Heck at some point I got a fleet of over 15 fighters, 4 transports and so on. It was a blast really and still it got tiresome because of how the basic game works. It’s slowpaced and that’s a killer eventually.

“TIE Fighter was fantastic, but I’d consider it in a different genre, personally. It was strictly a mission-based combat sim. It had no persistent universe, no economy, no trading. A great game, just not of the same type as X3 or Privateer or other games of that type.”

I fully agree. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is still one of my alltime favorites. There hasn’t been a flight simulator quite that came close in terms of rock solid gameplay and hours of fun with challenging yet not impossible dogfights. Crazy when you come to think of it really.

I also very much liked Rebel Assault II, that game also is very much unrivaled in it’s gameplay, missions and great overall difficulty.

If you’re not playing EVE for the PvP, you’ll have more fun with X3 and an IRC client.

This is exactly the reason I quit Eve and bought X3. Never got around to playing it properly, but now I have a hankering for it after reading a Charlie Stross novel.

Interesting to see just how many games manage to mess up their numbering system too (”standalone expansion” is surely just another name for “sub-standard sequel”?).

Top-class game, happy to be bastardly difficult at you, happy to have a “real” control scheme that makes actual sense, and your main NPC/narrator is the dead previous captain of your ship, and he bitches about how much more you suck than he did when he was alive. Loved it.

I-War2 was okay, as well, but really wasn’t a patch on the first game, what with sort of collapsing disinterestedly after a strongish start.

As for the actual subject of the post, I dunno. I’ve always found the X series to be a bit joyless. That might be a result the still-criminally-godawful interface or the “manuals? We don’t need to write no stinkin’ manuals!” attitude of the devs (Levelling AI trader ships up to level 10, then buying them the top-tier trading software, then doing something else results in them turning into an intelligent trader, flying about the universe, earning you money automatically… Wait, you can hire traders?), or maybe it’s because I don’t have the mentality to start a new game, invest some cash and then just fuck off for two days while the investment pays off for me.

Anyhow, I find it all very micro-managey and German, which isn’t neccessarily a bad thing, but that interface just can’t support all the micromanagement that you need to do, and so it fails.

Sort of thing.

I-War (the original UK version of Independence War) had its 10th birthday recently, and unfortunately it’s difficult to get running on modern hardware. I-War 2 works fine apart from a few graphic glitches, but I prefer the original game.

And, yes, someone really should make a good firefly mod.

On the subject of games from the 90’s that really need a remake, yes I’d love to see a new version of Tie Fighter, of Freespace, or any space-flight sim that you can play with a joystick instead of a mouse (eww), particularly with a thick manual… BUT what I’d also very much like to see is a remake of Hardwar. That game was awsome, and I’m still miserable about the unfulfilled “to be continued…” that it ended with.

how am I ever meant to decide?

Heh, I know the feeling. Saw this post right after buying Sins Of A Solar Empire. (”So, do you want cake with that bucket of ice cream?”)

I’ll just carry on training for Command Ships I guess. Pew Pew. It’s great being Amarr ;)

And I still loved the games to bits. Allow me to sum it up:

If you’re not playing EVE for the PvP, you’ll have more fun with X3 and an IRC client. :)