X2: The Threat

[Rezantis]

This ame isn't precisely an RPG, but who cares . . .

Now, here we have yet another game where you fly around in a spaceship trading, shooting . . . basically doing whatever the hell you feel like. It's been done. Elite did it. Privateer did it. Their respective sequels did it. The first X did it. Freelancer did it.  There's probably several more that I've forgotten, but general consensus is that nobody has made a really good one since Origin made Privateer.  

I have probably spent, overall, about forty hours on this game thus far.  And I can honestly say that I will devote forty more.  I haven't actually finished the third storyline mission yet, which is mainly because I couldn't be bothered taking it (I was busy building an empire, thank you) and partly due t bugs: more on that later.

First things first: If you don't have a joystick, buy one. You'll need it. If you don't want to buy a joystick, then I suggest you don't play this game. Mouse/keyboard is just *not sufficient*, in my experience.  One of those joysticks with ten buttons is preferable because you're going to use every last one (yes, I mean that).

Next up, this game has a learning curve.  It's not pretty.  You want to either put a couple hours into the tutorials or have someone around you can ask questions of when necessary, preferably both.  You can wing it, and once you get the basics of the interface down it's easy enough to do so, but this game -is- tricky to get to grips with.  It also has some exceptional coolness that you will never understand unless you work through the tutorial, such as the monitor system.  That rules. You can have a few little 'submonitors' on your screen, each small little screens that you can attach to other ships or turrets or -whatnot- that you may own.  The awesome goes up further when you realize you can switch your controls between ships, turn on autopilots, etc.  The ability to fully remote control your ships is a funky novelty, and on occasion it's actually -really useful-.  The interface is complex, but actually moderately intuitive - once you get used to it. I question how sane it will be once I have fifty or so ships, actually . . . it doesn't look to be built for that at all. But for controlling ten individual ships that all need to do their own thing, it's perfectly adequate.  I -do- wish I could queue up commands, though. Bad egosoft.

I suppose this leads neatly into the next point, so let me say: this game is pretty. This game is very pretty.  It will also demand a LOT from your graphics card when you have multiple submonitors open in a crowded sector.  Even turned down, though, the graphics are good, and the ships look honest to god -cool-.  Those Argon Novas can kick some ass, and look the part - and it's nothing short of cool to see a destroyer let rip.  The sounds are adequate, though not necessarily memorable, but the voice acting . . .

Well, the voice acting is utterly atrocious - and so are the out of ship cutscenes, which thankfully occur only in the storyline missions.  They had someone with a sense of humour working on the script, clearly, but the voice actors are -annoying-.  I mean it.  And I swear, if that old goat uses the 'sama' suffix ONE MORE TIME . . . you'll understand what I mean about the cutscenes being horrific when you see the character animation,
particularly walking.  Also, the story seems kinda . . . well . . . LACKING right now.  It may pick up, but I'm not really expecting it to. I'm viewing the story missions as something else to do when I feel like it, not the main focus of the game, and I think this is the right thing to do.

My final and biggest gripe with this game: it's buggy. It's not, in my experience, crash to desktop buggy, but both I and a friend ran into campaign destroying bugs. My friend's bug was fixable by applying a patch (being teleported halfway across the galaxy when docking with a plot critical station), mine thus far has not been - (a mission critical capship, which I -know- to be invulnerable, has vanished. A suggestion on the tech support forums is that it might have run several thousand kilometers out of sector hunting some particularly persistent enemy, in which case I may never see it again).  I can probably fix it, but it'll involve delving into the scripting engine of the game.  I should NOT have to do this.

So, what're the redeeming points of the game?

I did not get a kill for the first six-eight hours of playing the game. In point of fact, I almost never used a gun, and NEVER used one efectively.  I was busy playing high speed courier and the like, and it was -fun-.  Every station has a bulletin board, some with news articles (often interesting background, sometimes they tell continuing stories), some with advertisements, and some with misisons for interested pilots.  These missions are [i[fun[/i], and sometimes, exceptionally lucrative.  Everything from high speed courier to tour bus driver.  And yes, they make an attempt at simulating an economy.  it's not perfect, but it's -cool-. And this simple model that they use -works-.  You can spend hours trying to work out exactly where to place factories and trade routes.

I won't spoil some of the cool things you -can- do in this game.  But piracy to trader to police to budding mogul, it's all there.

This game has it's flaws, but it's also got so much depth.  Once you come to grip with the game . . .  

I have, after a lot of effort, finally scraped together the cash for my uber-fighter with awesome guns and shielding, and I haven't yet met the small craft I cannot take in a fight.  Now I just need ten more or factory defense, and then I need to put a crystal fab in the wall, then after that maybe a couple more solar plants and wow, I've been noticing a major silicon shortage around area X but how am I going to supply it cost-effectively AND have sufficient defence at the damn places?

I love this game.

It's not for everyone, no, but I heartily recommend it to anyone who can survive the nasty learning curve.  Two thumbs up.