Wing Commander: Privateer
or best fucking game ever
Privateer was the first true 3D-sandbox space sim. While Wing Commander worked well as a story driven game with a linear mission structure, Privateer worked well because you felt like you were just a dude trying to get by…in space!
You are Grayson Burrows, a merchant, a bounty hunter, a privateer working for whoever pays most. One day you fight some low life pirates as a misguided rocket of yours hits a strange, foreign ship….
Your first ship (does it look familiar?) is nothing more than a rusty bucket of metal, but after a few missions or trades you can start buying bigger, better and more specialized ships that fit your need.
The freedom of deciding for yourself what to do next is what made this game so great. You could take a mission from one of the various guilds, go to the bar and hear about the latest rumors, take a quick bounty hunter mission from one of the mission computers, or just say ‘fuck it’ and fill your cargo with illegal merch and sell it to the highest bidder.
The starmap was what blew me away. The sheer freedom to go wherever I wanted and to do whatever I wanted was mind blowing at the time. I remember having a big book with trade routes, item descriptions, ship details etc. that I read again and again until I knew it inside out.
It was also the first game I played with a joystick, not just any joystick. The Thrustmaster Wingman EXTREME!!111!!1 What a beauty.
Unfortunately Privateer doesn’t really hold up. You can get it to run with a dos-box, but the graphics are brutal nowadays. Privateer 2 went another route and I never really got into it. If you can live with shitty graphics and Elite:Dangerous is too expensive for you at the moment, Privateer is still great fun for a few hours and you can pick it up at gog.com for a small fee.
Did someone else play this? What do you think?
Cheers
TypeO
Edit: That smiley wasn't supposed to be there, but fuck it, it will stay.
or best fucking game ever
Privateer was the first true 3D-sandbox space sim. While Wing Commander worked well as a story driven game with a linear mission structure, Privateer worked well because you felt like you were just a dude trying to get by…in space!
You are Grayson Burrows, a merchant, a bounty hunter, a privateer working for whoever pays most. One day you fight some low life pirates as a misguided rocket of yours hits a strange, foreign ship….
Your first ship (does it look familiar?) is nothing more than a rusty bucket of metal, but after a few missions or trades you can start buying bigger, better and more specialized ships that fit your need.
The freedom of deciding for yourself what to do next is what made this game so great. You could take a mission from one of the various guilds, go to the bar and hear about the latest rumors, take a quick bounty hunter mission from one of the mission computers, or just say ‘fuck it’ and fill your cargo with illegal merch and sell it to the highest bidder.
The starmap was what blew me away. The sheer freedom to go wherever I wanted and to do whatever I wanted was mind blowing at the time. I remember having a big book with trade routes, item descriptions, ship details etc. that I read again and again until I knew it inside out.
It was also the first game I played with a joystick, not just any joystick. The Thrustmaster Wingman EXTREME!!111!!1 What a beauty.
Unfortunately Privateer doesn’t really hold up. You can get it to run with a dos-box, but the graphics are brutal nowadays. Privateer 2 went another route and I never really got into it. If you can live with shitty graphics and Elite:Dangerous is too expensive for you at the moment, Privateer is still great fun for a few hours and you can pick it up at gog.com for a small fee.
Did someone else play this? What do you think?
Cheers
TypeO
Edit: That smiley wasn't supposed to be there, but fuck it, it will stay.
