Theres a great game in there trying to get out.
Having played X2- The threat, its predecessor which was rather buggy, had terribly scripted cut scenes, and a storyline that didn’t really engross, but was a great game overall. I was hoping for a massive improvement over X2 with X3. It is after all the closest thing we’ve go to ELITE. The space trading/combat simulator which set the genre in motion all those years ago. But instead what I received is somewhat problematic to review, I have mixed feelings about it. Therefore for the rest of the review I will go over the various aspects of the game and try to offer some incite into what its really like.
X3 Reunion takes off from where we last left off. After a rather annoying out of sync news reporter gets you up to speed on current events. You can either choose to start a new game, on one of the three available difficulty levels (quick start, normal or X-treme). Unfortunately the difficulty doesn’t not effect the ai or the economy just your starting equipment. Or forgo the story line all together and start off as a trader, assassin or explorer for a bit of role-playing. Which basically disables the storyline and lets you do whatever you want right from the start.
Veterans of the x - universe will find themselves in a familiar environment however new players may become overwhelmed, alienated and frustrated with x3 right from the start because your plunged into the deep end.
First thing you will notice upon playing x3 is that the graphics are sublime to say the least unfortunately the second thing you’ll notice is that your getting 15 frames a second, so unless you’ve got a 6800 GT/ultra or equivalent polygon pumping machine you wont be able to run it on the highest graphics which are set by default. However if you do have a powerful rig your in for a treat.
Now x3's not for the faint of heart nor is it for someone looking to get a quick fix, this is a full time job. Your either going to be addicted from the start or you will instantly dislike it.
So here we are in the middle of space, what’s there to do? Well like x2 you can trade consumer goods/manufactured products and weapons between various space stations for profit, attack pirates, or become one (or both), amass a large fleet of ships to do your bidding. Explore unknown areas run missions from various individuals and build up an empire of stations to compete with the npc economy. And of course work towards the what many players of x2 thought of as their ultimate goal, owning a capital ship or a fleet of them. And of course there’s the main storyline to consider. All sounds very attractive doesn’t it? That’s because it is.
The AI economy in x3 unfortunately, despite being told otherwise acts very much alike to the economy in x2 which is fairly rudimentary compared to a real world economy. Working on the premise of supply and demand, for example buying goods from a station with a full stock of the product will get you a cheap price and selling to a station with very little of the same product will get you a nice return on your money. However that’s about as complicated as it seems to get. Npc traders are constantly competing against you for the best prices which adds price fluctuations, and occasionally a new npc station is created which shakes up supply and demand a bit but that’s it.
The combat in x3 is fast paced and enjoyable with a fair amount of skill involved depending on what’s shooting you. The Ai isn’t particularly smart, mainly preferring to do a number of strafing runs at you rather than employing any fancy combat manoeuvres, however its still provides a definite challenge especially when fighting multiple enemies. The number of ships in game is quite impressive, and that’s not mentioning variants of different ships with their own modified ship models. For example there’s a ship called a Nova, this nova also comes in the sentinel and vanguard variants to name a few swell as the original nova. Which subsequently have different strengths and weaknesses.
Exploration is a worthwhile and intriguing use of your time in x3 not only may you discover new trade routes, trading goods and weapons to purchase but you might find one of the hidden items dotted around the game. However because of the very nature of a sector (which could be described as a solar system to give you another perspective) the stations are usually all clumped together in the middle leaving a lot of open space on all sides. Now the great thing about x3 is that for example you see a moon over in the distance, you can actually go there, it will take a long time but you can get there, the bad thing however is that there’s really no incentive to go there.
And finally the storyline, it’s never been a strong part of X games, it was normally something you considered to do on the side from time to time, and X3 is no exception. The storyline is about as gripping as a lubricated water balloon. Utilising a combination of in game communications between the main characters, in game cinematics, and out of game full screen cinematics to convey the story. And it does a shoddy job of it, developers egosoft don’t seem to have learnt the importance of lip-syncing which prevents you from taking any of the characters seriously. However it’s an improvement on x2. When switching between these various story driven components you will find yourself constantly adjusting the volume as the clips are usually to quiet. The missions themselves aren’t particularly challenging and see you performing a variety of tasks from overseeing a rookie patrol to mounting gun turrets on capital ships and shooting down incoming fighters. However the storyline just lacks that polish which should lend itself to the game, sometimes graphical errors, sometimes an ai controlled ship will crash into a station, and it just destroys the atmosphere the game should be trying to maintain.
Now unfortunately at release the game is full of bugs, it seems like they worked round the clock just to add them. If your in need of further convincing check out egosoft community forums for evidence. In my opinion the game has not been beta tested sufficiently and this is the consequence. There are a number of graphical errors in game as well as fundamental problems with the storyline (at present no one is able to complete it due to a bug in mission 12) and the economy (AI traders wont trade some goods). The game is also a complete system hog, if you meet the recommended requirements for playing this game there is a chance that you won’t be able to run x3 for whatever reason, which a number of people have been reporting.
If your a fan of the X - universe buy it, brave the bugs, you may be a little disappointed by the way in which x3 borrows a lot of material from X2 (X3 uses a lot of X2 soundtrack and audio) and a little disappointed by having your high expectations dashed but it will grow on you. If you’re not a fan wait until November when the 1.3 patch is released otherwise you may not stick with it that long yourself.
This is the definition of a diamond in the rough.