just the same speed, or does the "handling" stat reflect ship speed as well as maneuverability? Also, I'm curious, if you know... how do we save to the OpenFeint save slot?
Hey there. Among the installable items for your ship, there are boosters that will install a special turbo to speed up for a limited time. This way you can more intuitively fight at a constant speed and speed up when it's needed. As enemies are in the same condition than you it's fairly...fair It would be pointless to buy a speedier sensor if you were to just slow down the ship I actually liked this. As any ship, you have a space that you can use, but there are stuff you couldn't change unless you make a radical physical change on them. However, this would take all the sense of getting a new ship in first place. It's very like underground racing games, where you could just use your little peugeot 206 and modify it so that you can beat everybody, even those with very expensive (and well earned) cars. I guess you could just save the game, test the ships you want and load it again to make a comparison. There are several slots, also an OF enabled one Actually, you can make unique elements by combining them with special blueprints that you get through the game. About the speed, I don't find it much sense but I guess it could come with an update... but still IMHO it would take out the fun at getting turbos and faster scanners. However, I'm digging this game so far, it's really a console quality thing... and it works awesomely on my iPod 2G...
There is a mode called "Action Freeze" that you can activate in the pause menu... it will freeze the scene so that you can pan around your ship and take beautiful pictures, here are some examples. You can also upload them to facebook straight from the app. About the OF slot, didn't try it yet. I'll let you know as soon as I give it a try. edit: ok, I checked it... all you have to do is hit the refresh button, it will detect no saved file, so it will enable you to save a new one.
There is no speed controls for ships - and this is what makes fights so lame. You can just search for enemy dots and hit fire, while they are shooting at you too. No cool hunts in sight. No cool maneuvers. I want to accelerate, brake and stop. Please add this.
I wouldn't say battles are lame in high level battles Though, you can equipe your ship with a boost and use it during the combat... If you don't want to get hit by the other ship from the face I suggest you to loop behind to dodge the fire. Then you can follow the path the ship goes, not the dot... this way you will avoid the frontal firing. If you want an idea of how battles are in higher level missions please forward this trailer to 1:24
