X Rebirth–the latest in the X series of outstanding 4X space simulations–is fun despite its many bugs, but only for a few hours when many of the mechanics issues start to play out (like no targeting controls).
I was pretty excited about this game because I love the X series. I never really got into the campaigns much because I just like the sandbox experience where I can make up my own story. This game offers two modes of play, Free Play (sandbox) and Campaign (also sandbox but with some storyline structure). I played a little bit of the campaign, and it does a nice job of introducing you to the controls, and introduces you to the main characters as well as establishing the plot. As I said earlier, I am a sandbox guy, so I mostly played in Free Play mode, which is just as exciting.
The stations (the outside) are massive, as are some of the ships! You could spend an hour exploring around a station and collecting information about it, and even more time if you go into the encyclopedia to get more detailed information about each component that you are looking at. And in keeping with the tradition of the X encyclopedia, it is read by an artificial intelligence so you don't have to read anything. That's nice. And to top it off, as you collect information about stations, you gain discounts at certain vendors. There are also multiple docking points, and when you dock and go inside it isn't the same station instance each time. It's like having access to different parts of the station through multiple docking ports. Though each interior looks relatively the same, they consist of different vendors and containers to loot.
The systems are much larger than in the previous X games, and the travel between them is much more exciting. The space highways, which allow faster travel between sectors, are a puzzle in and of themselves. By getting behind faster ships you can increase your speed greatly, but sometimes they fly by too fast as you move into their lane and you lose momentum. You can drop out of space highways at any time and go exploring. There are also the traditional gates that separate the systems. Overall the game just has a massive feel to it unlike the previous X games, where I almost felt somewhat boxed in.
Initially I was a bit put-off by the station walkabouts. You have to find the right dealer that will buy/sell what you're looking for, and that can take some time. But then I remembered that is something I would have liked in the previous X games because trading always seemed so robotic with the 2D panels and no real faces to meet. Now at least, you get the experience of actually having to find the correct dealer within the station, which is a bit more real feeling to me. I was relieved to find that there is a fast travel option to get back to your ship, so at least you aren't walking all the way back after buying your product. Mind you, these types of purchases are just the small purchases and won't make you much money. The real money is in using the various trade nodes outside of the station to buy in bulk, but you will have to have a lot of money and cargo space to start that type of trading. When in the stations, you can loot containers, which can give you enough money for repairs and to buy low-end equipment. You can recruit people with specific skills to help you control additional ships and board vessels. You can recruit pilots, captains, marine officers, marines, defense officers, etc. I am not too familiar with every aspect of the skill sets, but I saw architects, which I assume have something to do with building bases. The recruitment mechanic adds a whole new layer of fun to the game that the previous games lacked.
The mission system is outstanding. There are nodes around the stations that offer various types of missions, and you have the skull missions (not sure the actual names) that are crime based missions which can earn you some pretty decent income, but normally come at the cost of losing reputation in high risk illegal activity. One mission I went on was to destroy a competitor's freighter for $52k. It was not difficult even though the mission details rated it at "very hard", but that was because of the poor AI in the police ships. The mission system also includes a mission guidance system that is easy to see because each waypoint is broadcasted in a little yellow box just below the center of your screen, and the aiming reticle has a yellow outer ring with a small arrow pointing you to the next waypoint. You can also access info about you, your property, and missions by pressing the enter key (not sure what it is on the game pad).
That's really all I can add to the good because I have only played this game for around 6 hours. I haven't gotten into real trading, mining, station management, boarding (see the bugs below for that one), and the many other activities that Rebirth has to offer. In spite of the bugs, I am excited to continue exploring Rebirth for a long time to come.
The Bad
It wouldn't be fair to praise this game without also listing some of the bad that I have experienced. The one glaring thing (besides the bugs that I list below), are the dumbed down controls. I can't find any controls for targeting closest enemy, next enemy, previous enemy, station, etc. The only targeting that is evident is when you have your potential target in your sights, you left click on it and you target it as well as get an interactive menu if you double click (boarding, info, and comm usually). They definitely created this to work on both a keyboard and game pad, and apparently they wanted to make it as simple as possible to attract a larger crowd. I understand that, but targeting functions should be a pretty basic need. In their defense, this game is very modifiable, so I assume you can change up the controls as you please via scripts. I'll be looking into that in the future for sure.
Another issue for me was having a fixed camera, cockpit only. I miss being able to see behind me, around, me, removing the cockpit details etc. Maybe I just missed that feature, but it definitely isn't listed in the keyboard controls menu.
I am on the fence as to whether or not the next issue is a bad thing, but here it is. When you are in combat, and you hit a station or ship with your projectiles, it doesn't take much for the authorities to come after you. That being said, the next somewhat related issue IS bad. The AI in this game is pretty terrible. I was able to take down many freighters while the pilot continued requesting assistance, acknowledged by the local authorities, and they didn't pursue me. I think it was because I was usually right next to the freighter's hull, and maybe they couldn't track a path to me. Another AI flaw is AI flight around objects, like stations and asteroids. Several times when on escort missions, the freighter would fly through a station and take several minutes navigating around and getting stuck in various station structures. This made escort missions painfully slow.
The fact is, this game is very buggy, but the bugs – at least for the most part – won't deter you from having fun. If I were a betting man, I would say EgoSoft will have this game's more major bugs patched up very soon. So if you have any doubts about buying it because of the bugs, know that there are forum posts out there by both players and EgoSoft on how to work around the more major bugs. To my knowledge, the bugs that I have listed below are the most common (thanks to those who provided the solutions that I also list below).
***Warning Bug Resolution Spoiler!***
If you like figuring out bug work-arounds on your own, don't read any further! Heh, yeah right.
Bug 1: The first bug I had encountered was that when you instantly transfer from a station or ship to your docked ship (you didn't walk back to the cockpit), the information console to the right of your chair fails to pop up when trying to access a map or any other action that causes your head to turn and the console to pop up.
The Fix: If this happens to you, just press the [ENTER] key (not sure what it is on the game pad), then select option 5, which will cause you to visit the crew area. Then walk back into the cockpit. Problem solved.
Bug 2: Sometimes you cannot target some or all ships when you click on them.
The Fix: The same fix as for bug 1. Go to the crew area and then walk back into the cockpit.
Bug 3: I don't know if this is by design, or a bug. When you attempt to board a ship, and you have already destroyed the ship's jump device, engines, shields, and guns, your co-pilot starts you into the boarding mission and requires you to re-destroy the components before the pods launch. Then when the pods finally make it to the ship, nothing happens. You don't get the ship and you aren't notified if the boarding party has failed.
The Fix: I have no idea. Sorry.
Bug 4: I haven't experienced this bug personally, but some players complained that the game would crash on loading.
The Fix: The work-around posted by EgoSoft developers is to change your audio settings to DVD quality (48000 Hz).
Bug5: The game crashes when you ALT+TAB out to post your wonderful and insightful thoughts on sites such as GameSpot.
The Fix: Select "windowed mode" in the graphic settings. It has a border, but it's not too distracting. It seems to run smoothly so far.
Bug 6: When in windowed mode, and in cursor mode (in-game) your cursor does not lock to the game window. There is chance that you can accidentally click the red X that will close the window.
The Fix: I have no idea. I have been looking into my nvidia settings to see if there is a way to do this and have found nothing so far. What needs to happen is to be able to turn off window decoration when in windowed mode. It's an easy thing to do (I am a software developer so I know this as a fact). There are third-party apps out there that do this for any game, but I don't recommend trusting any third-party app of this nature unless they offer the source and you can build it yourself.
Bug 7: This is actually a combination of bugs. Trading in this game (one of its most important features) seems to be completely broken due to other bugs. For example, when you steel a freighter, there is no way to repair it because there is no way to get a constructor drone assigned to the on board engineer. You cannot repair it at a shipyard because there are no ship dealers at the shipyard that I have found. The ships get stuck inside other structures and will not follow you. This all pretty much ruins trading so badly that I had to update this review.