Please be gentle, im a virgin reviewer, and my girlfriend just rocked up so
I don't have time to proof read it
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First impressions:
Game installs no worries, I've got the DVD version so its fantastic not to
have to swap disks all the time. A word of warning, 4.X gig is used up in
the install. That is I believe the largest install I've come across to date.
I don't know how many CD's this will end up equating to with compression,
but it doesn't look good.
First thing I do is patch to 1.2, its 75 meg and the servers aren't too bad.
I think you'll get as close to the max speed possible for your connection.
It looks like they were ready, I've got a 12megabit down and 1 up and I was
downloading at 1000kb, so not full potential but pretty damn close.
Then you get into the game, now, I like I know most of you do, now have a
19" LCD who's native res is 1280x1024. Be warned, unless your system is
brand new (enthusiast level you could say) you will not be running X3 at the
high, or even maybe the medium settings. This game is a true benchmark and
currently I'm stuck on Low settings for everything. System specs being:
P4 3.2
1 gig (the standard)
GeForce 6800 GT Ultra (256)
All of my drivers are up to date.
Right so there's the things that matters, and while I would like to say hey,
its a good system, well, sad to say its not for this game. Almost like a
kick in the balls really for someone who thinks their system is good enough.
The good news here is that Egosoft have announced that there will be further
enhancements to performance in 1.3, this isn't really a good thing, all
optimization should have been completed from the get go but as we all know
now, this was indeed a rushed job like so many other games.
Anyway, so the game is now smooth. Running ok, I can most definitely see a
change in quality but It'll do for now. When you start the game you 7
options presented to you. The first three options are Easy, Medium and Hard
(X-treem). These affect your starting ship(s). In the case of Easy you get a
good Buster, and a Mercury transport ship, so its definitely a good way to
start if you're new to the universe.
The other 3 options are great, they give you the options of playing 3
different "persona's", essentially they remove the story line, and start you
of as either a:
Ambitious Explorer (Starting ship being a maxed out Discoverer (scout ship),
which is very fast, good for finding the hidden things in X3, of which there
are many).
Humble Trader (Starting ship being a Mercury, and a good starting balance,
this is a pretty easy way to start).
Bankrupt Assassin (Starting ship being a well equipped Mamba (heavy fighter)
but 0 credits. This is a hard way to start the game)
I chose the normal Medium setting to start of with, and was immediately met
by my old friend Ban Danna, the head of Argon (Human) Secret Service. He
immediately gives you a mission of escorting a bunch of new fighter pilots
through a standard patrol route. The Argon race was decimate to 30% of its
fighting force at the end of the X2 game so there is a great deal of
rebuilding to do.
After this point you can do as well, much the same as X2.
This is all pretty normal fair, and shouldn't shock or surprise anyone.
A few notable changes of the bat:
1) No more manual docking, its all done by the computer now.
2) No more inside of stations, looks like they saved themselves the time of
creating these little worlds with their hidden containers and NPC ships.
3) No more cockpit, this is a bit of a blow to some of us, but again was
another sacrifice in the name of time and resources.
4) You can fly with the mouse if you choose, I tested this, and wondered if
the ship would stop turning when I had to lift my mouse up to move it back
to the other side of the mouse mat, it didn't and kept on moving as if it
was a joystick. I guess this way of flight is possible, but is still rather
awkward compared to a joystick.
5) This is the best change, they have added a level of drift to combat.
Essentially they have gone half way between Frontier, and Star Wars. You can
slide now, and it's allot of fun and very effective.
Now for the interface... Get prepared for some adjustment. The game using a
rather awkward right click to bring up the mouse, then access function
system. Most of the usual things where hotkey'ed as per X2, but some of
these didn't seem to work as the game said they would, so this could be a
bug. Once you've gotten used to this interface you'll be hampered again by a
very... minimalist interface. No more (as far as I could tell) descriptions
of the ships by a computer voice as you select a ship, then press i for
information. All of your information is now presented in a neat and tidy
dialog box that is rather small, and annoyingly requires the ESC key, or the
usage of the mouse to click on the Windows style X to remove. This is
usually out of the way, so god help you if your in combat whilst examining
your property etc.
Overall, X3 has a much darker feel to it. It feels a great deal more adult,
this could be simply due to the fact that much of the fluff like the
aforementioned computer voice overs has been removed. You are thrown right
into the fray, with to no instructions as what to do. This can turn people
of, and I understand it fully. Everything is different from the first, the
icons are different, the factories look different, you name it, its
different.
If you've got patience I'd recommend it. If you're a true space sim fan I'd
recommend it. If your looking for a quick fix with easy combat and no real
challenge because you want to be led around by the nose, then I don't
recommend it. This game is probably as daunting as Elite, Frontier and
Frontier First Encounters, and not for the light of heart.
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