X2 - F.U.! (An X2 - The Threat Opinion)

[EEVIAC]

I'm not sure what I expected of the game, and reminiscense over old freeform games like Elite and Pirates! can be misguided, but whatever I'd been hoping for, was not what I recieved.

It was a bad start, the first ten minutes of game time was taken up with in-game-rendered cutscenes. The monotony was broken up with a few conversation options, although these seem to be more a source of gaining information rather than allowing important gameplay decisions. That's ok, this is a space-sim, I define myself by my actions, not my words.

So I head off into the inky black, overwhelmed by a feeling of opportunity. As in most RPG's, the first task I set myself was to quickly map out my surroundings and perhaps visit a few places and get a feel for the economy. My first attempt at docking at a station was a hopeless (and amusing) excercise. I flew towards a station, sighted what I thought was a cargo bay, and taxi'd in. No response. On further contemplation it occurred to me that I had landed on their energy coils or some such. Slightly embarrassed, I jetted off again and explored some menus - Comms in particular sounding good, and eventually got my clearance. Docking is manual, by the way, but it can be automated.

I'm in a station, I look around my options - at this base I can only buy goods, some ship upgrades, and some weapons that I already have. It doesn't really matter because I don't have many credits anyway. I leave the base and head for my mission objective (the un-docking procedure is manual as well, and as far as I can tell, cannot be automated.) A quick trip accross the sector and I'm where I need to be. This is my second dock and already I wish I could just press escape and skip the sequence. So I dock, land, go through Comms, find my contact, and then sit back to read/watch another five minutes of cut-scene. I'm new to the game so I watch it, read every line, cringe every time I read my name as Julian. What's especially frustrating is that the mission is essentially fed-ex and doesn't need the build-up. "Go here" - Gasp! - "Deliver this" - Horror!!! - "COME BACK" - DUN DUN DUN DUNNNN!!! You get the picture...

So I go do the mission, which nets me a veritable fuckload of credits. I think about some upgrades to the ship, but haven't discovered where to buy them yet, so I go back to my temporary boss seeking another mission. Yet more cut-scene drama - "I want you to go to this place and pick up some scientists." Sensing my nonchalance she adds, "but wait... there's a twist." My interest rises, "a twist, you say?" "A twist, a Twist, A TWIST!!! that you won't believe..." "Bring them back here," she finishes - and the interest is gone. But there is a twist of sorts - I have to do this mission with a bulk carrier (couldn't I just cram the scientists in the cargo hold with the radioactive waste?) which has a top speed of exactly two mph. I'm starting to feel violent, I don't like being told what to do or how I should do it, especially in a game that purports to offer freedom.

Its around this point that I wonder whether there's something I'm missing. I haven't really had a lot of fun playing the game, which makes the all important carrot/stick dynamic of the game almost redundant. Maybe I'll grow into it, there's plenty of room for discovery and exploration, and perhaps I should be happy that the game hasn't shown me all it has to offer in a half dozen hours. My problem with it so far is that it hasn't shown me anything, other than bump-mapping and particle effects.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Well, the thing is, they even state in the FAQ that you will have to go through some things first before offered up the total freedom. Kind of like the Arroyo thing in FO2, from what I gathered. I'm still gonna give the game a try. I mean, come on, it's GOTTA be better than Freelancer was.

 

[EEVIAC]

Its definately better than Freelancer, there's much more controll, and it feels more like a simulation than an arcade game. I'll take issue with one of my own comments :

I haven't really had a lot of fun playing the game, which makes the all important carrot/stick dynamic of the game almost redundant.

In the last few hours I've been getting a little more carrot, and a lot more stick. I still haven't had to fight anyone yet - I've run away from some pirates, and haven't bothered dealing in contraband. The more I play, the more I find to do (buy/own/explore.)

The one irrefutable test I have for space games is the cold test. If I start to feel cold while I'm playing the game (and in a 30 degree ambient Australian heat) then I can conclude that game is immersing me sufficiently. This afternoon I was seriously considering putting on some socks.

Oh and docking with and leaving stations is completely skipable.

 

[Spazmo]

This game has me really interested and I'd really love to get my paws on it. I'm going to wait for some reviews to pour in first, and your comments worry me.

 

[JJ86]

Ummm, somewhere in your thread can you give the actual title of the game instead of the abbreviation? I have no clue what game you are talking about and don't feel like working out the puzzle this morning....

 

[Spazmo]

Well, the game is called X2: The Threat. So there!

 

[Elwro]

Was there a X1?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Was there a X1?

Yes, it was called X - Beyond The Frontier. And it wasn't a bad game, actually. X2 I have been keeping an eye on since it was announced almost two years ago. I think this game will be my next big purchase as soon as I up my processor speed to handle it. Hehe. If you really wanna know more about it, check out the official site:

http://www.x2-game.com/

 

[JJ86]

Bizyar, I never heard of it. How come there are like 50 games out with that theme all of a sudden? I loved Elite and tried Freelancer but the concept doesn't sound that impressive to have so many games with the same idea? It's like I don't see untold variations of the Sims made by several game studios, can't people come with something original? Is it that difficult when you start out from scratch anyway?

 

[chrisbeddoes]

I have played X-Beyont the frontier.

Was a nice game but i could not bring myshelf to finish it.

Did play for about 40 hours.

And yes even the first is way better than freelancer.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Bizyar, I never heard of it. How come there are like 50 games out with that theme all of a sudden? I loved Elite and tried Freelancer but the concept doesn't sound that impressive to have so many games with the same idea? It's like I don't see untold variations of the Sims made by several game studios, can't people come with something original? Is it that difficult when you start out from scratch anyway?

There are a few games out there that tried to ride on the Sims bandwagon. One of them suceeded quite well (Animal Crossing for the Gamecube) and the rest bombed big time. Just like all the Elite wannabes out there. Freelancer SP just plain sucked. It offered NOTHING of what was claimed. Multiplayer was where the game shone, but even that was lackluster at best. The main reason there are more Elite wannabes out there than Sims wannabes is because of the fact that most developers know they can get away with it easier. The first X game was pretty decent to an extent, but it still fell short of the full Elite experience. X2 looks to have that down pat and is probably one of the better Elite-clones to come out since the likes of Privateer. I cannot say for sure yet though, since I have not played the game yet. Gotta beef up my computer before I can do that.

 

[EEVIAC]

This game has me really interested and I'd really love to get my paws on it. I'm going to wait for some reviews to pour in first, and your comments worry me.

Ok, I should explain my intentions in posting the thread in the first place. I've been disappointed with a lot of games that seem to dazzle you within the first few hours and then pretty much show you nothing new for the next ten hours of gameplay. Then your done. So I decided to make a thread after playing the game for only a few hours, expose my own bewilderment in the gameworld. Then I'd slowly post a few other comments as I discovered more about the game. It was the only way I could think of giving an accurate opinion.

My initial comments were at a point where I was entirely lost in the game world - its akin to situations in Pirates! where you aren't really doing anything, you haven't found any profitable runs, and even though you've been playing for hours, you feel like you're standing still. Last night I got my head around the economy a little and worked out who sold what other needed. The economy makes sense. For example, solar plants make energy cells, energy cells are needed by basic food producers, and those basic food products are needed in more advanced food processing. If someone sells something, someone else needs it, there don't seem to be any commodities that exist merely for the sake of trade.

On Automation - a lot of things can be automated to save time/hassle, but you still have the opportunity to do them yourself. Like docking - I discovered last night that hitting Escape bypasses the landing and take-off sections. After a while I was starting to miss some of the dicey maneuvers I was pulling off with my bulk carrier, reverse thrusting out of a landing bay, flipping the ship 180 degrees with changing forward momentum, then jetting through the dock. With the mining platforms and factories, the automation will be more usefull, but I haven't even gotten close to that yet so I can't really comment.

Ummm, somewhere in your thread can you give the actual title of the game instead of the abbreviation? I have no clue what game you are talking about and don't feel like working out the puzzle this morning....

If you want a closer look at X2 - The Threat, click the link. The thread title was meant to be in jest.

 

[Sol Invictus]

You sounded like a complete whiner in the first post and made me feel almost horrible about having preordered the game. Now that you've played more hours through it and posted your comments I'm actually really looking forward to this game. It's been a long while since I've played Freespace 2 and I-War 2 and I'm really itching to get my fingers on a good space trader/sim - Freelancer was a complete letdown for me.

 

[EEVIAC]

You sounded like a complete whiner in the first post and made me feel almost horrible about having preordered the game.

HA! It was a whiny bitch post in a whiny bitch review and I deserved to be called on it. Then again, I'm sick of reviews (and reviewers) that detail only the stunning few hours of gameplay, neglecting the rest of the game. Very rarely will a site post a correction saying "I fucked up, that game was actually really good/bad," or even a second opinion. So I guess instead of reading one of those reviews, I pre-empted bad, dumb press and wrote some of my own.

You can also name your ships. My "Saucy Puma" bulk carrier now has shields and a turret, so I no longer have to run from pirates. I chased a pirate ship through a sector gate and when I came out on the other side, (yes it was actually there, unlike in Freelancer) it started attacking a capital ship. Before I even got close the capital blasted it to bits in a few shots.

 

[Jed]

The thread title was meant to be in jest.

A Wire reference, right? I chuckled at least...

 

[EEVIAC]

A Wire reference, right? I chuckled at least...

Not deliberately (I'm guessing you're referring to 12XU.) I never really got into Wire or Minutemen, which is odd because I liked bands like The Fall, Gang Of Four, and PiL. I listen to Joy Division almost exclusively now.

 

[Jed]

Not deliberately (I'm guessing you're referring to 12XU.) I never really got into Wire or Minutemen, which is odd because I liked bands like The Fall, Gang Of Four, and PiL. I listen to Joy Division almost exclusively now.

The Joy Division I like, I think is great: "Disorder" and the "Transmission," "Atmosphere," & "Love Will Tear Us Apart" singles. The rest I don't really like at all. I definitely went through a heavy Joy Division phase, but the part of their discography I like is too small for me to imagine it comprising a majority of my listening. Early Gang of Four is quite good, but their later shit is...well, shit ("I Love a Man in a Uniform"). But now the Minutemen...ah, there's a band. All the other bands you listed relate (more or less) to early New Wave, whereas I feel the Minutemen fall sqaurely within the punk/hardcore spectrum (though they are pretty much unique as far as their sound). I've been listening to the Minutemen for 15 years and I still listen to all or part of "Double Nickles on the Dime" a couple of times a month.

 

[EEVIAC]

I knew you liked Minutemen - isn't your signature a D.Boon line? One thing that has always inhibitted my enjoyment of Minutemen was the fact that they were an SST band. I hate SST, I don't like 90% of the bands on the roster and their recordings sound terrible. The unsavoury topping on the cake is that Greg Ginn (or whoever was running the label at the time) sold Sony distribution rights for a million dollars - this from the label that raked in steady profits from their "Corporate Rock Sucks" t-shirts?

Some day I'll get around to listening to Minutemen with a clear mind. I think I've turned to Joy Division as a defense against how woefully shit modern music is. Its not just the mainstream either, the underground is equally as lame. The last new record I heard and liked was by The Rapture, and I've been following them for years. In some ways its pretty similar to the RPG industry. So many good ideas from the past that aren't being developed, and instead we get an endless repetition of people following trends and fads. What we get is the gaming equivalent of Jet. I really, really fucking hate that band.

 

[Jed]

Yeah, the sig I had before the current. I agree with you about SST & Ginn. The only other SST record I own is Black Flag "Damaged." I also agree about the general state of underground music. There's ten times more bands now than there ever were in the '80s & '90s, but seems most everyone wants to cultivate a "sound" rather than write good songs and be part of a micro-genre rather than create their own thing. Oh well, I do manage to find enough good stuff among the narrow confines of my particular flavors of choice...

 

[EEVIAC]

There's an analogy to be made between X2 and its links to older-style games, just as we've been discussing older music. Most new bands seem to appropriate old ideas purely for the fuck of it, without understanding what made the original ideas fun or exciting, or even trying to advance those ideas any place interesting. For example - imaginary new band, lets call them the Clueless Fucks, decide that mixing Ike and Tina Turner style ass-shakers with Scorpions ballads will allow them to gain a share of that all important hipster-revionist-going-to-college-on-daddy's-money demographic. Games do the same thing - lets mix two disparate styles, do neither of them particularly well, and make yet another ordinary game, allbeit alone in its new genre categorization.

X2 seems to me an old style game. Its not revolutionary but it is fairly evolutionary from its progenitors. Its not very combat-orientated (I've played 25 hours and haven't destroyed a single ship yet) - in fact, once you start getting larger fleets and convoys, I don't see how combat would be possible in the Freelancer-arcade-dogfighting-in-space way. It doesn't give you instant gratification, and what I've gotten from the game so far has been entirely dependant on the goals I've set for myself.

As a final statement on the game, I've solved the issues I've had with the interface by exploring them a little more, and I've solved the issues with story by just ignoring them. Thankfully, I only recieved one reminder about the next story-mission link about 20 hours ago, and I haven't been bothered about it since. At the moment I have a fully featured Mercury and still find enjoyment in doing basic runs. I've already gotten my money's worth and the game is not even close to being over.

 

[Jed]

It's good to hear that you're enjoying it. I really want to try it out after I finish a few more games. Interesting to hear that it's not combat focused, but that sounds good. I like combat in my space simmy games, but Freelancer suffered greatly because it was little more than that. Welp, back to Geneforge Deux, which is awesome, I might add. Can't believe no one else here is playing it.

 

[Spazmo]

I set out this morning to go buy X2 from my local Electronics Boutique.

I came back home with a copy of No One Lives Forever, Arcanum (my previous copy died) and the assurance that I would be able to get X2 on December the third.

I think I win.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

You finally got that NOLF game you been whining about forever, gj.

 

[Spazmo]

I've been playing this a bit and I'm not altogether impressed. It's a bit dull. I'm just not being gripped by the game.

The game just has you hopping back and forth between systems--which takes a long, long time and isn't really very fun--running errands. It's a visually stunning game, however, but there's just not enough substance (or perhaps too much) behind it. Basically, the game is kind of bewildering. Besides that, the ships aren't much fun to fly and docking is a pain after the first few times.

Really, the problem is that I was hoping to get another Freespace 2 and X2 just isn't as much sheer fun as that game was. Now where's my fucking Freespace 3, HERVE?

 

[Psilon]

Really, the problem is that I was hoping to get another Freespace 2 and X2 just isn't as much sheer fun as that game was. Now where's my fucking Freespace 3, HERVE?

Not gonna happen. Volition, which developed Freespace, is now "a wholly owned subsidiary of THQ, Inc." Given the lawsuits between Parallax (now Volition and Outrage) and Interplay, I'd chalk both Descent and Freespace up as other franchises Interplay lost to the lawyers.

Seriously, after Fallout Enforcer tanks, I think the only remaining license Interplay will have is Stonekeep, which no one remembers, or possibly Giants. Practically everything else they've put out in the last few years is based on someone else's work.