try "Microsoft Virtual Space Sim Simulator 3" it give s a fantastic experience of being in a space sim, it's almost like a space-sim itself.

how does your liver taste?

Titan livers? yummy...

i havent had titan livers for ages, they where ex2lent

*FF lights wick and throws the click bomb into the thread*

Quick! you have one post to stomp the wick out!

i said nothing about x2, who threatens egos that are soft, hah!, you should try helping one of them, but there might not be anything for'um

Edited by - freighter fighter on 1/14/2004 2:31:17 PM

I'm so gonna get X2 when I've finished killing Nazis in CoD. saw an advert for it today, it just said "21st Century Elite" well that's sold me.

I advise against buying X2 in the strongest possible terms. I was actually going to create a whole thread on this, but I didn't want to clog up the forum. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Taw! Essentially, I purchased the game (retail $90) because the reviews said that it was that good. I spent more than three hours on it, and I could hardly do anything! The interface was the worst I've ever used. The keys are illogical, and cannot be customised. Eg. Accelerate is "A", and decelerate is "Z". The average user uses either the four arrow keys, or w,a,s, and d. Why would they choose these keys? Next, the menu system was clunky and overly complicated, and you needed to use the menu to do almost everything, although the shortcut keys helped. You also could not remove the cockpit struts, so that your field of view was constructed. There is much more I could say, however I was SO disgusted, that I returned it to the store who (thankfully) gave me a full refund. I didn't even burn a copy, so you can tell how disappointed I was. I'm sure that the game has good features, but it was so illogical for me that it was not worth keeping. That'll do for now. *Awaits flame war*.

if you read any of the previous OT reviews of x2, you should know that you're gonna die

what's next in the Esquilax ranking of games? Call of Duty is "an average but flawed shooter?" Operation Flashpoint is "a dull attempt to emulate a modern battlefield that fails to convince" and Total War "confuses and lacks cohesion.."

it's not your fault, its because you're upside down so everything is backwards to you

x2 is fooking brilliant and you ain't putting me off spending me £35

Edited by - Tawakalna on 1/15/2004 1:38:45 AM

Ok, about X2. It aint a simple game. Take CoD for instance, everyone likes CoD. Some people might love it, others might like it, others might find it OK and fun for a few minutes, there are only a select few weirdos who hate it.

BUT, with X2, you either love it, or hate it, no in between...you also need alot of time to play it.
Then again, Elite was like that.
The first few hours can be tediously slow, then it picks up once you get the first factory up.

ff loves the game Esq and Taw..and he finds it easy..are you going to admit that ff is better at it than you??

*EDIT oh yeah, and Esq, get a joystick. Oh yeah, and Esq, how about PLAYING THE GAME rather than fussing with the interface. Oh yeah, and get a joystick.

Edited by - Griffon_26 on 1/15/2004 2:40:00 AM

I totally agree with Esq on the X2 thingy. I got the game and got me a JS just for it and I can say two things after trying themboth:

1) X2 controls suck @$$
2) Joysticks suck @$$ too

I can't aim, I can't kill nobody and I sure as hell gave it a try. Until the sweat poured down my back and my armpits were soaking wet.
I admit it, I'm part of the mouse-control generation. I guess it's to do with the fact that I never used a JS before and that FL was my first space/flight-sim ever. But I tell you, the best space-sim games I played (FL, Freespace2) were all mousecontrolable. Wich leads me to my second point: X2 is mouse controlable, but even that sucks @$$. The ship just swings every way you don't want it to. I guess it's the "reality" wich makes it that way. If it is, I happily trade in any kind of reality for playability anytime.

The thing is, X2 is the only game wich resembles FL in the aspect of freedom of choice combined with space-sim gaming.
So you can go two ways, either the "freedom-of-choice" way or the space-sim way. In the last case I reccomend Freespace2 (FS2), wich has a great storyline and good playability (mouse/JS). Well, I liked it anyway.
For the other choice; I heared that Star Wars Galaxy is very good. You just have to pay a monthly fee.

I hope my rant helped make things a bit clearer

Edit: Damn spelling.

- I'm not crazy, I'm a car. And if you don't believe me, you can get out and walk home. -

Must admit there are a few things holding me off buying X2 - and that is that the combat sounds horrific (worst i found was Eve which select target and it does it for you???? WHAT???), basically - they say combat is dull and fustrating as you don't really have many options and little control, and secondly - no multiplayer....

now i can while away hours playing games if i enjoy them - which i am sure the trading part of x2 would keep me doing, but to be honest? Lack of interaction will leave me feeling lonely

Like I said, the games emphasis is NOT on fast paced easy combat. And you wont be able to kill anything with your first thing, so don't try. It is true the joystick sensetivity is not very good for the smaller ships, it is fine once you get a corvette or capital ship. This aint a game where you can launch and kill a few pirates like FL. Wait till you get a few capital ships, heavy weapons, always fly with a few wingmen. The Capital ship battles are awesome, corvettes flying long bombing run paths, slow capital ships firing their massive PPC's at other cap ships, and little fighters launching from carriers and buzzing around, fighter wings engaging each other....yeah. Very different to FL.

Let me suggest ONLY trying to get money at the early stages in the game, your first ship for fighting should perhaps be an Argon Nova since it is easy to get. The 25MW sheilds are available in Teladi space.

In any case, the game is all about power, owning whole sectors and placing your factories in them, setting up trading networks, and then perhaps buying yourself a massive fleet of Capital ship escorts and going to kick ass in some of the Xenon or Unkown sectors.

If running around owning a sector of ships single handedly like you could in FL is what your after, then this is not the game for you. As for me, however, there is nothing more satisfying than setting up your very first Factory, with freighters, and a garrison, and then finding you put it in the right place and start raking in the money.

Edited by - Griffon_26 on 1/15/2004 1:30:30 PM

I understand what you mean Griff and yes it does sound very apealing to me to be able to do all that, but let me try and explain a bit how my pilot license test went:

I launch. So far so good.
Some bad guys aproach. Fortunately I got the hang of the targeting system quite fairly so I targeted the first bad*ss and flew the 10K to catch him (No thrusters btw, very weird). Flying straight goes alright and slow turns I can handle so engaging battle wasn't a biog problem, until I got close and went into "dogfighting-mode". On the rare occasions I managed to get my targeting reticle in place for a few milliseconds, the few shots I fired all went in totally different directions and drained all my power. On top of that the badguy moves out of my view, so I have to turn... The guy who invented this steeringsystem must be a sweatloving masochist, because I stretched my shoulder, arm and wrist into every angle trying to keep the badguy in my window, while the sweat was soaking my shirt.
After dislocating my shoulder I manage to get the guy back into my reticle, so I dare a few shots. They actually hit, well, one at least, but he hits me too. and not with his guns, but with his ship! He rams me and one of my guns is disabled.
Ok, so you say "oops mistake" and go on with your life. But this wasn't the only time. It happend 5 or 6 times after that, distroying my missile-launcher, other gun, boost extention and cargobay. And I'm not a bad pilot, especially when I fly straight, I can avoid other ships, but somehow they like to kamikaze into me. I was only able to kill enemy fighters by ramming into them. In all the times I tried, I only managed to hit someone a few times, like once or twice, but not realy significant.

I've tried this several times, with and without JS, but all with the same results. Is this me? maybe, but I got frustrated enough to give up. I tend to hate games with bad , unlogical, or unclear controls. In my opinion X2 is one of those, wich is a shame. Perhaps they focused to much on the trade part of the game, wich sounds very promising I must say, but somehow they kinda went crazy in the interface (Crappy, complicated menu) and the flying controls.

I do have to say, flying into a space-station and inside a station realy gives a good fealing. And the grafix are awesome and can realy compete with FL, If they aren't just plain better. So there are some good sides to the game, but not enough and the most important part of the game (flying) is the worst part of teh game imo, and that to me is a bad combo.

Edit: Damn spelling.

- I'm not crazy, I'm a car. And if you don't believe me, you can get out and walk home. -