X: Gold

For context I just finished X: Beyond the Frontier. This game enhanced the first game mechanics. There is a much potential here wasted and WARNING, the following has spoilers!! The problems I found were difficult credit earning unless you sell your ship at the start and buy the Discoverer. OK, I did that after going around and finding the basic game economy changed drastically even though they had the same mines and factories. For example the traditional way of earning credits in X BTF was to setup Solar Power Plants. This is no longer a viable option. You would compete with NPC stations that don't have to replenish their Crystal stocks. Additionally the prices at the shipyard for mines and factories skyrocketed. No more $14k stations. The combat system is also similar, however the enemy ships seem to be none existant in the starting area, Argon Prime. So, if you decide to go the way of downgrading your ship to get the extra credits and max out the Defender, you will find it difficult to capture enemy ships due to trying to find them. You also compete with local military/police who will destroy your targets before you can capture. If you DO happen to capture a ship, that ship would also be marked for extermination until you change it to your fleet at a station (you still have to get it to a station). I had much more to post but my comments ran over the cap here on GoG. Short version. this game is broken gameplay wise. This was a huge disappointment. I didn't even get to create a base nor was I able to capture a ship. I'm done banging away here. I recommend skipping this particular X game.

Admittedly, there is probably more to the game than is presented in the first mission that has you flying around the sector on a "trading mission" that is apparently little more than an unspecified series of fedex quests. I say "probably" because I'll probably never know. There are upgrades that I can't nearly afford in-game which suggest that you can find things to sell by fighting pirates or mining asteroids, but after four hours of toodling around blindly in that first system, trying to buy and sell the same three goods over and over, I decided to stop and play something fun instead of something that felt so much like a horrible real-world job.

Because of the different controls i couldn't even complete the training, i had to skip it. After talking to the Teradiguy i tried to dock on the solar blabla. After the second try i got it, but wasn't able to buy an insurance. I pressed the wrong button and was spat out into space to hit the stations wall. The end... Enough of it. Maybe I give it another test, but the start is just so aweful.

P.S. Thanks for adding my X-Tension YouTube video preview in GOG Galaxy

Text doesn't show up, controls don't seem to be working without multiple presses, and you can't even understand what the aliens are saying because the sound is so bad. This should not be sold for 10 bucks, it should be free.