X-2: The Threat

Deronok

<div class="IPBDescription">No, NOT X-men</div> I really donno what to say, other than it looks great, I havn't gotten it yet but from what I can tell from the rolling demo it seems a lot like Eve except it's not MMO. You can build stations (Mining areas) trade, fight, ect. Every ship in the game has an importance. Lets say a mineral is in HIGH demand in an area, if you take you're time it wont be in high demand anymore because other ships will get there before you and the prices for that mineral will go back down. I think I may go by the store tomorrow and pick up a copy for myself, I could use a nice space sim. Also be sure to check out the rolling demo (No you can't play it, it just shows some of the things of the game like a trailer).

www.x2-game.com

esuna

If this is anything like it's predecessor, you can expect good things from it.

The original was a thoroughly enjoyable space combat / trading game and was so polished you could see your face in it. But for some bizarre reason it didn't sell too well and faded from the public eye in what seemed like no time.

Shame really.

I will be picking up this as soon as i have some disposable income, whenever that may be.

Deronok

This time it may have a better chance. Been a while since I'v used my joystick for a space game, time to clean it up since I know it's collected dust over time.

Talesin

One that I've been waiting on for a long while. Glad to hear that it's finally out.
Descended from the original Elite, it blows Freelancer out of the water with a dynamic economy, far better space combat, and a truly free game world. Don't feel like following the storyline? That's fine, set yourself up as a tycoon, making your own stations and taking over areas.
Personally, I loved starving a system for a given resource (say, Energy or Water) by shooting down all other merchant ships attempting to trade in the system to drive up the price, and having my own stations in the system that I can net a tidy profit from with my own automated merchant-tugs.

Never played Eve, but X2 was originally intended to be an online multiplayer... hopefully they've kept that aspect, even if only allowing you to set up your own server-universe and let in friends to play on it. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
As well (at least from one of the planned features) the ability to pilot a capital ship around with your friends as the turret gunners would rock. Or setting them up as defensive fighters if you have carrier facilities on your flagship.
The ability to make your own ships is a big bonus, too... slap ultra-powerful, gigantic engines on a spacepod and rocket around in it as an interstellar drag racer, Lego-style.

Only part I dislike about the rolling demo is how they don't seem to have handled shadows too well... MAJOR hits in framerate with them enabled.

Geminosity

Wasn't X single-player only? that was the main thing that put me off it. Sure it looked like a great single player and all but I prefer to have multiplayer along with most games so I have something to fall back on when the SP is over or gets a bit dull =3

Mav

I beta tested EVE for a few good months up to release, and the game was simply incredible... untill they sucked the life out of it. The combat was nice, but it needed an overhaul which it never got. Trading was nerfed for being way too good, but that was expected. Basic mining was virtually the only way you could start off in that game. While the mining was a bit too profitable on rare ore, the mining system itself was nice. Then they overhauled it into the most tedious and aggrivating job you could ever imagine. You had to force yourself to do this mining for hours/days on end, and your only foreseeable reward was some negligible upgrades for ships that you can't even afford.

And even if you found the developers blessing your corporation with some nice blueprints to make the cash for better ships and stuff, you still had to train to use the equipment. The training was a good element to the game, exept when it takes you 2 weeks (<i>yes, that's right</i>) to gain just one level on a single skill just so you can start another skill, which will in turn take you a few more days to train up. And you have to do all this for some novelty upgrade or rare module that isn't even that useful to begin with.

I wouldn't mind waiting out that much training, if there were something useful that I could do other than mining. Sure there was the missions, but they were so buggy and linear that, if they didn't screw up your character, weren't much better time spent over mining. Most were delivieries of the same stupid goods over the same long warps between gates, which wouldn't be so bad if there were an autopilot at the time.. (<i>which they might have implemented eventually.. god I hope so</i>)


The combat was pretty, and the ships/modules had nice designs, but overall it lacked much direct influence from the player. Sure you could spend all day training up your skills and ship piloting to outfit that nice Thorax with some badass 250 antimatter railguns and m12 missile pod, with afterburners and other essentials, and then throw on a gadget or two that you think might somehow give you some special edge in battle that the enemy wasn't expecting. But as soon as you hit the battlefield, it was the same old boring cycle of events.

You look at eachothers ship/equipment, and already know who is going to win. But for the sake of watching pretty attack animations and lighting effects, you both click on eachother and let the battle run itself.

Eventually someones shields run low, and they engage warp engines, making them invincible to all attacks. Warp disruptors have HORRIBLE range and take up ungodly amounts of your power or CPU (<i>I forget which</i>), so noone really used them anyways.

Then you would play this cat and dog game of warping from planets to moons, untill somebody has insufficient warp power and ends up perfectly safe in the dead-middile of nowhere. Then you would sit there and recharge your shields, then you both would meet back up at a station or something and start the battle again, always warping away when shields ran low. Then when somebody runs out of ammo or gets too many lucky shots to the hull, they warp back to saftey and then plan their escape.

Then you both would play this guessing game of which jumpgate one is warping to for an escape. Usually the escapee makes a clean getaway, but in the event that the guy chasing you guesses the right gate and catches you, the warping cat/dog chase starts again and again, untill one of you leaves or logs off.


Ahh, memories. It was fun while it lasted. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->




Other games that were not just incredible space sims, but incredible games overall were IWar 2 and Freelancer 2, both which didn't get much sales AFAIK yet got so many great reviews. They were awesome games, maybe there's a bad luck thing with space games? <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->

I 'spose it's nice to have one of the greatest singleplayer space sims of all time, Independence War 2 (<i>IMO</i>) be on sale for less than 10 bucks on eBay. Now that's a good bargain. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->