Latest Obsession: X3 The Reunion

You haven’t heard of X3 (or X2 and X1 for that matter)? Not a big surprise, it is one of the most underrated games out for the PC. X3 falls into the Elite genre. If you were going to compare it to a MMO, it would be like Eve Online. It is a single person game of enormous scope. Here is the gist of it:

The game is 3d and takes place entirely in space. You start out with a ship. There is a plot line you can follow, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to. From there everything is up to you. The universe is made up of sectors. In those sectors are space stations, ships, asteroids etc. The name of the game is freedom. You are free to become a trader,pirate, good guy, bad guy, any combination in between. Trading involves buying high and selling low between the different stations throughout the universe. There are a large number of commodities to trade, some being illegal. You purchase and sell these at space stations. Space stations can also be factories that produce goods. Eventually, you can build your own factories/space stations. You are not the only trader, the universe is filled with NPC freighters you can see traveling around they will buy and sell with your stations. As you earn money, you can buy more ships. Once you buy certain upgrades for these ships you can have them act pretty much independently and they will trade on your behalf.

The above is just a small sample of the trading game. Sometimes trading can be pretty boring, but the fact you can get new ships and they will trade on your behalf makes it a lot more fun. If you don’t feel like buying new freighters, you can always go pirate and capture them too. Speaking of ships, there are a huge amount of different ships you can buy, sell and capture. Your other ships can also fight for you and defend your assets (ships, stations …).

The user community is very active in modding the game, which is fully endorsed by the developer. XTM is one example mod, it adds over 90 ships to the game! These are all full 3d vessels that are actually relevant. There are an enormous amount of other mods to download.

If you have any interest in Eve, Elite, Freelancer and other such games you must check it out. It has been out for a year or two now, so it can be had at very reasonable prices (see Amazon link below). You can expect to put 100+ hours into the game.