X Rebirth

[video=youtube;9Bb_jCP1mJo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Bb_jCP1mJo[/video]

I've been keeping my eye on the X series of space exploration games ever since Beyond the Frontier back in the 90's. They've always been a case of 'what could have been' for me, far too shallow for what they were trying to accomplish.

But this latest game is starting to look pretty damn good.

[video=youtube;0bty5M-lo9w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bty5M-lo9w[/video]
[video=youtube;thnJTvXtkFs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thnJTvXtkFs[/video]

The developers are trying to learn from all of the past fumbles the series has made, and seem to have a good grasp on how to do it.

[video=youtube;NEbL1p5vZpw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEbL1p5vZpw[/video]

Scale of the universe and far reaching consequences for player actions.

I've recently started playing X3 Reunion, simply because I fancied a modern-ish space combat game, and there aren't a lot of those around anymore. It's a bit of a bear to get started with, but I'm just-about getting more enjoyment than frustration out of it so far.

I'm not sure I like the visual user interface of this latest game - from the posted videos, it appears that a great deal of screen real estate is taken up by bits and pieces of cockpit. Hopefully there's an option to ditch the fully-interactive cockpit for a more minimalist view once you start piloting.

Scale is always an issue in space games, and whilst the videos indicate a realistic scale to the space-city environments, it seems like they don't show a single screenshot in which you could swing a cat around your ship without hitting something. Of all the qualities to find in a space-based game, "claustrophobic" is a rather surprising one.

MarkB said:

Of all the qualities to find in a space-based game, "claustrophobic" is a rather surprising one.

Click to expand...

Well, it is and it isn't. Realistically it should be expected. People living in space do have very little space to live in. I'm not quite seeing what you're seeing, but I do agree that an option to remove stuff from the cockpit view would be a user friendly game feature. Haven't seen anyone mention whether that's possible.