A look at: Freelancer

I still play this game, but usually with the expansion mod known as Discovery. People often erroneously refer to Discovery as a mod, but see, it holds much of the basic parts of the original games along with new content, that it's really an expansion.

As for the main game? Well, there are some things that can catch your attention with a game. One of those is how things are named and set up. See, when I saw that there's a space system going by the name of New York and a planet called Manhattan, well, what can I saw. I'm awed. And I want to know about the rest of the locales. Truth be told, it's exactly what I figure out. Liberty is Space America, sweet. And the other houses are done similarly. Rheinland is Space Germany, Kusari is Space Japan, and Bretonia is Space UK. The lost house of Hispania is divided into Mediterranean space pirates (Corsairs) and South American drug lords (Outcasts), while other independent factions are listed as well. Discovery of course adds Gallia, which is Space France, and even brings the Coalition (Russians) back into the universe.

Given that your character is in fact, a freelancer, you can do anything, particularly once the singleplayer campaign is over. Go lawful, go unlawful, go smuggle some illegal goods or trade regular ones. Go hunt down pirates or terrorists or fight off police forces as a pirate or terrorist yourself. Each and every faction has some goal, some motif, enemies, allies, and it especially applies to Discovery where the focus is on roleplay. The game in itself doesn't advertise roleplay otherwise, but you do gain net worth and levels as you progress, so it sort of qualifies. The singleplayer campaign has its freelancing bits in between missions, but tries to progress things accordingly, so it's impossible to be overpowered until after it's all finished. Then again, the progressively tougher combat, particularly once you reach the Nomad lands, can only make fancy flying a necessity.

The many ship classes, weapon classes, and bases make a whole lot of things vast. On the surface though, the thing to take note is that space is essentially 2D in this game. Your navmap is 2D and everything apparently is on a plane. This is a bit lame honestly, as if you fly above or below the plane, there's nothing of interest. Mods of course, don't follow this rule. The political zones correspond to what factions are met in those zones, while mineable zones show places where you can shoot at rocks to gain free trading items.

The utilities I use to play and hack into the game have helped me dissect everything I need to know about Freelancer, and I'm still playing it to this day even after starting it way back in 2006. Honestly, it's a good game to play, mild at the worst, enjoyable most of the time.