Camparison of X2 To FreeLancer

[FuzzyLightning]

Obviously theres no comparison, X2 is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better then FL But im going to point out the things i like anyway

The ability to have more then 1 ship *gasp* one of the things that really drew me to the game, in freelancer one of the best ways to make money was to trade usin them big trade ships, but the combat was much more fun then rolling around in a boring trader, and the traders where easily destroyed... Also Stations, in X2, from what i have read its one of the best ways to make money and it would be cool to have a nice setup on a factory, or as a home base for your imperiel fleet returning after conquering yet another system!

The incredibly annoying combat! Basicly you want to get your little fighter from point A to point B but you get attacked a few million times along the way, i mean theres not THAT many ships in space, it is really unrealistic, really no matter WHERE you go in space you are going to be attacked, even if you arent on the patrol routes. wheras X2 has only a few enemy ships in sectors, so you arent attacked as much as you where in FL but you ARE still attacked and theres still the coolness factor of keeping your ship alive just untill you reach this station, then the friendly ships there will help you out.

the annoying Incredible power syndrome! in FL you got the titan (the best ship in the game) and you where unbeatable basicly, nothing could stop you, and you could take on like 8 of the exact same ship without taking a scratch, now thats unrealistic. as i have heard, even the most powerful of destroyers are actually stoppable, even combined with a large fleet of carriers and fighters and ofcorse other battleships, you WILL have fatalitys every now and then, even if you do have galaxy destroying power

Boring repetitive missions... in FL basicly what there was to do in the way of missions was to, fight, fight, OOoo theres fight too, fight and oh almost forgot FIGHT!!!!!!! argh this is really annoying, you fight as you explore you fight as you trade you fight everywhere you go, is there ANY peace in X2 there are simple trading missions and fun little other things.

Storyline! in FL the storyline, well it did have a plot (sort of) but i liked it more when they hadnt revealed that the nomads had taken people over, it made it totally cheesy... Plus the game boasts freedom, wheres the freedom!????? you HAVE to do the storyline, they just cut off areas on the universe you are in and force you to go around that perticuler area!! and the storyline was short, and simple, you could finish it in a day or two, X2 however has a much longer storyline the aussies (that got it a week ago) are still finishing or have just finished it, And because the game isnt actually completely set in the storyline, its still fun when theres no story and you can roam free in the universe, set up economy, and annihilate races completely and ofcorse, that lite discription of what you can do is only the tip of the iceburg

my only peeve about X2 is i cant seem to controll my ship very well, my stick is like way to sensitive, the risistance starts hard then moves on quickly to incredibly light, when i try to move left, i go too far left and have to go right to get my target, and then i oversteer and its back left again, by that time the enemy will have moved upwards or downwards, and i have to go through it all over again... its insane... maybe i havent got used to it...? anyway, i give X2 a 5000000000000 stars outta 5 and freelancer a 2 out of 5, its still got a small fun factor, but i would reccomend you rent it for a couple days as its not worth wasting all your money on.

[Drastic]

For as undercooked as Freelancer was, it presents some interface lessons I hope the devs take to heart for, if nothing else, an X3 down the road. It made mouse control doable, for one, and the interface was far more mouse-friendly. Being able to simply click on almost anything on the screen to select it is huge, and the sector maps in partcular cry out for such a thing.

And I'm very many hours away from ever having a fleet to command, but I already know I'm going to be wishing for a drag-and-select-group ability. (If I had some ham, I could have some ham and eggs--if I had some eggs.)

The scale in both games is goofy, but at least X doesn't have planets that are literally only 10 kilometers in diameter.

Interface aside, I know X2 will be on my hard drive (and likely future ones) for a long time to come. I finished Freelancer, more or less enjoyed the process of doing so, but will never go back to it.

[Roki]

Your right X2 is far better than free lancer but the learning curb could have been better, come on lets face it the interface is very hard to learn while freelancers even a complet idiot could figer it out, the only thing that really ticks me off about x2 is trading i don't mind the acaully process for it it just takes up alot of time for me to organise my ships the whole time but i think i can get over that by some trading addon that allows me to automate them, i think i hope

[Pinger]

this is a spoiler? clicky steel plz or a move

[Plastique]

Heh, I basically donated the $40 I paid for freelancer, played it about 8 hours and turned it into a coaster... still got the bastard laying here laughing at me. I had already been playing X for quite some time when it came out and felt like I was playing a console game.

I'm not saying it was a BAD game, just wasn't my cup of tea.

[FuzzyLightning]

i guess there ARE things the game developers Could learn from FreeLancer, as also things to avoid, its a great example in every aspect!

And yes the learning curb is GINORMOUS!! and freelancer was like teaching a human to breathe But the ability to contoll exactly where the lasers fired and with very quick response, made the battles a little bit faster pace then in X2.

As for automating ships to trade, they need a homebase, which inturn needs to be a station of yours in order to work, atleast thats what i have heard... thing you can select what to buy at the lowest price, scripts are the best options tho *hopes egosoft will finally add something more to the cd key registered users section then "Welcome to the world of registered X² owners."* Anyway you might be able to make use of the ingame scripting thingy if you have any programming experience, that will give your ships the ability to trade for the best price and sell for the best price, for practicly, forever... or untill you assign them something else to do So theres not really a need for an addon when its already in the game is there

[sc_hornetAMF]

there are several issues where freelancer wins over X2 and that was enough for freelancer to get my vote.

The number one area was AI. Number 2 area was playability. Number 3 area was voice acting. Number 4 area was menus. Number 5 was learning curve.

Freelancer pwns X2 atm as its far more polished and player immersion is much better. However X2 has more replayability.

[SteveMill]

I enjoyed Freelancer but it won't be on my HD as long as X2. But interface-wise FL wins hands down, immersion/illusion-wise too, with the sounds, the chatter and the very active universe. combat was much more fun but in an arcade, shoot-em up sense. That's not something I want in X2 (just want x2 improving significantly). FL wins on cut scenes too of course

But for longevity, depth of game-play and the whole look of the thing, X2 is a clear winner.

[DarkVoid]

The only crappy thing about X2 is “THE BUGS!”
Random crashes and saves that get corrupted!
But other than that the game seems to be great

[danleach]

I havnt got it yet...but i still voted yes. XT kicked freelancers arse and was a much older game. Freelancer was daft i finished it twice in 1 week, got the best ship with the best weapons and rapidly ran out of anything left to do.

[pixel]

I have been playing X2 for 24 hours so far (mind you I was asleep for 7 of them)

No crashes or bugs found.

Great game. I have 4 ships and a factory and have 90% of the story to go.

Probably a few hundred hours left in X2 for me.

I finished Freelancer (and enjoyed it) in 20 hours (that's including time spent playing the demo). I'll not play it again.

X2 wins my vote.

[badtz]

what freelancer had that X2 doesnt (aside of better looking people) was it took all of 10 seconds to learn how to fly it well for combat, and it was much easier to play. I played and enjoyed FL, though I finished it quickly, I was never frustrated while playing it.

I loved XT, and am liking X2, but its much more annoying in terms of making money (which is realistic so I have no problem with that). I wouldnt mind that much *if* you could tell your AI controlled ships to be smart. I.E. avoid dangerous sectors, avoid enemy craft. Its really really frustrating to finally get those stations working, have a few bucks saved up, and bam, the khaak take your transports out. As I cant get any outside ships to land at my stations without practically taking a loss on whatever Im selling, the 2-300k per ship loss hurts a LOT when I really need all 6 of my ships (2 sell, one buy for 2 spp's) also, i've lost games to the savegame bug, and Im noticing a HUGE slowdown issue as I progress in the game. Im hoping the patch which should address the savegame issue will fix this. If not, as great as x2 is, it really wont be worth playing.

[giskard]

Not enoug options in that poll.

You should have added.

3) No because they are totally different games.

Still if you want to make a similar comparison between 2 other games. Is Unreal better first person shooter than space invaders

giskard

[Steel]

what freelancer had that X2 doesnt (aside of better looking people) was it took all of 10 seconds to learn how to fly it well for combat, and it was much easier to play.

Exactly the reason I un-installed it.

Still, each to their own...

Steel

[Apothos]

3) No because they are totally different games.

[ShadowRAM]

X2 is not so different than Freelancer. In both games you fly in space, earn money by either pirating oder trading. In Freelancer you cannot own factories and you cannot capture ships... But besides that - it really are very similar games.

Freelancer definetly has the main focus on action, X2 (and all the other X-games) has the main focus on simulation and trading.

And actually - I had hoped for Freelancer to be more X... But it wasn't.
In fact X-Tension was better than Freelancer in this simulation/trading aspect - a lot better!!!

The only thing about X2 is... I DON'T HAVE IT YET AND WILL BE ABLE TO BUY IT IN FEBRUARY... That is somewhat really bad... I loved X-Tension so much and now all these people, games magazines aso. keep talking about the game and actually experiencing it.

Get it on the market sooner
Get it out in Europe now

[badtz]

Exactly the reason I un-installed it.

Still, each to their own...

Steel

I dont play enough games to hold a games learning curve against it. With that in mind, I probably did anything I cared to do with freelancer in a few days. XT I played for a month or so, and for me thats a LONG time. At this point the annoyances are starting to get the better of me in X2. Im feeling like "this could have been great, instead its almost OK" at this point. I'll reserve judgement till its patched and hopefully working properly.

[francium]

X2 beats Freelancer in terms of depth and gameplay. I figure tt can really keep me playing for months and months and it's still fun... if not for the uglies below:


Now for the loooonnnggg list of downs of X2:

1. The interface, totally sucks. Maybe there's some fleet management tools I'm missing. But right now it's a nightmare to manage my 50-ship fleet in X2, I have to scroll through one page and another of ships just to see how one's going on, or to buy 3 extra freighters, or, to tell them to dock to avoid the Khaaks, or, .... I've seen X2 apologists saying the interface is designed for those who are proficient with the keyboard... excuse me... I'm an open source programmer who use vim as my default text editor and I have absolutely no problem with using the keyboard! The interface simply does not suit its purpose. Imagine controlling a beowulf cluster of your ships.

2. Freelancer PWNS X2 in terms of the most basic controls. The only good use for the mouse in X2 is, first, scroll through your near by contacts, second, fine tune your aim since aiming w/ keyboard isn't damned accurate. I know perfectly that properly assigned keyboard shortcuts, combined with the interfaces, yields much better productivity than the mouse. BUT THAT ISN'T THE CASE WITH X2!!! You see, if I want to boost my fighter to full speed I press the Tab here, and then if I want to halt my fighter I have to press the BS halfway across my keyboard (or Z for some time - doesn't make much sense either). Even worse, if I press some keys here then other keys are blocked - e.g. if I want to turn left while halting my ship, it just won't work. Needless to say there're jobs that absolutely require a mouse in the current interface.

3. The AI. I've already talked a lot about it in my previous posts, and I think you'll suspect that I'm a Microsoft employee if I talk any further about it. Anyhow I don't think an autopilot that crashes your ship into pieces is a "minor bug".

4. Bugs, god damned bugs. I hope the X2 patch towards this weekend would fix them. But Freelancer didn't even have a quarter of them. e.g. how the game freezes more as you get more ships and stations, how some systems (e.g. Ore Belt) can crash your game, how some buggy mission scripts ruin someone's game, corrupt saves, etc. They are all grave bugs, not minor ones.


Sorry, but after so many flaws I think Egosoft have ruined a perfectly classic game in front of my eyes. X2 isn't going to get my vote anytime soon... at least they need to fix the bugs.

[DingChavez]

the most positiv aspects and negative aspects of X2 have been told.

I just want to add and underline that the space in X2 is far less alive then the one in FL. The comm in the background just did some very good atmosphere. also there were many (perhaps too many) trading and industrial companies of the different nations. In X2 there are only the different races. Its a shame because with the dynamic industry this would have been made a good gameplay, to plan some actions against rival companies or do trading traits. So the space just feels, although its pretty dynamic, pretty boring.

[ChaosLord]

Freelancer sadly has X2 beat on atmosphere. In X2 there are only station/goverment owned ships hopping around. No "Freelance" traders like you, no large companies controlling their own stations. Hell, there isn't even mercs guarding freight, or able to be hired to guard freight. I just don't understand the focus on automation, rather then being able to hire NPCs to do it.

But beyond that somewhat major annoyance, the only other bad thing about X2 is the mysterious uber-secret script editor of doom.