Veteran gamers will, from that description, know exactly what to expect from Freelancer: Players follow a nominal plot but mostly jaunt around the galaxy trading goods, running errands and destroying baddies to make money, which is in turn spent on better ships and equipment to make all of the above a bit easier. Yep, one more direct descendant of Trade Wars, like last year’s Earth & Beyond (and this won’t be the last time we compare the two heirs apparent.)

Freelancer follows the 2000 PC/Dreamcast game Starlancer. It’s now 800 years after the events of that game, when the major Earth powers (the U.S., Japan, Germany, et al.) were forced to flee and colonize a distant system. Civilization is back in full swing when a mysterious force attacks space station Freeport 7. Few survivors remain; one of them is Edison Trent (the player), who finds himself without ship, cargo or a promised million-credit payment. Trent is quickly given a tiny fighter and a job by the Liberty Security Force.

It’s no surprise that an early mission quickly goes awry, throwing Trent into a mystery involving alien artifacts and the attack on Freeport 7. The difference Microsoft claims for Freelancer is its wide-open universe. In other words, the player can totally ignore the plot and just go trade or fight or whatever.

That’s not precisely true. Yes, you can go off and spend long stretches of time doing your own thing, but the plot missions provide access to new ships and systems and such.

Yeah, yeah, you’re saying, but is it a good game? Yes, it is. Freelancer’s a lot of fun once you get used to the control scheme. Combat is the way to go during the early stages; trading is still an option, but cargo holds on early ships are fairly small and you won’t have had time to find the really good routes yet.

Let’s talk about gameplay. Specifically, control. Rather than going the joystick route, Freelancer follows Earth & Beyond in using a mouse-flight scheme. What worked for the latter, however, is less effective in the former. The right button and mouse position move the ship, while the left button controls the ship’s guns (but not missiles or other extras). Pressing the spacebar activates mouselook, where the right-button doesn’t need to be used at all; the player just moves where the pointer moves. Missiles, drones, tractor beam (for grabbing the spoils of combat), chaff and other extras are controlled by the keyboard, which can also be used for engine control.

Sound confusing? It is at first, but becomes second nature surprisingly quickly.

Movement within systems is aided by a giant “highway” system – target the nearest onramp, and the player is boosted at high speed to the next offramp. In a nice move, enemies can disrupt this system, leaving the player and NPC ships to fight or flee. (The player can also go pirate and disrupt the highway system to pick off cargo ships.) By the way, in a nice touch the populous systems have lots of activities; players fly alongside convoys and patrols and bounty hunters, all going their own way, with plenty of radio chatter and the occasional battle.

When docked, Trent is controlled by a series of icons at the top of the screen. Most locations have a few basics: launch pad, bar, equipment store, ship dealer, commodities trader. Minor bitch here: To talk to various people, Trent has to go there, and then talk. That’s fine for the bar, where the clientele changes pretty quickly. That’s not okay for the stores, because it means clicking once to go to the store, and then again to actually talk to the shopkeeper. Yeah, there are sometimes NPCs in the stores, but I’ve only rarely seen them.

Anyway, the bar is packed with NPCs. Some offer jobs, some offer information or a boost to faction rating (for a price), some just relate rumors. Every bar also has a job board and news channel, for quick cash and a little local flavor, respectively.

Graphics are good. Nothing wowed me. Maybe I’m jaded? Everything looks good, but the space effects are standard for the genre. Character models off-ship are nice (though they tend toward the typical skintight outfits and sci-fi measurements) and the in-game movies are nicely done.

Sound is just okay, unfortunately. NPC is speech is obviously mixed, but not always so well. There’s an ever-present pause when a non-essential planet-based NPC states his or her job, for example: “I work for… Liberty Security Force.” Scripting is also a problem here, because every single one of these discussions follows a strict procedure: Hellos, NPC either recognizes Trent or asks whether he’s new, NPC explains who he/she works for and their relationship to the current location, NPC offers information or a job or whatever, NPC checks Trent’s relationship with that faction and then either spills the info or tells him to leave. Again and again and again.

So. Freelancer is the new Privateer, though nowadays it has to share that title with similar games. Chris and Erin Roberts have put together another good title; fans of the genre will want to pick it up.