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update

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Basically, all was said above. The Patch 1.4 removed the flaw of ramming enemys, much features came in addition, and on my AthlonXP 2.8 with 1024 RAM and Radeon 9600 256 MB it runs smooth with all Details in 1024*768*16.

Genrally I tend to the higher reviews as stated above. It IS needed to "bite your way through" at the beginning, but the reward is good. The story is a bit short, not in the time needed to complete, but in a somewhat open and unsatisfying end. On the other hand, most of us probably wont buy a game of this type for the story alone, but for the empire to build. Another problem is the fact, that somewhere in midgame wealthness-wise, you get some troubles with protecting your ships and have to do lots of repetive work to advance, which in itself isnt bad cause it stays fun. But the living-universe-feeling looses a bit once the news on the blackboards of the stations begin to repeat only "news" you already know. As I didnt play for a while because of hardware damage, I cant tell if that is still present in 1.4 though.

All in all nothing more but small flaws in a great game, if you are looking for freedom. 'Cause thats what you got, what freelancer always missed. The freedom to abandon storyline, to pirate, patrol, trade, build and explore as you wish. What keeps the station still somewhat alive are the audio-announcements like "Small Lisa is missing her parents, please come and get her at the casino, deck 20, section 23."
or
"Deck 34 is closed due to maintenace work on reactor."
or
"Please note our special offers in the family market on deck 12!"

Just a small detail, but it really adds. And there are many such details in this game.

Aims very high, sort of delivers

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 16, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is most similar to some of the massive online games I've played. Alot of your time in the game is spent in transit to various systems, or just waiting for your transports to move around. (Definitely set the SETA time compression to 10X!) This is the kind of game you want an entire summer to do nothing but play, and might want to pull up a T.V. and throw on a movie while you are waiting for stuff to happen. Once you explore all of the systems and realize there isn't a whole lot of difference between them, (different factories, races and theme music, hurray) the game settles in to trying to build up your economic empire of factories and trading runs, and trying to get better ships. The controls on this game and interface are pretty awful, think spreadsheet sytle menus. I found myself staring at one spreadsheet/menu of where all of my ships are for quite awhile, watching them march across to my various factories. In between trying to keep all of my factories from blinking yellow (meaning they are out of a resource), I spent my time trying to keep the khaack (aptly named) away from my shipping lines. The problem is they just spawn in from nowhere, and the computer can spawn them in alot longer than your patience for it. Definitely do only the fewest missions possible, as the Khaack get alot worse later in the game. I'd say wait until you have an M6 corvette before completing all the missions. (You could do it with an M3 heavy fighter though) Also, when you have the TP class ship at the beginning of the game with the annoying scientists on board, strip it down before returning the ship and get 400K credits! Huge time saver! The learning curve is absolutely unreal, and took me more than a week to figure all out (I hate tutorials). So, play all the tutorials, and good luck figuring it all out. Overall though, this game aims extremely high, but rapidly turned into the game I love to hate. (Or more like hate to love) It just isn't nearly polished enough for a game demanding this much playing time. (Why can't my freighters go AROUND khaack ships like they do for other obstacles? Why don't the Argon defense forces go after enemy ships in the area? Why isn't there a "buy domestic goods" command, forcing your freighters to buy resources continually from your own factories along safer supply routes? etc, etc) If it were done by the likes of Blizzard, it would undoubtedly have been one of the best games ever, but as it stands, I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 5. From what I've read, X3 is even worse when it comes to the programming and finishing touches, so I'm not planning on getting it anytime soon.

The best space combat-trade sim of the last 20yrs, almost...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am giving X2 the Threat, 3.5 stars. It could be a 5 star game.

The review above, "X2: Threatens to be great", pretty much covers it on content. This game could be the best space trading-combat sim ever. Since the "Threatens to be great" review is so concise and I larely agree with it, I am going to cover the system specs required to run the game.

My system specs:

1.3 GHz AMD processor
512 RAM
128 MB ATI 9500 Pro
Cyborg Gold USB Joystick
Windows 98 SE

I have all the eye candy options turned off and the game is running fast enough at 1028x780x32 to be playable. My system is very clean and runs every other game I have ever tried, with all video options turned on, as smooth as silk, but not X2. The game probably isn't playable with a system that is lower-end than mine.

Most gamers playing this game have some of the video options turned down, even with systems that have 3.0 GHz processors and ATI 9800s or high-end Nvidias.

THIS GAME IS PROBABLY NOT PLAYABLE ON A SYSTEM WITH THE MINIMUM SPECS LISTED ON THE BOX! It will be like watching a slide show. The lack of a playable demo really makes it hard to tell if the game will run smooth enough on your system to make it worth buying. Egosoft gets a minus 1/2 star for putting out a 'rolling demo' instead of something meaningful.

NOTE(added 1-24-04): There appears to be a serious problem with ATI video cards and the performance of this game. No matter how fast your system you will probably average about 20fps if you have an ATI card.

Right now, the main tactic of opposing ships is to ram you.

If the game's creators will optimize the game engine and modify the combat AI so it does more than just try to ram your ship, I will happily bump my score to 5 stars.

This is a hard game, but it could be one of the greats. Hopefully, Egosoft will put some effort into optimizing the rendering and AI combat code. With some fixes in those areas this game will stand on a tier above Freelancer. (Or any other game in this genre)

Horrible User Interface, Wimpy Physics Model

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: June 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

There are so many games out there that it's not practical to waste time and money on an average or poor game. This game has some good qualities, but the stupid, unchangeable user interface will be a show-stopper for many people.

Unbelievably, you cannot redefine which keys do what in this game, and yet the tutorial will not tell you which keys to use, but rather says, "look up the key in the printed manual now"--I'm not kidding!!! LOL Even the original Descent allowed you to remap the keys, and that game came out TEN YEARS AGO.

The ships have a "maximum speed"... anyone who played Independence War will realize that this is not the way to model the physics of spacecraft.

The days when computer game companies are going to be able to survive and make a profit while treating their customers like garbage are coming to an end... and Enlight had better learn the lesson if they want to survive. Wish I could give it zero stars.

Another crappy game to sell on ebay... ...

Pathetic

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: April 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Pure eye candy. I fired it up and started the tutorials. The business tutorial seemed to stall. The combat tutorial showed me that anyone who actually manages to shoot an enemy ship with a laser is just plain lucky. Combat was just pure frustration, with opposing ships crossing the screen in the blink of an eye. You'd need to be Luke Skywalker to win a fight on merit, because Han Solo wouldn't have a chance. Gee it looks great. Who cares because if you have to fight to get on in the game or protect your interests then you might as well forget it, because you're going to be tearing your hair out. I wouldn't give this game away to my worst enemy. There may be a rewarding game in there somewhere, but why should I put myself through hours of boring frustration?

Sail On Software - Dishonest Company

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 26
Date: March 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

We ordered a DVD through Amazon via Sail On. They sent us a used DVD (no packaging), which did not work. After stringing us along, we returned the DVD and were promised a replacement or refund. Needless to say, they have avoided our e-mails since. I would recommend NOT dealing with Sail On Software.

Year round gaming

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: January 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a very very good looking space simulation. O man, my mouth dropped. The last good simulation I played was Wing Commander 3. Flying through Nebulas with the cockpit view made me feel like I was there. The cutscenes however could use some work (needs a good artistic touch with textures - they were off color).

This is a long long game period. The parts I played were fun. However, I didn't quite get what I am supposed to do at certain points. For example, Argon One... what the hell was that? It took me a couple of memory walkbacks later I realize it was the first ship I came out of dock with. You won't find it easily on the map without some searching or a good scanner. The economy is good and realistic enough to be fun. The only draw back is that I find the whole game to be really really long. Then again it could be a good thing since I usually beat the whole story of a game in just a week. Very replayable with the egosoft site pointing gamers to forums and a modding community.

Btw, simulators are an absolute necessity since the learning curve is more like climbing a cliff... a really large cliff... with no safety. Partly due to the difficult keyboard interface. The rest of it is due to the many things taking place around you. Not only do you have to keep track of the enemies in front of you. You can have around 5 "monitors" to look at in addition to the main screen in capital (larger) ships. It's not a bad thing nor is it a good thing. I just feel it is necessary to the playing of these game types. However, I do feel the tutorial should not need an update in order to function properly.

The update you have to be careful about. Some of the versions can't use certain updates. It took me awhile to realize this fault in the update system. (caused my system display error message after error message)

Graphics 10/10
Gameplay 8.5/10
Ease of Use 7/10
Overall 8/10

User Friendly as using a hack saw on granite

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: January 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Okay, I couldn't give the game one star because it had really good space graphics. I actually felt like I was in a cockpit. But it certanly dosen't warrent anything above what I gave it.
Allow me to write this in a recognizable fassion.

Pros:

1- Great Space Graphics.
2- Somewhat Interesting Storyline.

Cons (allow me to clear my throat):

1- The character graphics are some of the worst I've seen in a long time. Even the original Monkey Island, or Space Quest had better character animation than this.
2- It has a serious problem with character interface, and user friendlyness. This is it's biggest problem. I will garentee you, it has no tutorial, training, hints or tips, or anything else to help out. It throws you in and expects you to know how to do everything off the bat. I couldn't even figure out how to repair! And I was DOCKED!
3- It had a review on the box saying: "This game could be better than Freelancer!" or something like that. But I consider this to be something a desperate company would do to sell a completely useless product. It's a very nasty, dirty thing to do.

In conclusion, This game ranks only two stars because of it's Bad Character Graphics, Terrible gameplay, and nasty marketing. If you want a Space Sim, get Freelancer, at least the characters look like they have joints!

Awesome Space Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 10, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is the best space game I've ever played. If you like freelancer, then get this game. One thing I love the most about this game is that it isn't linear at all, unlike Freelancer and such. I love the idea of building stations and factories. All the makers of this game need to do is enable you to land on planets and simply add a lot more weapons, ships, etc. One more thing about this game that is cool is how it evolves.

Enjoyable and Worth the money

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This truly is a great game but with any game it has its strengths and weaknesses. You simpily have to weigh them according to what your looking for in a game. As far as economic empire building and large scale naval stratagy it shines above many others. The economic model is very complex yet easy to learn making it fun to explore and build up massive industrys all with fully automated transports that actually do what you tell them (the AI actually uses a bit of common sense when doing so).

However, if your looking to hop into the cockpit of a heavy fighter for a dog fight with lasers blazing you'll find that the flight controll is so sloppy that you will want to turn the auto-pilot on and sit back and watch the computer smoke the enemys itself. Which again it does a decent job at. As far a the people anamations go, yea there so terrible I actually found them rather houmorous but it takes up about 3-5 minutes of a game that may last you several weeks or even months. At any rate its not what you would buy this game for so who cares, hit ESC and skip'em.

All in all I am glad I bought this game and the company "Egosoft" stands behind their product with free game "updates" which combine add-ons and patches into one and have a "modder kit" to help the gamer create there own changes to the game. Rather than microsoft who published Freelancer and abanded it this company continues to make it better by listning to what gammers have to say in their forum on the company website. And that says alot about a company and its product.

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