X2: The Threat

I bought this game about a decade ago along with the rest of the X games up to X3 Albion Prelude. When i first tried them i found them overwhelming and fairly intimidating. Flash forward to this year, i tried X2 again. As you can tell by the hours i put into it i finally got into it.

to be honest it's not as complicated as i first thought. Even the weird economic management stuff is more or less about finding the right places to build and then setting up a network of ships to handle everything (though i am by no means a master, i've barely scratched the surface). That being said the menu-driven ui does not present everything in a very convenient way.

Even before you start building factories and sell space weed at competitive prices, there is a real immediacy with how the game plays. after the initial briefing you can go wherever you want and so long as you have some instincts you can mostly figure everything out. Online guides are available if you need them, but observation really helps. And the space battles you get into can be a lot of fun, especially in the big squad battles you can enter through missions.

That being said, the game shows its age. As of writing this i have yet to play the other X games but it goes without saying that they massively expand everything this game does. I had some problems getting it to run well in the first place (DXVK and SpecialK were required to play the game at a good frame rate for some reason) so you should be prepared. Nonetheless i still feel that it holds its own even if the sequels are more developed experiences.

Lastly i also want to highlight something that i thought was really cool. Not only do the X games have robust modding support, but the developers actually released a bonus pack filled with user mods that add a lot of essential features like the ability to automatically transfer resources across your stations. I highly recommend reading the readme files for the bonus pack to get the most out of this game.

Very fun game to play and even replay. You can choose how you play and can put off doing the campaign for as long as you want. Build stations and get ships so you have a wide variety to choose from

Love the X series of games. Fell in love with #3 forever ago and in the past year or so i have gotten around to playing them all from the first to the last. Was having a lot of fun in X2 the threat (as can be seen by my nearly 900 hours), but i just came across a game breaking bug half way through the main story line. Must be something unique to my save as i cant find anything about it. But its a real soul crusher that after nearly 900 hours i have to abandon the game.

Another issue i had with my nearly 900 hours is the game was clearly never meant to handle a large scale trade empire with the technology of 2003. It got to the point where i was spending more time replacing cargo ships that ran into each other and blew up then i was anything else when it came to my trade empire. And i feel like my empire was small and still the cargo ships had terrible path finding.

Do your self a favor and just watch a lets play or read the plot behind this game and then just jump right into #3 as things are crazy better in every way.

This is the third time I am returning to this game. This is one of those rare games where no one is leading you anywhere. There is a story line, but you can ignore it or return to it at will. You can play without it at all. What to do and how, it all just depends on your desire. If you want to deal only with the economy, the game has calm galaxies where you can build a trading empire and not fight with anyone. If you want wars, you can build a fleet and fly to distant worlds where you will find enemies for every taste. If you want to become a pirate, go ahead.
What I always liked about this game is that when playing it you do not feel like you are being imperceptibly led to some goal, as often happens in other games. And it seems like you are in a free world, but still the developers have created some kind of plan according to which you are led and imperceptibly led to some decision.
Here, you set your own goals in the game and no one knows what will come of it. You get a small ship without control instructions, it is not clear at first how to fly, you even want to quit and not suffer, but if you do not quit on the first day, then you learn more and more and it begins to drag you in. The on-board computer becomes easy to operate, if at first you did not know what to press, then you play it like a piano. You stop paying attention to the graphics of the game, which of course by modern standards seems unsightly, because Napoleonic plans appear, in which the graphics no longer play any role. In general, in my opinion, this is one of those freelance games in which you just live in space and do what you want.

X2: The Threat was my entry into the X Universe and Egosoft.

This game kept me sane on a long business trip 20 years ago.

Thank you.

top game

Game tries to be realistic, but have maximum speed and some kind of "snow" in space...

dude calling me -sama, i'm losing my shit.
worth it at low price.
big improvement from xbtf overall but still a child of its time.

there is some ship interior on the cockpit where you can look around in, but only with numblock directions, nothing gradual like a freelook. but it looks neat.
there is some ship variety and you get a taste of a slow transport very early. it's easy to follow the story unlike in the first game.
the map is also neat and it uncovers the sectors now by flying through and uncovering it through the "fog of war".
graphics while flying around are neat, the cutscene are awkwardly animated.
ships can have turrets that you can have fire on their own or take control off.
it's just solid and everything you'd want the first game to be.