Since finishing Privateer, I've longed to return to that same sort of experience, and I'm hoping Freelancer will do it (if Independence War 2 doesn't do it first). I've heard that Freelancer is an XBox exclusive... is that true? Does that mean that it is NEVER coming out for the PC, or will it just come out a few weeks/months later than the XBox version?

freelancer will be on PC. Have you tried Starlancer yet? It's the first part of the trilogy with freelancer being the last and middle may come out in the future.

Sweet... thanks for the good news. No, haven't tried Starlancer... maybe I will in the meantime.

Freelancer will only be a shell of what it was supposed to be. Digital Anvil was dissolved as a company and all the major players (including the Roberts brothers) have left and moved on. StarLancer was a good first effort for the creators of Wing Commander/Privateer, unfortunately we will not see Freelancer as Chris Roberts had intended.

Update: I forgot to mention that Chris Roberts is supposedly a consultant on Freelancer as it stands now. However, I wonder how much design power he actually has over the project.

Yeah, I heard about that! That really blows. Hopefully the new design team will be faithful to Chris Roberts' vision. I am hoping for good Privateer-type-gameplay from Independence War 2... it has the same space combat and trade elements.

I can almost 100% guarantee that IW2 is better than Freelancer. I just have a nasty feeling that Freelancer will NOT be what was shown at last years E3 (or was it the year before?).

AgtFox, have you played IW2? I'm just a little concerned about adjusting to the whole "Newtonian physics" thing, as well as how deep the game is when it comes to controlling my ship. Once I adapt, I think I'll like it, though.

I played the demo. I will buy the game at some point. I enjoy games like Wing Commander and Freespace, IW2 is a lot like those. I just can't see them going wrong with IW2 after the original...that's all.