Ok, I've been playing this game for a few weeks now, I'm doing pretty well, but since a few people have wondered whether to buy this game or not, I thought I'd point out a few weaknesses within the game that you might want to think about.
1 : Explore - Well, this section of the game is ok, theres lots to look at (though quite often the same thing, but I don't have a problem with the graphics). The 'Random Enemy Generator' that makes Khaak appear out of nowhere is annoying, specially as a single Khaak attack can cost you ships you can only barely afford.
2 : Trade - Good, but slow, though there are Megaships available, without cheating, these are not ships you are going to be taking into battle for quite a while. I own 3 factories, and though they turn over enough to keep me in supplies, expanding is a slow business, possibly too slow to maintain interest.
3 : Fight - Don't. Let your computer do the fighting unless you are gliding across a sector in a destroyer looking at the fireworks. This is probably the worst part of the game since the refresh rate gets very poor, particuarly if your carrier has just spewed forth about 30-40 fighters.
4 : Think. It doesn't, at least not above the levels of Extensions, if you ever played that, they have at least made protecting ships defend themselves, but ships still won't automatically use Jumpdrives, even if you have energy cells on board etc, you have to go through the job of boarding them etc.
The 1.3 Patch is out which has a universe, ship and item editor (though pretty basic ones ATM) which will allow more advanced trading scripts etc, but a 'cheat' has to be used in game to activate them. This always seems a bit of a copout to me, since Egosoft are leaving the fans to write the parts of the game they should have done before release. There are other 'Moron' attacks in the AI such as you have to assign the behaviour of turrets on every single ship, and fighters flying to a destination will ignore someone attacking them because they weren't ordered to defend themselves, it's little things like this that many people find annoying.
So my final opinion on X2?
It IS a good, enjoyable game, but if you stripped away the graphics and the storyline, it's Extensions. I'm amazed that Egosoft have spent this long creating this game.
I always wanted to get involved in writing a decent version of something like this, where the ships actually used a decent level of AI, and an interface where you can block-command ships (or block assign homebase, one of the most annoying lacks in X2), or set fighters to automatically re-arm, assign freighters as Supply ships on Carriers (Will re-supply weapons/missiles to the Carrier on command, subject to availability) Pirates co-ordinate their attacks and don't attack Pythons with 2 Mandalays and a Bayamon, enemy races have a plan of attack, and invade from their own systems outwards, instead of just popping up out of nowhere next to your unarmed freighter, a feat your own ships cannot achieve.
If I felt like the game was trying to help your business expand instead of making it a job of assigning, reassigning, checking, rechecking, jobs that most industrialists hire people for, I wouldn't even care of the graphics were really basic.
That said my advice to anyone thinking of buying X2 is think very carefully, if you are happy spending hours micromanaging your fleet in every aspect (like Master of Orion etc) Then this is a game for you, if you are more RTS based, you'll probably find this slow and irritating after a while.
Flipside
