The thing about space is that it is black, oh and big - very, very BIG. The developers have certainly picked up on this second point – X³ is huge. It’s a freeform space adventure which has possibly the biggest of game "worlds" I have seen. At its most basic it’s a go-anywhere doing-anything game – it’s very much like the old classic ELITE, only for the year 2005. You can earn a living trading – buying cheap and selling high or you can become a bounty hunter or pirate, earning a living via the deaths of others. X³ does have a story, a story that seems as every bit as big as the game world but it’s up to you if you wish to pursue it.
Everything about X³ is very “Sim”-like and this is the game’s first problem, and its biggest weakness. There is NO tutorial and if ever a game needed one then this is it. My first attempt to review the game was with a version with no instructions – it took me a good 30 minutes of hit and miss key-pressing before I could even get my ship moving! The retail version does of course come with a manual, and at 80-plus pages it’s comprehensive to say the least, but it still makes your first few hours with the game more of a chore than anything else.
The one thing that is apparent from the start is just how good the game looks – possibly the best-looking PC game around (certainly that I have played); the lighting, the ships, the planets – EVERYTHING looks stunning. But this all comes at a price – it’s going to need a hefty PC to get the best out of it. Even with a 3800+ AMD and 2GB of Ram along with 2 6600GTs in SLI I suffered plenty of slowdown and it’s taken a patch for me to even play the game without it crashing. Ah the sufferings of PC Gamers! Once you do manage to get the game running though, it’s real “Graphics Whore” stuff.
The fun in X³ comes when you decide to play the game YOUR way. Once you have fully assimilated the manual and spent a few hours learning from your mistakes you eventually find yourself having fun. For me the trading side of things was a no-no. I gave up the retail trade five years ago and even though it looks good I was not going to return. It was a Pirate's life for me! – and by choosing this I was also given an insight into just how well the games AI systems work.
Your time in X³ is viewed from a first person perspective – your view from the pilot’s chair so to speak. All the ships in the game can apparently be owned and piloted by your good self and in keeping with the game they all look stunning. These ships once owned can also be customised how you want them. Be it a huge space cargo vessel or a fast past attack vessel – you change the ships dependent on how you want to play the game.
Having never piloted a galactic space vessel I can not vouch for how realistic these ships handle – but they do feel “real” by that I mean that the handling and control of the game is not arcade like. If you’re in a big ship then it takes you a while to get moving – when moving at speed it can take you an age to stop – and when you get a better grip of the controls some real “top gun” dog fighting is also possible.
X³ though is far from perfect – it requires plenty of time to even get started – this is no simple pick-up-and-play game and you really need to be able to devote a good three or four hours to your initial venture into the world of Reunion. Also the high machine requirements mean that it’s one of the hardest games to get running since boot disks and custom autoexec.bat’s were first required.
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