X3: Terran Conflict

This is my third "X" game, I first discovered the series at X2: The Threat. One thing I will start by saying is that this game will take a lot of your spare time, if not all; I quote from the games manual "Say Goodbye To A Social Life and/or Sleep"!

It is certainly the case as the game is so involving and addictive! I chose to start as a fighter pilot in the argon military, within 5 minutes I was dogfighting with other craft! After the fight I discover that I had earned over 30k in credits, so I went hunting for another job, found a space-station defence job which payed nearly 100k, took out all the attackers and moved on to the next job!

You do this a few times and you can upgrade your ship; upgrade shields, fit more weapons, increase engine performance ect.

You can also buy a completely new ship! From small scout ships right up to massive (and I mean MASSIVE) capital ships that are capable of launching smaller fighters!

You can also build an empire of factories to keep your fleet stocked - goods produced by your factories are traded by other races which allow you to make money and in turn plow that money into whatever you want - more factories or more warships!

The game is not without its bad points, there are bugs, however I know how good the developers at Egosoft are, give them a short while and they will have every bug squashed! My main gripe is a performance issue where the game stutters from time to time, not always but usually when you need it to be smooth (i.e. in the middle of a firefight!), my PC is more than capable of running the game, I have a quad core Q9550, 4Gb RAM & a Sapphire HD4870 X2 so as soon as the stuttering is fixed this will be my main game!

Coupled with the new HUD, the Freelancer-esq control system which works BEAUTIFULLY, I am absolutely overjoyed with this game!!

Do not hesitate to buy this game, if you love space-sims you cannot and WILL NOT find a better one!

If you, like me, enjoyed X3 Reunion, or even X2. And appreciated the scope of the game, the ability to fly ANY ships no matter how big, have a fleet no matter what size, and have an insanely complex space station and trade empire, but were always turned off by the horrible interface that made everything a chore.

In short, if you would have loved X2/X3 if it werent for the horrible UI..
You will love this game.
The UI alone is worth to buy the game even if you already own X3, its just that much of an improvement. It makes the game more fun, more accessible, and more immersive. There is a mouse-flight mode like in Freelancer that works VERY well, and you can target stuff by left clickin, left clicking again will bring up a context menu about that object.

Everything is better, faster, and prettier.
The ultimate space empire game has arrived.

Ive always been a Fan of this Genre and have been following the X games since the Origional.
The Developers, (Egosoft) have always focused on the Gameplay and other aspects like Plot, Cutscenes, ect have always been rather amature at best.
X3TC has far more spit & Polish than its predeccessors and has an all round Professional look.
The new interface seems unusual at first, and if you are a fan of the previous games, then you will probably find it awkward. but if you give it the chance it deserves it really is quite good and well worth sticking to. was a pleasant surprise.
There is far more depth in X3TC than its predeccessors with rival corporations and much more Free traders, the universe feels much more alive. Also, a vast array of new ships and weapons are now available to the player making customisation of your empire more interesting than ever, the economy has also had quite an overhaul with a substantional ammount of new wares and ways to sell them.
The new mission structure is intuitive and far more user friendly than previous X's too, although i do feel the Bulletin Board System shouldnt have been completely removed in favour of this new system..
Personally, X3TC i feel is what X3 Reunion should have been as Reunion was a dissapointment due to it being almost a carbon copy of X2 with a new engine and a few new features..

If you were a fan of the X-Tended Mod for X3, a lot of X3TC will be fammiliar as a lot of the awesome content from the main mods has been implemented.. Although thisd has led to a fantastic game, i cant help but feel that the community developed more of this game than the Developers did..
There are some bugs and design oversights, as well as a few balance issues, but in usual Egosoft fashion i imagine these will be adressed in aftermarket patches as well as new content.
All in all. A recommended purchase.

This is my first X game. I've always been a fan of space based combat (Freelance / Nexus ect...) so I thought Id give this a try.

I'll basically explain the start of this game;

You start in space, with no clue on where to go, or what to do. It's very overwhelming.

This is one of the most confusing games I have ever played. The manual helps, but doesnt explain the simple stuff, the UI is so bad, it literally took me half an hour to figure out how to buy somthing, then I found out I couldnt mount it to my ship and had wasted all my money and couldnt undo the transaction. I've started seven new games now and I think I've just about got the hang of the basics (aprox 5 hours of usful gameplay, 6 hours floating around with a perplexed look on my face wondering what I am supposed to be doing)

A hair pullingly awful start to the game, I kept coming back for more hoping there would be some trick to it, or somthing to hook me. Sadly, theres not, but things do become clearer. From what I've gathered, it's a space based trading game, then when you've got enough cash you build your fleet and take on the story and it turns into a combat game. Trading, is smart, but like most things it's not really clear until you've spent a bit of time doing it. Basically certain stations need certain materials. Everything needs energy cells, so I've found this easiest to trade in at the beginning. The economy works on supply and demand. If a factory is out of energy cells, they will pay alot for them. Trick is to find somwhere with an abundence who are selling cheap. Match them up, buy the cells cheap, sell them high. Basic business, it's just been made stupidly hard in this game!

So far, I've not been very complimenting of this game, yet given it three stars. Here's why, it's amazingly engrossing. When everything starts twigging, and things make sense, and the madness becomes clearer, you start planning. Flying though a system hauling meat, you stick the auto pilot on and check out what the other stations are selling, you notice a lack of energy cells. You think "hmmm, i'll come back here with a haul of enegry cells later, make a killing" but then thought of grandue gets you, what if I built a energy factory here, surly I would rake in the cash? and this is where it begins. You start shopping around, seeing how much it would all cost, this is where the game comes into its own, building a startion the size of England, and its all yours, and it dosent stop there. You can ammas you own empire, and a massive fleet.

If you can get your head around the confusing UI, and the slight slow start (literally, your ship is a slug until you get an upgrade!) this is an impressive game. Sadly, it shouldnt take so much work to get to your head around how a game works.

This is the last game in the 'X' series and I must say - what a game to end with. Just about everything from the interface to the AI and gameplay has been improved over its predecessor 'X3-Reunion'. I've been following the series ever since its inception in 1999 and I'm very happy with this game. Mind you - if you install the game and play it fresh out of the box, I consider it unplayable - there are FAR too many bugs. However, Egosoft were quick to fix the majority of issues, so if you get this game, the first thing you should do is download the latest patch - it'll make the game much, much more enjoyable.

Despite all the great things, my biggest gripe is that the actual storyline was wrapped up in quite a lousy fashion - although I consider this small in comparison to the masses of other content available in the game.

The main thing you should consider before buying this is whether or not you're willing to invest a lot of time into the game. It's fairly slow at times, and there's a lot of tedious and repetitive work (like all simulaters) but if space is your thing, this game delivers. I would whole heartedly recommend this to any fans of the genre who are looking for a good space sim.