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Getting better and better

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In the last review- I stated that I had only been playing the game for a few days. Now I've been playing it for almost a week. This game is brilliant. The more you play, the more involoved you become in the dynamic economy. It truly is amazing. Add 4% to the last review. This may just be the next elite.

Mirko.

Incredible!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Very involving! I love space games and I'm glad this one is out. It was hard and frustrating in the 1st day, but its more amazing every day now.

I think it is more for the enjoyers of games like Flight Simulator, and the oldies Elite (MSX) and Starflight (Genesis). It is a space RPG, not an action game. You fly around, buy items, mine asteroids, trade, get to fight here and then, and enjoy the graphics and the relaxing feeling you're in space. But I say again that it is hard and complicated at the beginning, but when it's mastered it gets very simple to control. I have a joystick but I don't use it at all. Not even the mouse. So, give it a time, and don't worry about the very slow graphics. You'll adjust the settings as you go and it'll get fast.

Let me give it some marks: From F to A+, a big A+ to the variety of products, ships, stations, and resources to trade with. A+ to the graphics, A to the planets and D for never reaching them. B- to the cockpit with all those blinking lights and F for not being able to hide it. X2 never crashed or interfered with Windows (A+ for that), but a D to the silent turbine. I think I'd get more imersed if there were a turbine sound like in MS Flight Simulator. What I also liked a lot was the very smart autopilot, and the option to press ESC to dock in and out of the station, still being able to do it on manual. Two big A+ for that, but a D to the "teleport" that takes us to the other side of the door. D also to the loading on the jump gates. That always gives me a moment to remember I have class tomorrow.

In sumary: would I return it if I could? Never! Am I addicted to it? A little. Do I get home ancious to play it? All the time. My other favorites (from best on): Empire Earth, Freespace 2 and 1, MS Flight Simulator, Starfox.

addictive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I am very happy with my purchase of this game. It has its issues, such as the horrible cutscenes and obscene learning curve, but once you get the hang of it the game is incredible. The graphics are beautiful, the economy is very deep, and the universe is huge and completely non-linear. If you liked Freelancer but felt it was not open ended enough, this game is for you.

Excellent Game!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: December 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is really an excellent game. It is much like freelancer, but even better.

Main Favorite Features:
1. You can do anything, not just follow the storyline.
2. You can fly around in stations, your own, or someone else's.
3. You begin fighting when you want to begin fighting.
4. Their are HUGE carriers and transport ships you can pilot.
5. Time device allows you to speed up gameplay (good for long journies if you don't have a jumpdrive).
6. You can leave your ship and fly in your spacesuit if you wish.
much more!

Main features that need improvement:
1. VERY hard to make money as a newbie.
2. Bad instruction manual.
3. Kind of hard to get the hang of it at first, but if you stick with it, it will get better!
4. Can't land on planets.

I would suggest this game to anyone who likes a good space sim. If you even remotely liked freelancer, then you should definately try this game, or at least the demo. 5 stars!

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)

Buy at your own risk...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Enlight has seen fit to add an extremly lame-brained copy protection scheme to this game. The system is called exe cop, and, from what I've seen, it cripples your game (after many hours of play) if it decides you have a pirated copy. According to several posts on the tech support forum (which you can't access unless you have a registered copy of the game) things like having Nero installed on your system may trigger the scheme (or even for no reason at all). The result is a declining reputation (everyone becomes your enemy) and disappearing credits. This is a major bummer since the game itself is a lot of fun to play. I haven't experienced this myself (I've only played the game for several hours), but this seems to be a recurring post on the egosoft/enlight forums. Hopfully, the next patch - 1.2 - is going to address the copy protection problem.

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

As far as the game goes I have very little to complain about. It runs fairly smooth (2.4GHz, 512MB, 128MB GeforceFX 5700 Ultra - patched to 1.1 w/all the goodies except AA enabled) and is VERY immersive and detailed (if you like a complicated space trader w/less action). The graphics are great, especially the bump mapping and lense effects. Despite what other reviews have said, I didn't find the learning curve to be a big deal. Help is available in abundance throughout the game (as well as an active community forum) and the tutorials are complete enough to get you started. The first two or three mission will reveal how to start earning a few bucks. The manual is a bit thin - but exploring the game and fuguring out what's what is half the fun. Given the amout of detail in this game, its hard to overstate how creative you can be in making credits (visit the tip/tricks forums to see what I mean - I believe you can access those without a copy of the game). The only other complaint is that it *seems* DirectInput is being used in an unbuffered mode. Key presses are somtimes lost between keyboard polls, and this becomes more pronounced during high CPU load situations as the frame rate drops (like during combat).

This game would get 5 stars from me without the exe cop garbage (and maybe a bit more optimization - although the 1.1 patch is an improvement over the out of the box installation).

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!

Doesn't Perform

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ok, Ok, I was a little impatient in my last review. Actually the game is quite good. For someone who has been looking for a game similar to the old Starflight, this one meets the bill. Good graphics, and once you learn (don't be impatient like me) the basics things go pretty good. It would be nice to be able to land on and do some mining on some of the planets, which are just beautiful, but there is plenty of astroid mining to be done, and lots of trading.

Normally I turn off music in FPS games that I play, so all the better to hear the bullets flying, but the music in this game I think is quite good.

Give the game a try.

Yeah....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Everything everyone has said about this game is true. I happen to like the game as it is, but I can see where ATI users would have a problem. The game's learning curve is tremendous, but the online forums at www.egosoft.com and the commander's page http://www.the-commander.com/ are a great couple of resources. Keep in mind that the gameplay mechanics are a little wonky at times, the developers do pay attention to the forums and there is a great player-mod community hard at work.

A note to college students: this is one of those games with ALLOT of thumb-twiddling. I've found this is a good time to read up, since I'm too stupid to pry myself away from the game for an hour.

Best Space Game EVER!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: February 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

As an "old timer" when it comes to gaming - over 25 years - this is the best Space Sim - check, best GAME, I've come across since the Civilization line. It DOES have a tutorial. It is EASY to learn. The trick is finding the right add-ons for your ship, which require you to travel around the immense universe and deal with many different species inhabiting the X-universe. Best graphics yet. Fly ANY ship from an ultra-fast scout ship to a full-blown capital ship - carrier or battleship. Wage war, fight pirates, trade for credits, build factories and automate trading throughout the universe. Follow the story line (much better than Freelancer's) or follow your own path to fame and fortune. Freelancer took all of three days to beat. Five months later, I'm still exploring the X-Universe. And Egosoft keeps coming out with free add-ons for registered owners! If you want entertainment and value for your gaming dollar, don't miss out on this one!

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