Customer Reviews

X3 Reunion

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This isn't exactly a review, but there is a workaround for installing the game for those who received a defective Disc 2 with missing files:

When you receive the error message for the 08105.mp3 or 08106.mp3 file, put in Disc 3 and click Retry, then click Ignore when the error message comes up again.

Download the missing files from Enlight here:

For file 08105.mp3
http://www.enlight.com/x3/08105.zip

For file 08106.mp3
http://www.enlight.com/x3/08106.zip

Extract then Drag and drop Or copy and paste the 1 or 2 mp3's to "C:\Program Files\EGOSOFT\X3 REUNION\soundtrack" depending on which file you are having problems with.

(Workaround From Enlight support @ http://www.enlight.com/pq/product/view.php?id=455)

I thought X2 was a great game that steadily improved over time with patches from the developer. Time will tell for X3.

Up until about a week ago, I agreed with all of the negative reviews of this game. Though I did not have installation problems, I did have lag times (even at the lowest settings) and the game was pretty near unplayable. After reading the forums on Egosoft's site, I realized that Egosoft released a game that was nowhere near ready to release. Of course, as you all know, once you buy and open a game you are stuck with it so I uninstalled it and chalked it up to being taken.

However, since that time, EgoSoft has released two more patches (1.3 and 1.3.01). These have made the game not only playable, but enjoyable! I was so excited to actually be able to play the game. The graphics are gorgeous as is the soundtrack. You really get the feeling that you are part of a large universe. The free roaming game is truly free roaming where you pretty much do whatever you want, but pay consequences/reap rewards of your actions. I'm not sure what some folks are expecting from the graphics department or the mission variety, but I have no complaints about them.

I am not going to get into the specifics of the game because if you're interested, you can learn about the game from egosoft's site, gamespot, or IGN. As far as fun goes, I give the game a 4-Star rating, because now that I can play it I'm hooked! Yes, the controls are pretty involved and the learning curve is indeed a bit steep, but I have had worse. I do agree that a game of this magnitude should have a better tutorial system. (Please note that I never concern myself with 'plot holes' in a story line in a game as long as I am having fun so I can't comment on that.)

The reason, the overall rating is 2-stars is because Egosoft should be ashamed of themselves for releasing the game in the condition it was released. While they should be lauded for being upfront about the problems, fixing them, and offering a download of an updated manual, we should not have had to endure the pain of waiting two months for everything!

If you don't mind spending $40 on a game and then patching it as soon as you get home, then I highly recommend this game. If you are still interested, but are afraid to take the leap of faith you can get X2: The Threat for about $30. The graphics are not as stellar, but the gameplay is similar and the bugs have been worked out.

I have been playing this game for almost a month now, and i cant comment on the differences from X2 to X3 as i could never get X2 to run. I have read over other peoples comments on this game, and just about every negative point was either completly wrong, or has since been fixed. for example, just to nitpick, one person mentioned changing your players name in X3, sure you can, yeah everyone still calls you julian in the storyline and such. heck you can even change the name of any one of your ships, which is handy at later points in the game when you need to track 10, 20, 30, or more ships.

One true point to some peoples complaints, is the graphics in the game. they are absolutly beautiful, but at a high cost. in recent patches they have added more options for tweaking the graphics levels to help run on lower end machines. myself, i run it in med-high settings with a 6600gt gfx card. It looks great, sounds great, just great.

The storyline is a bit dry, but i dont feel that the storyline drives the game really. You have to kinda look at this game like a combo between a Sim City style game, a RPG, and a real time strategy. The space combat is not that much of a force in the game, you can of course choose to go this route to just fly around killing pirates or whatever all day. you may also choose to build a vast empire of trade ships, stations, complexes, and factories.

One of the interesting points to this game, is the scripts engine. there are scripts of all sorts, from cheats, to temp bug fixes, to tweaks of the current game. you can do quite a bit with the scripting engine if you have the ability to learn how to work it, or you can simply use the egosoft website to download other scripts for your use.

Myself, i rate this as one of my most favorite games for the last few years. For those people who enjoy a bit of a slower pace of things sometimes, this game could be for you. For those who like to jump in and go non stop action....go buy the latest first person shooter. I do enjoy both of those actually, and this game can really suck up my time.

This game is incredible!! The graphics are the best I have ever seen in a PC game (even at lower settings on my 128mb video card) and the gameplay is addicting (as an understatement). Be prepared for a steep learning curve, but after you spend a day or two with this game, you wont be able to put it down. It is the ultimate "sand-box", open ended space sim and I only hope they continue to make more games like it. Ignore the old pre-patch reviews and do the following:

1. Buy this game
2. Download the 1.3 patch (yes, its big)
3. Download the new manual
4. Be prepared for a new addiction

You can follow the 'missions' or pursue your own whims and build a trading empire (complete with your own custom built stations, etc), become a pirate hunter, become a pirate :), or do pretty much whatever you want while amassing a huge fortune and an armada of ships and stations.

Its bad when corporate execs force developers to ship a game before its complete, but this is definately one game I'll forgive them for. The 1.3 patch feels very complete, and the game is amazing. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone that enjoys a game that requires more than just "point and shoot" skills. Great sim, great gameplay, great game. I hope they make an X4, just a long time from now so I can get the most out of X3 :)

A space flight / fight / trading / empire building game. It is like later day version of 'Elite'.

You can command a fighter ship which embarks on missions and captures enemy ships where you progress through a storyline. You can also command a trader which trades the space lanes, eventually you can build factories and gigantic fleets of ships, dreadnoughts, carrier ships.

The whole world is dynamic and filled with traders, stations and computer players that react intelligently to anything that you do or happens.

It takes about 3 hours just to get used to the controls and how to fly around and do anything, the graphics are incredible and you will just fly around looknig at things everywhere. I almost gave up on this game early on as I couldn't seem to really do anything or work out the controls. It then takes another 4 hours to start to understand the dynamic economy as a trader. Once you understand the game it becomes completely immersive as there is just so much to it.

Replay value is huge. You can spend an unlimited amount of time playing this game and enjoying it. You need a good PC to run it though.

Here is a good description.
[...]

This game HAD its problems or so i've heard, because i only got it about three weeks ago. 99% of them have been fixed by patches. Played it for hours, it didn't crash once. The latest patch version is 1.4.03.

Somewhat steep learning curve. However, this is casued not as much by lack of comprehensive in-game tutorial but by sheer amount of things/activities that you can do in this game. Each of those activities is designed with level of detail that sometimes has to be seen to believe!

You can now dl X3 from Steam if Starforce scares you. [edit: forget Steam, buy the DVD version of X3, the latest as of 12/2007]

*The bad:

Interface - menus in particular (and there is lots of them) look like a wierd version of windows, but i don't mind it and when to think of it that's probably the best approach if you have to deal with the amount of information that this game throws at you. Only gripe is that those `windows' are unmovable and unresizable and you can't open more than 1 menu at once.
There may very well already be scripts or mods out there that improve that.
With those things in mind, is the game good? Is it fun?
That would be Yes, and Yes.

*The good:

Top of the line graphics (you're gonna need a decent PC to fully enjoy it `tho. i play on 6800GT, 1.5GB, P4 3.0GHz)

Economy. an actual economy run by the game's AI. Not a simplified facade of economy (ex. Space Rangers, Oblivion).
Over a hundred sectors, about 6 different races. Maybe about 50 different kinds of factories/stations/etc operated by NPCs but also which you can personally build/set up/and micromanage if needed.
Hundreds of NPC ships going about their own business at any moment, sometimes almost a hundred ships in one sector only! Traders - that are gonna buy from yours or any other factory - slowly piloting their heavy freighters, you see capital ships patroling sectors, you see couriers, bounty hunters, and an occasional marooned pirate... or pirates, or an actual invasion of a hostile race, battles involving capital ships and many fighters. huzzah!... ummm. All of it in amazing detail.

Hint: If you wanna start earning decent money by doing Trading you better learn what goods cost how much, what's the range of price on them... what races need what goods, what kind of resources do different factories need, what factories/stations/mines are where, etc, etc.

Combat - graphically comparable with what you can get in top-of-the-line regular space combat sims (Freelancer, etc.).
Many different kinds of combat ships with amazing level of detail... fighters, scouts, heavy fighters, light fighters, light capital ships, destroyers, carriers, >many< different kinds of shields, beam weapons, missiles.

You can own >many< ships. There are many different commands that you can give to your ships if they have appropriate modifications installed. Practically, with how many ships you can control in combat this game approaches the feel of an RTS game.

You can play it like an RPG game no problem if you wish so. There are different kinds of small missions available for `pick up' at every station.
And you'll get the real taste of this game when you go your own way and do what you wanna do - start and learn by trading, or capturing ships, or doing BBS missions, or just a bit of each.

Even knowing how buggy at initial release it was i can't give it less than 5 stars, simply because i was looking for this kind of game for a very long time.

I am a huge fan of Freelancer and enjoy space sim style games. This game has excellent graphics and an improved configurable interface that allowed for a quick learning curve. This game is a little slow at times, but this slow pace adds to the realism of being in space. The open ended game play is a huge plus. I am not a fan of time based linear games that take a week to complete. I had no issues with the game play, nor had trouble with installing the program. I'm not sure what legacy systems these other reviewers are using, but my system had no problems. Overall a very fun game that I would definitely recommend to any space sim fan.

If you're worried about the StarForce copy protection (and you should be) you should know you can now buy this game via Steam -- without the nefarious StarForce drivers being surreptiously installed on your machine.
As for the game itself, it feels like kind of a cross between a game like Freelancer (mission-based combat with lots of opportunity for trading-runs for profit) and a classic "build an empire"-type game.
The controls and UI do leave a bit to be desired (a common flaw in European games if you ask me) but they're workable.
If you like the space genre, and the idea of owning space factories that produce goods just for you, this game is probably worth a shot.

I don't care for starforce either so what I did was: Install the game, run it, at the first screen hit check for updates, downloaded the 2.0.02 patch, ran the patch which on some older copies of the game require inserting disk one to complete the istallation of the patch, then I downloaded the starforce removal tool from the official X3 forum, ran the removal tool, and rebooted when needed to complete things.
I'm not a computer expert but I found a site that gives instructions on how to check for starforce files on your computer and as far as I can see they were all gone. After this patch, you don't even need a cd in the computer to play.
Since then I've been enjoying X3 alot without any problems worth mentioning. The game has an extreme amount of depth to it and you could play weeks if not months without even concentrating on the plot missions although it's worth doing a few of the first ones for the experience, reputation boost and a few goodies.

This game is a definite step backwards from X2.Not only does it suffer from an interface that was simultaniously developed for pc and console(meaning the pc version was"dumbed down")but it installs the most insidious version of StarForce.I had to reformat my computer after installing this load of garbage.Don't ever mention this problem on the official forums or you will have the moderators accusing you of being a pirate.
The plot bites(what little I could play because of bugs and copy protection problems)combat is really boring and easy.Iwish I could give this misbegotten bundle of bad coding no stars.