X2: The Threat

[E.T.]

Due in stores in a few days, this space sim/startegy game seems to be [visually] the next step in space exploration.
Hopefully the devs claims of "open ended space exploration" & "heart thumping story line" will hold true.
This game would be a winner [imo] if it offered the the switching of 1st to 3rd person option in game , as in BattleZone.

The graphics are the best I've seen to date of any space sim.
Try the "In game rolling demo" here:
http://www.x2-game.com/

More screens here:
http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/EN/product/001X2

[Renzatic Gear]

The original was a very open ended game so I'm expecting the same thing from this one.

If the multiplayer is at least as good as Freelancers then I expect to have something that'll hold me over til STALKER finally gets here.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\">The original was a very open ended game so I'm expecting the same thing from this one.

If the multiplayer is at least as good as Freelancers then I expect to have something that'll hold me over til STALKER finally gets here.</div>

Hmm, unlikely.

[BortiiS, The]

While you are waiting for X2, check out this game:

HARDWAR

It is on The Underdogs abandonware-site.

I know some people may be wary of abandonware, but I think this game is OK, because the company that made it are no more, and have been gone for some time, leaving the fans of the game to have to make patches and skins and tweaks and all that.

Anyways, this is an AMAZING game.

It is VERY similar to X-Beyond the Frontier, except it takes place on some hellish moon where there are colonies and cities, and all that. It kinda reminds me of Elite:Frontier (Elite 2), Terminus, and Tachyon:The Fringe, and, well, alot of other games.

It's probably most similar to X:BTF in that when you dock at a place, there is a cutscene, and you see your ship land in the hangar, and the hanger is animated with cool lighting FX and all that...yeah, very much like X.

The graphics are rather good, the games doesn't seem to have any compatibility issues AT ALL, I am playing in 1024x768 (I think that's what it normally is, that's one-step up from 800x600) resolution with full detail, and the game can handle it, considering the game originally came out at least 5 years ago.

It's hard to describe, in that you'd just have to see it for yourself. You got night/day FX, weather FX, the settled areas/cities and stuff have traffic, and I'm very early in the game, but so far, I had to fly through a straight, long tunnel to get to one area, I can only hope there is some more tunnels for stuff, or something.

It kinds reminds me of I-War 2, in that you have alot of unique structures and facilities, like some dude's salvage shop, or some guild's base, or some rich family's corporate empire base, and stuff like that (hotels and casinos I think too-type stuff). So far, it seems you can fly to any of them.

When you dock, you get a short menu of stuff you can do there, similar to X.
At a police station, you can access their computer and see their database of the wanted, and how much the bounties are.

One cool thing, is that you can get out of your ship and call a taxi to take you somewhere else, or dock at some monorail station, and take the monorail to some location. I don't know if it's entirely useful, but it's nice.
Too bad you can't walk around inside a building. Perhaps, if this game actually sold and the company was still around, then we'd later see something like that.
Surprisingly, the game has a pretty good fan base (Google: Hardwar).

The flight controls are simple but very smooth, the game is fairly customizable and, like Elite, seems like it can go on forever.
One cool thing that it has, that I saw in Terminus, was a paging-system, where someone can "instant-message" you while in your ship, and you have some choices on what to do in regards to them (like targeting their ship, heheheh), and you'll get clues to something that you can do to get some task done, or whatever.
UMM, and apparently, you can buy other ships, various weapons, and ALSO, it seems, you can buy buildings and start your own business, a la X-Beyond the Frontier-like; and there seem to be various modes to play when you start out, that is "career"-types, you can start out as a rich guy, a trader, a salvager, a corrupt cop, etc.

I HAVE SAVED THE COOLEST THING FOR LAST:

The game, zipped, is only 19MB!
A 19mb download.

I thought I was going to get some mediocre, ugly-looking C-quality abandonware game, because of that size.
It turns out, this game has superb, near A-quality graphics (for its time, A+), and loads of detail and innovation.
I wish I knew about this game before, crap. If I spot it in the bargain bin, I would buy it (though I highly doubt it's even in the bargain bins anymore).

Amazing though, the whole game is just under 35mb, and it has such great 3D graphics and features.
MAN, I wasn't even going to buy another game until like next month, but now I feel like going out and getting Freelancer and X2 when it comes out, I'm not sheeeeting you.

(Why did I download this game? Well, my Tachyon:The Fringe game, doesn't work on XP apparently, which is what I have, so I can't play this. I recently re-installed Terminus...BORING. I-War 2...TEDIOUS AND BORING. Can't play Tachyon. So I thought,"Well, maybe there is some crappy VGA space-sim on some abandonware site to mess around with, and I came across this Hardwar, and have to say, that I was shocked at how great it looked. Even the cockpits are in 3D, you in external view, you can see your dude through the glass...crappy 3D games don't have detail like this, or D3D/SVGA graphics.

[E.T.]

I found a demo to download of Hardwar:
http://www.gamesdomain.com/demos/demo/30.html

Strange, two of four mirrors are active & have a total of nearly 600 dowloads in progress...game must be enjoying a renaissance.

[BortiiS, The]

<div class=\"smallfont\">I found a demo to download of Hardwar:
http://www.gamesdomain.com/demos/demo/30.html

Strange, two of four mirrors are active & have a total of nearly 600 dowloads in progress...game must be enjoying a renaissance.</div>

They got it at The Underdog's site, apparently, it has a patch that makes it the full-version. Also, there are some fans sites with tweaks and stuff.
A very impressive game, I scoured the bargain bins for it at the computer store day (didn't find it, as I figured I wouldn't).

I BOUGHT TWO GAMES TODAY:

-Freelancer
and
-Galactic Civilizations

I was so impressed with Hardwar, I went out to get X2, but it's still not out!
(However, they had some new games that looked interesting: Empire: Nations at War...or something like that, it looks like Empire Earth but better??? And: War of the Rings (looks like WarCraft III-clone!) and Return of the King, and a few others.)

I got Freelancer cut it was only for about $25 and I couldn't find X2, and Galactic Civilizations, I got for about $20. Two for the price of one, HEHEHEH.
I think next, I'll try Master of Orion 3, and perhaps Mafia, as they were both only about $20 now.

Dammit, Age of Wonders II: Shadow Magic (or whatever) is still like $30+. What the heck?



FREELANCER: I am VERY impressed with this game. It's easy to get into, and the controls are definitely "different" but they work well, the interface is a dream, it works very well and seems very well thought out.
I'm still, however, trying to figure out how to do "rolls", it seems you can only move up, down, side-to-side, and stafe. Which isn't all that bad, but I'd like to do barrel rolls or something, especially when flying through a debris field! Darn.

GALACTIC CIVILIZATIONS: I appreciate that it tries to follow in the footsteps of MOO2, however, I am very disappointed by the game's engine.
It is very clunky, shoddy, rough, and slow. For a game with dated graphics (MOO2 probably looks better and that came out about 6 years ago, I think) it sure runs like %$^#$%@!

It's not THAT bad, yet, I fear for it, because I'm still very early in the game and I can see performace issues with the interface, this ugly type of, choppiness when scrolling and stuff.
This is100% unacceptable, I can't think of any excuse they can possibly have for this.

So far, so good, besides that, although, I find it to be another one of those clunk 4X games, especially when it comes to building things.

F--- why can't anyone make a strategy game that is straight-forward in its interface?
Look at MOO2...want to build something? Go to colony world's build menu.
On the left, is a list of structures. On the right, is a list of ships and things like spies and drones and stuff. Very clear, very defined.
Double-click on anything, to put it in the queue menu.
It then tells you how long it will take to build it, or how much it will cost if you want to buy it now.
SIMPLE.

Not in GC, while I appreciate the various "companies" that can build stuff for you in their own ways (reminds me of some thing where you have companies putting up bids for projects and stuff...cool), you have to choose from the plans they offer, with no flexibility.
Let's say you are short just $50 credits, why can't you have them reduce the cost by 50, and increase the build time (because that's how its set up, the more money, the quicker, the less money, the longer), or have some kind of "slider-bar" to set it yourself?
Rather stupid, if you ask me.
Also, for colonial projects, I can't figure out how to simply select something, and say, click "build".
I can highlight the project but it seems there is no "confirmation" button.
I can only wish that the project is actually getting built.

I guess I should use the tutorial.
Yet, I am a bit miffed also by the overall, cumbersome interface, and this nagging problem, of the game focusing on different things, for seemingly no apparent reason.
I click "turn", and maybe the camera will focus on one of my planets without telling me why, or on some ship, or whatever.
Kinda annoying, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri had problems like this, but contained a plethora of options to help prevent this.

GC lacks options, and while it is customizable, it still falls very short.
As far as I can tell, you can only play as Humans, and while the game supposedly has 35 races, there are only a few major powers that you cannot replace with one of those 35 alien races.
That is a shame.

I mentioned I am considering getting MOO3, which I've read alot of bad reviews for, but GC, while overall, I still think its okay, is not good enough, to make me want to look over something else, like MOO3.

I would rather play a weak 4X-tedious-"spreadsheet"-type game, than some clunky, shoddy 4X with 6-year old graphics.

I downloaded the Space Empires III demo, and now I'm glad I never bought Space Empires IV, this game sucks.
I like all the options, but like alot of idiot 4X games, it suffers from that "How the HECK do I do anything?"-syndrome.
Want to build a ship, some structures, some research?
GOOD LUCK spending forever trying to figure out the worthless and trivial Windows-pop-up-cheapy-interface and menu system.
Wastefully confusing.

Too bad, so many 4X games come out, and they all seem to suck or suffer needlessly, from some ridiculous technical problem.

[Static_Fred]

Hey Bortis, i think i should warn you, if your expecting something spactacular out of MOO3, your gonna be dissapointed. I personally loved MOO2, but i've heard nothing but bad things from MOO3 and havn't tried it yet. I know it's like $20 already, so i guess it won't be so bad if it's not great.

[BortiiS, The]

<div class=\"smallfont\">Hey Bortis, i think i should warn you, if your expecting something spactacular out of MOO3, your gonna be dissapointed. I personally loved MOO2, but i've heard nothing but bad things from MOO3 and havn't tried it yet. I know it's like $20 already, so i guess it won't be so bad if it's not great.</div>

Yeah, I read the reviews too.
Galactic Civilizations is a cheapy, bargain-bin worthy title.
It is OKAY, but don't expect anything great.

With that said, I am thinking about getting MOO3 despite the reviews.
GC was weak enough in my opinion to make me curious about MOO3, despite that it's treated like space-gaming-conqueror's bane.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

I downloaded the Space Empires III demo, and now I'm glad I never bought Space Empires IV, this game sucks.
I like all the options, but like alot of idiot 4X games, it suffers from that "How the HECK do I do anything?"-syndrome.
Want to build a ship, some structures, some research?
GOOD LUCK spending forever trying to figure out the worthless and trivial Windows-pop-up-cheapy-interface and menu system.
Wastefully confusing.

Too bad, so many 4X games come out, and they all seem to suck or suffer needlessly, from some ridiculous technical problem.</div>

LOL Space Empires III and IV Gold are light years apart in terms of refinement. It kicks GC's ass every which way possible as well. You're playing a game that I haven't even seen as a download (even from the Developers website- Malfador Machinations) and comparing that with the newest incarnation. Bashing the game because of an ignorance of the rules is like saying you didn't know something was illegal, and then using that ignorance as a defence. SEIV Gold has a wonderful in-game manual, plus staunch supporters of the game are more than willing to help you out on the Shrapnel Games Forums... Well, anyway... you're the one who's gonna be playing the substandard GC and loving it... which is all good... You should try the SEIV Gold (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/downloads/SE4GoldDemo.exe) demo.

[Hieremias]

<div class=\"smallfont\">With that said, I am thinking about getting MOO3 despite the reviews.
GC was weak enough in my opinion to make me curious about MOO3, despite that it's treated like space-gaming-conqueror's bane.</div>

Master of Orion 3 is a turd. I had it preordered for one of my review-of-the-week prizes, but I serious regret that. No more preorders, EVER!! I'll wait for reviews. I tried for several days to get into Master of Orion 3, and just couldn't. It's awful, in every way that you can imagine awful.

[T3KT0N]

<div class=\"smallfont\"><div class=\"smallfont\"></div>

Master of Orion 3 is a turd. I had it preordered for one of my review-of-the-week prizes, but I serious regret that. No more preorders, EVER!! I'll wait for reviews. I tried for several days to get into Master of Orion 3, and just couldn't. It's awful, in every way that you can imagine awful.</div>

I second that,
re:MO 3