I actually have the game on Steam, thought about getting it for GOG but don't really want to pay for it twice. Especially since I bought the game a few years ago when it was first released in early access for $5. The game has come a long way since version 1.0 . The controls do seem a little clunky, but not nearly as so when the game was first on early access. The graphics have come a long way as well as optimizing the game, much faster load time an very little lag except when jumping into a system. Still needs some work. The RPG aspect with the Captain gaining and losing skills for choices is pretty interesting, but still needs a little work in that department. However the roll play style of some of the side missions is very nice. The amount of ships is pretty good as well, especially since ver 1.0, much better selection. Overall, most of the updates have improved the game and game play and its come a long way. The story-line is a little short, but the DEVs had stated that they were going to keep adding to it as time passed, and they were serious with that as it HAS been added to substancially. I don't think it would be good form to complain about lack of controls for UI size and screen brightness and colors chosen as I think they might improve upon this in time...I hope. Also the crafting and sick bay times are a bit slow. I'm thinking that these will be adjusted at some point. That is because the game still needs a fair amount of polish and its still in Development. I can see some real potential in this game and so far the Devs haven't seemed to bite off more than they can chew and aren't making promises that they can't keep. I've had a good time playing the game and it still has my attention and can hold it without frustration. It does hold some similarities to Rebel Galaxy and a couple other games, but that's where it seems to end. I'm hoping that they will add more content to the game letting you explore more. I can honestly say I'd recommend this game.
On release, I've heard horror stories. But getting the game on Steam 6 months after release and never seeing ANY of the problems that others "may" have had, I have to go with Egosoft making excellent patches. And if you've played anything else by Egosoft, you know they are famous for making sure their games work and work well... or their not finished with it. ** NOTE *** Make sure your PC can handle the game. A good amount of "crashes" and errors are due to people trying to play the game on machines that can not handle the game (remember I did not say all). Don't "think" you know it can handle X-Rebirth "Know" it can handle it. Look at the system requirements and make sure. A system with specs above Minimum requirements and slightly below recommended requirements will work, but it might not be pretty, so be sure your machine can actually play the game and not only run it. X-Rebirth is very processor intensive as well as graphic intensive...even with the new optimisations added to the game. Why do I say "They've come full circle"? X-Rebirth is exactly what they named it. It's the "X" series reborn and re-imagined. Not many people giving reviews remember or even played X-Beyond the frontier or X-Tension it's sequal. No one seems to remember X-Beyond the frontier and how you had ONE and only ONE ship to fly around the "X" universe and a limited amount of sectors you could visit. People seem to remember only X3-R, X3-TC, and X3-AP, but nothing before that. The one thing that you have to get past, is that X-Rebirth is NOT X4 and was never meant to be. That being said and gotten out of the way... X-Rebirth has a bit of a learning curve, but not so steep as you'll never get it down quickly. Everything you need is right at your finger tips. Rebirth also solves the problem of using a joystick or not. The controls have finally been fine tuned to use either M&KB or Flight-stick. It's rare to find a game that can be truly played comfortably by someone that has always used a Stick with HOTAS (Hands On Throttle And Stick) set-up, so this is a little refreshing. The very first thing I noticed was the loading screen. This was something that tipped me off to something bigger. The main menue "looked" intimidating, but as I looked closer, it really wasn't. So getting the game controls and video settings I was used to having was quite easy... at least for me it was. I also noticed that MODS and EXTENSIONS was something that Egosoft finally added to their game. A special place to put them. Seeing as a good amount of the mods come from the people that test the game, it's a wonder that this feature wasn't added sooner. Especially since Egosoft has a very active Modding community and a good amount of patches and features are taken from that part of their community (They also give credit to these people as well). The starting scenarios were interesting as well. One start for each type of player and almost one for each region of space. So that was interesting as well. Egosoft continued this with the expansions too, so Teladi Outpost DLC has a start as well as a couple start areas for Home of Light DLC. X-Rebirth also has a true difficulty setting as well. In previous games, the difficulty settings were more in the way of the amount of cash or type of ship you were going to get. Now in X-Rebirth, it actually refers to how much damage a weapon is going to do against your ship. Personally, I like the "normal" setting. I think this is the way the game was meant to be played. Upon actually playing the game initially, I saw "Space highways" and immediately thought... OMG they turned into Freelancer...but I was way off the mark on that. The "Highways" only travel in one direction. Usually in a circuit. So there is no "Take an off ramp and get back on the other way". Nope... You miss your "turn" and you have to either ride it out and try again or jump out and "walk" back. Not very unreasonable at all. Also, you don't have to use them if you don't want to. You also have to keep in mind that there is no more "Player" jump-drive. Jump-drives are ONLY on the larger trade ships. However, if you own one of these large trade ships, you can also "hitch" a ride on one by telling your captain to bring you to a specific place. Also... If you are traveling with a larger trade ship and you want to guard it yourself and not rely on the fighter pilots you hired... or didn't hire, you can get within the "Wake" area of the trade ship and ride its wake from point A to point B. **Note, this does take a little practice and it "can" be a bit of a pain sometimes depending on the ship your traveling with. This can also be done with ships you do not own as well. So it's not exclusive to ships you own. If you see a large transport ship heading in a direction you want to go, you can ride in their wake like a remora on a shark. ** Also keep in mind that any ship that has the "Follow me" orders will be trying to keep up with you by using the "highways" or ( if you have larger ships) they will meet you where you stop, but they WILL follow you there. Missions... wow... there is so much to say about this one. If you play the "Story-line" you'll get a little more information on how to play and what does what to get a better feel of the game. Like every other "X" series game, there is a learning curve, but like I stated before, it's not so steep that you can not get the hang of it quickly. The story line was crafted very well and teaches you "How" to play the game and get things done while spinning a really nice rendition of how things are explaining the lore of the game and the current situation. So the story line is actually worth a play through to get used to the game. During the early stages of the game versions, like 1.4 to 2.5, the missions were more to be located on stations themselves. You would have to search them out, finding them attached to someplace on the station. However, now with the Teladi Outpost and Home of Light DLC, you can actually find them in the ships menu labeled as "Bulletin board messages". These are non-storyline missions for combat, trade, and exploration. They tend to give both cash and reputation depending on the type of mission. So the player should be aware that they "might" damage their reputation with another faction when taking them... so you really have to pay attention to this detail. TRADE, BUILD, FIGHT, EXPLORE.... These are the words that Egosoft has been chanting since X-Beyond the frontier... And it's still true. Trade... You can trade, but it's not completely like other X-games. This is more like a grander scale. The trade ships are MUCH larger. Sure, the smaller ships are still in the game, but the larger ones... those are the ones that are going to be supplying stations. You can still buy smaller civilian trade ships and use them to trade and earn a little money as well, but the large trade ships can deal in the millions of credits at a time. They also help to get your stations operational quickly. This is also one of the first games that I've played where the universe IS alive and walking/flying around. This is something that has been a constant in the "X" series of games. None of the NPC's are static. All of them have an agenda and want to get somewhere. Whether it's with you, through you, or around you is another story. Building... Building is not the same as it is in previous games. You now have to find an area that you can safely place the station. This is understandable as you don't want the game to have a glitch or a player mis-calculate and inadvertently cut off the space highway with a structure. Also, this helps to balance the game. You can only put a few station in each area. By this I don't mean you can add only 5 stations to an area, I mean each individual area can only handle so many stations. So if you were to place a station in the "Gemstone manufacture" Zone, of the "Far Out" Sector, of the system of Albion, there are already so many stations there. So you would actually have to build outside of the Gemstone Manufacture Zone to place a station. But there are many zones to build in, so you can build to your hearts content. You can also name the zones that have no names... as long as you have something there to lay claim to the area. The game may not annouce the zone, but it does appear on the map. Also, for the first time with Egosoft, you can hire personel for your stations as well. A station manager will help with getting things working and making sure supply continues. They even have an expense account you can drop money into for them. Along with the Manager, you also have an engineer, defense officer, and specialty person aboard the station too. Each person not only adds functionality to the station, but also helps in keeping it in one piece. For instance, the defense officer will co-ordinate the patrol ships assigned to the station and co-ordinate defense of the station. Something to keep in mind. Even building the station is different from the previous "X" series games. The stations now have build times and you have to have a freighter (captial class) assigned to the construction ship (Which builds the station) with enough cash to get the materials, or you can get them yourself with the aid of a captial class freighter. In the end, you'll really need to assign the freighter to the construction, it just makes it easier. Fight... Fighting in X-Rebirth seems to be a little different. The dogfights are the same, but it has a grand feel to it. Large capital ships (And trade ships) fighting with stations and fighters dodging in-between all of it is a little intense looking. Keep in mind that the factions of Heart of Albion and Plutark Mining are in a war-like state already at the start of the game. Later on in ANY starting scenario, Heart of Albion and Plutark WILL start engaging each other in combat. If trade has been good to both sides, you'll witness some spectacular battles. As I mentioned earlier in this review, you can get missions for fighting. All manner of reasons for fighting, but fighting missions are fighting missions with difficulty from easy to hard to "You've got to be kidding me" difficulties... ok...the last difficulty doesn't exist, but if you play the game you'll see what I mean. Explore... As with all the games in the "X" series, exploring is also something that should be done in X-Rebirth. There are all manner of goodies waiting out in space for the curious traveler. Ships, wares, cash, items... Many many things just sitting out there unclaimed. The ship comes with a few types of scanner modes from Ship scanning to Long range scanning. Each one has it's purpose and is quite useful. Weapons... As I keep chanting, this is not X4. This is proven by the amount of weapons. Then again...how many types of weapons do you really need? Ballistic, plasma, laser, and pulse... do you really need more? Short, medium, and long ranges and add in a couple types of missiles with varying degrees of damage for each with either heat-seeking, dumb-fire, or image recognition tracking. Drones are interesting. You can actually control some of them and others can defend you while still others can be used to steal, hack and cause mischief. That being said, there are a couple modes for the ship that actually deploys all drones that can be used to auto defend the ship. Of course they can be weak in the armor department, but they do come in handy. Boarding ships... yup, you can board and capture ships. Only the capital type ships like the trade ships and war ships and a couple that double as both. You can also capture fighters as well. If a pilot ejects out of the fighter, and you have a pilot on board your ship, you can claim it. It will have what-ever damage you've done to it still, but it's yours. You can also have any ship repaired at the right shipyard as well. Civilian for fighters and capital ships at the captial class shipyards...they're named like that too, so you'll know the difference. Buying ships... You can buy all manner of ships in the game. Miners, freighters, traders, fighters, destroyers, carriers... pretty much anything you see flying around you can build...with a couple exceptions...but definitely all the fighter type ships. There is also a very intuitive command for the ships. You can have them follow you, hold position, patrol, defend, attack, etc. This can be done for all ships bought or captured, fighter or capital. Crew... This is one of the first times Egosoft has introduced crew to the game. The first time was back during X2 and X3R, but they were both endorsed player mods for the game added into the games with a patch system. This on the other hand, was something that came with the game. Captains, engineers, defense officers, pilots, and marine officers can all be hired.(along with station personel). Obviously the pilots only fly fighters and only defense officers can be put to work on ships with turrets, but the Skunk uses one Engineer. You can add one Engineer to the crew of the Skunk. You are the Captain, Yisha is the co-pilot, one Marine officer (For boarding), and one Engineer to fix what gets broken in combat. Aside from this, you can add one captain, one Engineer (not working on the Skunk), and one defense officer for a total of 5 extra persons on-board the Skunk. If you have a marine officer for boarding, you have no room for an extra pilot. You do have room for 50 marine recruits though...weird how that works. This is the balance. You can board ships, but you have to have the bridge crew for ONE ship plus the boarding party. The boarding party consists of the Marine Officer and 50 marines. After a successful boarding and the ship is yours, the Captain, Defense officer, and Engineer go to the new ship while you have the Marine officer come back to your ship for more boarding actions. OVERALL... X-Rebirth is a great game for the right person. If you do not like games that you have to put an investment of time into, then this is not the game for you. If you've played the other games from Egosoft and are looking for X4... This is not the game for you. If you're looking for a game that has a living universe and takes time to master and truly understand how everything works, then you'll enjoy this game. The graphics are extremely well done and are definitely spectacular. The game play can be slow in the beginning, but that is to be expected with any game that requires an investment of time to fully appreciate it. The game mechanics are pretty straightforward and "can be" self revealing if you pay attention and check out what you can do within the menus. The tutorials are very well done and tend to explain on a simple "show and tell" type of curve (At least the in-game tutorials) X-Rebirth is not an instant gratification game. Everything takes a considerable amount of time... like reading this review from beginning to end ;-) .
