X2: The Threat

[JibberX]

Ok folks, anyone who like Elite, Privateer, Freespace should get this game when it comes out. I played X Beyond the Frontier, X-Tension quite a bit and the sequel look great.

http://www.egosoft.com/

My only problem with the first one was each planet had about 15 Space stations, so you never really had to leave a system, but I am hoping te game is a little better balance. It's our in USA and Austrailia, Feb somethingth release over here.

[Ish]

Yeah it looks absolutely fantastic. Huge. And fantastic! I can't wait... its my game purchase for next month and I expect / hope it consumes vast amounts of my time!

[Ish]

Well its out and I've been playing this over the weekend. Mini-review follows!

Firstly the game has the steepest learning curve of just about any game I've played. Seriously - its harder than figuring out how to play Japanese imports. It almost put me off entirely. Yesterday I had 3 2 hours sessions of complete bewilderment. Stopping when my head hurt so much I couldn't play no more. But today its all clicked!

Secondly the game is a real system hog. I'm running on a 2GHz AMD with 512Mb of RAM and a ATI 9800 Pro - the machine runs UT2003 at speedy framerates. But X2 - it really chugs along. I'll be building my new ninja box this week. Hopefully that'll speed things up - but I've read that it still chugs on top end gaming rigs. I'll post back. My suspicion is that its a CPU and memory hog - with all the dynamic economy and so many of your own ships and factories I think its spending as much time managing that as it is rendering frames.

Ok. Right. Now this might come as a shock to some (it did me) - but it doesn't really strike me as an 'Elite' clone. At least to begin with its more like Transport Tycoon in space with a flight engine thrown in than the other way round. Come at it expecting that and I think you'll be happier.

So far I've basically gone from being frustrated and disappointed to slightly confused and seeing potential. Hopefully it'll turn out to be a slow burner.

Oh - one final thing. You need a joystick. A joystick with lots of buttons (I'm using a Saitek Cyborg Evo). I tried to play it with keyboard and mouse just to see what it was like and found it basically unplayable.

[csuzw]

I agree with most of the stuff you've said. I'm playing with mouse and keyboard and while I don't think its unplayable, its not the easiest game in the world.

I think this would have been the perfect game if it used the control system from Freelancer but all the features/gameplay from X2.

One major wish is a more frequent save (eg when going through jump gates) - the amount of times i've crashed into space stations while trying to find the place to dock is getting annoying (if i was less impatient it might not be a problem).

I think when I've finally worked out whats going on (I couldn't do the tutorials so I went straight into the game!) its going to rock. Until then its just a matter of perseverance

[JibberX]

I've been playing these since XBTF so I had no learning curve, it's very much a progression in the same way Winning Eleven progresses, things change and have been expanded upon, but there are also subtle things aswell. It's very much a game that you can build the biggest empire, or you can just be a minion killing pirates and riddings the universe of their plight, it's up to you.

[csuzw]

I think I'm definitely starting out playing on my own - its complicated enough that way.

I like the idea of having a whole fleet but it sounds too complex at the moment.

I think it will be a long time before I get into trading properly - its just too cumbersome compared to Freelancer/Hardwar

[Ish]

The chugginess was really getting on my nerves so I took a break from the game until I'd built my new PC.

I've just tried it on that new PC (3 GHz P4, 800MHz FSB, 1Gb of PC4000 ram, ATI 9800 Pro) and it flies along. I can actually indulge in combat at more than 10fps...

On the game itself - when I left it I still had a love / hate relationship with it. I can see the potential - but its going to take a lot of hard graft to exploit that potential. I'm going to buy a decent ship for combat later on in an effort to lighten things up a little.

[Ravon]

Im playing this.... even though its taking a while to get use to all the controls.... I was gonna play it with my joystick, but i seem to be having trouble with it and xp.. just won't calibrate right.. But anyway.. im now using my firestorm pad and its great .. i can do all the menu crap quickly, and still fly around.

Dont seem to be having to many issues with fps.. im only running a AMD 1.4G, over 700 meg memory and a GF4 Ti4800 and at 800x600 seems fine ...

[Ish]

I'm having joystick trouble too. Running it on XP and using a Saitek Cyborg Pro. I don't have problems with the stick and other games just X2.

I've found calibrating the stick every time I launch X2 sorted me out. Otherwise it always drifts to the left.

[Ravon]

I have a cyborg 3d digital...when in the game the ships cockpit just jitters about... Bloody thing..

[manse]

Ish, how you getting on with it now? Was it a slow burner for you, or have you uninstalled?

I bought it on impulse the other day (but don't have a joystick yet!) and have started playing, after reading your mini review I knew to expect it to be tough (specially with mouse and keyboard controls) but I'm really enjoying it, cant wait to get some credits together and get a decent ship and begin to build my evil pirate empire!

Apparently patch 1.3 will have some of the mouse issues patched.. If not I might try my pad for size before buying a stick..

[Ish]

It was becoming quite interesting. I was really getting into it.

Then something happened to change my home PC life.

I got broadband.

And ever since I've been playing online games. In fact if I told you how many hours I'd racked up on Call of Duty since Sunday you'd probably phone the authorities to get me committed.

[manse]

LOL, I know what you mean, I'm going in the opposite direction actually - done COD online to death in the last few months so I'm taking a little break with some soothing empire building