So, what are some good recent games?

[Korror]

I'm in the middle of playing freelancer and it's a great game. It is a huge, beautiful, universe that really feels alive. Listening to ships chatter on the com, following the police/ pirates around, discovering new things, it really absorbs you. I'm a player that loves to explore and freelancer has certainly enough space to explore. I've spent 30 hours so far mostly exploring and there are still entire systems I haven't even visited before I had to leave and continue on with the storyline. The story line isn't that bad, it's not planescape torment but it's acceptable and interesting.

I will mention the downsides of Freelancer too. The voice acting for the non-story characters is horrible. Worse then horrible, I never listen to them anymore and esc through their dialog. The non-story missions are repetitive, all 6 or so kinds involving combat. The game isn't truly open ended, the area have a system of progression set up. The first area has the weakest ships, the next has slightly stronger ones and so on.

I never played Privateer but I've heard some people complain that Freelancer isn't as open-ended as Privateer. I would still recommend Freelancer if you're the kind of person who loves to explore the hidden corners of the universe.

Korror