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Miltaguey (15)I started playing the X Series with X2, and moved up through each game logging thousands of hours, definitely my favorite game series, I went back and played a bit of Beyond The Frontier and Tensions but did not play them as much. I was excited when X Rebirth game out, but as with a lot of people I was very disappointed. I have not played since the updates and I may go back bug don't currently have a desire to.
So X4, I've been impressed by the pre release game play videos and have been really excited to get going.
I’m currently about 25 hours in and this is my review.
X4 starts you off with a small ship (as expected). Apart from some tutorials, you’re on your own, I struggled to figure out what to do at first, I flew around getting used to how the ships fly, although I miss the ‘rotate around one point’ flying style of previous X games (bar Rebirth) i have had fun flying the ship and getting used. The different speeds are quite nice, and having the highways/superhighways/jumpgates I quite enjoy, they work really well to get around the map.
Talking of the map, it’s a lot smaller than X3 maps, which so early in the game I haven’t really noticed but I expect as I expand and start to build a trading empire i’m going to notice the smaller size of the map. They’ve redesigned the game universe to fit the game which I suppose is not necessarily a bad thing but I would have liked to recognise more from the map than the names. If you use Argon Prime as a marker point, Taladi and Paranid space is in the right place, but north east of Argon space is not Boron… did the Xenon destroy them?
Well I wouldn't know, as there’s not really a plot, there’s some guide missions (which although i’ve said i’ll do missions for the Argon - Xenon war i’ve not see any yet. The Teladi company missions are good, they help you learn the game so i’d recommend doing those.
Learning things for the game is difficult, there are tutorials but they are not the best. For example, the ship boarding tutorial for small ships spawns an ‘M’ ship so the tutorial it gives you does not actually work! And it takes you through all the steps before you complete them so the tutorial finished and you haven’t actually reached the ship it spawned for you! This along with other bugs will hopefully be solved.
So there are a few bugs in this game, mostly notably are ships teleporting when you enter a new area of the map, this has been fixed and I haven’t noticed it since the patch.
The other is really annoying… if you get up and you pilot doesn’t get out the way they stay in front of you… as per screenshot…
I’ve also had the problem where a person got stuck to the chair standing up, whenever I sat down the person would stay there, I tried to move them and fire them, the only way to get rid of him was to sell the ship!
Without a plot at the start you’ll rely heavily on missions and trading, with the missions I have found that the missions get very repetitive, you do the exact same missions for varying rewards, and there’s not really any combat based one.
I made most my money in a lot of my run throughs of X3 by doing combat missions. The fact that the closest thing to a combat missions is shooting someone to get them to drop a wedding ring (no joke) is not good. I. Want. Combat. I’ve shot various bad guys that randomly pop up and people who try to get your cargo but nothing has been a challenge yet, I hope further into the game the Argon/Xenon war means I get more combat. I’ve read that apparently the game economy starts when you start the game, so the major powers have to build up first before the war really kicks off (not verified), so we shall see. I’ll keep you updated…
I haven’t done much trading, but the economy seems similar the other X games, supply and demand etc… and with money it seems much easier to gain than in previous X games. In the X3 games it was very much based on your rank how much you got for missions, so far it seems that you just get all the missions, and apart from the Teladi company i’ve not had any missions that give me below a one hundred thousand credits, i’ve very quickly had a fully kitted out M class with a fully kitted out S docked to it without that much effort, and now i’ve learnt the game I could easily to it in less than half the time. Next stop L & XL class!
Those skeptical of buying this game, or those who have bought it and played a few hours and given up I would advise to stick it out and get used to the game, now i’ve got used to how it works I am really starting to enjoy it, there are a few differences I would like to see but it won’t stop me playing the game.
Overall, I recommend the game (i’ve been on the line to not recommend), the more I play the better it gets. I feel the community is agreeing with me as the game as gone from ‘Mixed’ reviews on Steam to mostly positive. With a few patches and fixes, maybe a bit more content (expansion packs) this will be a great addition to the X series.
Rebelguey (24)
Fightguey (6)