X3: The Reunion, Starforce and fun

So I fired up Steam the other day, and it’s offering up X3: The Reunion. Which also happens to be Starforced according to glop.org.

Now, if I’m correct, this shouldn’t need Starforce right? There’s no DVD to check? Does anyone know whether Starforce has been removed from this copy? I fear they leave it in out of sheer laziness sometimes, and it will install itself anyway but just not do any checking.

Also, can anyone tell me whether this is a good buy at $19.95? I’m quite keen to get a single-player Freespace dealy, and I no longer play my own SR2 because of Starforce.

Check here

No Starforce in the Steam version.

Its main faults are that it has a really inconsistent user interface, and a fairly steep learning curve, mainly thanks to said user interface and the lack of a decent tutorial. There must be three or four different kinds of interface menus, and you’ll be switching between them a lot, and it’s not always obvious where you’re able or supposed to click and…ugh…

If you can overlook those, it’s supposed to be fairly good though. I’m not very far into it, but supposedly you can eventually build entire factory and trading complexes, command an entire fleet of ships, wage war on the coc-, er, Kha’ak… There are lots of mods available to add features, help with the user interface, and add new ships.

Can’t believe I missed that thread completely. Thanks!

The learning curve on X2 was a sheer cliff wall. I tried to get into that game TWICE before finally determining that I was NOT going to let the interface beat me and finally played the game a year after I bought it.

:P

DOH! I’m downloading it now, will buzz you when I get a feel for it. To its credit, X3’s interface is supposed to be better and the crash-bugs that plagued it should have been ironed out to some degree by patches.

X3 is probably one of the best games I’ve ever played while also, at the same time, managing to be one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I’ll let you play it for a little while and figure out what I mean.

The game looks great and deep, but I can’t get a voice-stuttering issue to resolve (all inter-ship comms cut out or don’t come on at all). It looks like I’m not the only one on the forums to experience it.

I’m going to try to fix it, but my advice to anyone thinking about it is to avoid it for now.

edit: Managed to fix it by installing WMP 11 Beta. Now to investigate what this URGE thing is.

X3 is not a game. It’s some sort of pain simulator. The interface is just inpenetrable.

Flew around for about half an hour staring at asteroids before I realise you had to install the mineral drilling system, and that my ship couldn’t equip one. Fun!