Ignore wolfy and his rants, he's obviously not bothered with research
I'll address that first. Buy it, when you install DO NOT RUN THE GAME... but visit the Egosoft site and download the last patch.
This contains a "No CD" patch, the "No CD" part meaning that when you first run the game, starforce won't be installed. Alternatively, you could buy the game via Steam - once again, no Starforce installed.
See, rant was unfounded.
Anyway, find that here:
Egosoft X3 patch Any version -> 2.0.0.2 - 176Mb so set some time aside
If you buy the game from a shop, it may not have the newer updated manual or it may. If you find things missing (or just want to be sure) you can download the newer manual version here:
Manual
To gameplay aspects - the handling is different, all ships models replaced (i was shocked by this at first, I liked the old ships - but you get used to it
) and it's much more difficult to fight the pirates/other races (they're much better, and more ships have a rear turret that canes your shields... so capping is no longer the simple way forward - you'll get your butt handed to you). Fighting is actually quite tough, not that tough - but tougher than the joke it used to be. For instance, try to cap a ship in the starting ship and you'll last 2 seconds
Which reminds me, varying levels of starting difficulty, including types of starts if you don't want to do the storyline. I recommend you do though
It's quite fun, I loved it (but my taste in storylines appears to be easily satiated! Hardly a conniseur of them... or spelling either!).
I'll lay off "breathtaking" when describing the graphics, as it's 2 years old now - but they're still modern and up to date. The game looks fantastic.
The Interface I personally found annoying - it's mouse led, although shortcuts / keyboard commands still exist. However, no more remembering them (once you do know them, they are naturally a heck of a lot faster than pointing and clicking - which i think anyone finds tedious after a while). The drawback is that here you click through many menus, sub menus and more trying to get to where you want to be. The old shortcuts (can activate them though) mean you can get to where you want with a keystroke or two.
Big question - is it better than X2? Of course it is, it's far superior in virtually all respects... even the storyline. However, is it a sequel. with all the added extras it appears Egosoft
finally delivered a game that's fit to be called a complete game. Personally they focus too much upon being able to micromanage an empire and trade. I'd like to see more variety in fighting and other venues along this line, but modders can improve and implement great things in the game due to the scripting ability of it all... so they can make up the shortfall of it
I quickly fell out of love with X3 though, once I peeled back the layers I found it to be X2 with newer graphics, different interface and the odd token improvement - which just wasn't enough for my hard earned money. I fired it up a few weeks back, but just can't get into it now. Takes so damned long to get anywhere, and once you've done it all before, there's definately a certain air of impatience about trying to redo it all.
if you've never played x2 to death - then you'll probs LOVE X3 to death. If you'd played x2 to death like I did, you'll enjoy the storyline (as much as possible anyway, mission variety is great), the graphics and a few other novelties. After that, it gets tired and old pretty quickly... because the core aspects of the game are identical to X2.
Hope they do something great for X4 if there is one... if it's just X3 with a few new features, the odd new sector and updated ships/graphics/UI - then I'll be at the front of the queue asking for my money back... wait, no - i won't buy it until i've played the demo throroughly to see if it's worth the cash.
By the way, I wrote a walkthrough for the first two missions. I say walkthrough, it's more of an aunty guiding you through it. It's not just "go here", it includes all the key commands to do tasks required - like how to dock, what buttons to press to call up the nav map, set targets and select targets. What buttons to press to do actions in a dock, including how to buy/sell things, how to deal with other ships etc. It's for the complete novice to the X games, so that they don't feel (at the time the manual had nothing of help and the game has no tutorial) like they're thrown in the deep end.
It's on the forums of egosoft:
Mission 1 walkthrough Please be aware that the pdf of it no longer exists there. I may upload it to the new site if I get a chance, but meh
Edited by - Chips on 10/9/2007 3:15:33 PM