X Rebirth

As a veteran of Egosoft's X franchise who wants to support the company, it pains me to say that I cannot recommend this game to new players and to only those vets who want to struggle through a painful experience only made tolerable with gigabytes of mods. I pre-ordered this and tried to play it on launch and it was a disaster. I tried again after every major release. Folks said 3.x made it playable. Not for me. So I finally came back to it in 2022 after hundreds of hours into X4 to see if I could break through. The story is engaging, the map and the way sectors are arranged is interesting and give a sense of space. Even the combat is a bit more challenging and fun than X4. But everything else is a train wreck without tracks or a conductor. Having to do everything through communicating with people, the fact that the story makes 3/4 of the stations you have access to enemies a few minutes into the game, and the lack of any real money making outside of boarding and selling ships until well into the game make this a really difficult slog. If you're thinking of getting Rebirth, just don't. Get X4, you'll be infinitely happier.

Before there was No Man's Sky, there was X Rebirth. To this date, I have never seen a worse example of a broken game launch (you seriously had to modify save file just to progress in the main story line). This game by itself taught me to never pre-order. This review isn't to dwell on the past, but to reflect on my 350+ hours here (not to mention even longer playing on a competing software platform). Don't get me wrong, this game was excellent in teaching me XML. It just lacks any heart that it's predecessors had. Eventually you get to a point where you realize that nothing you do, or did has a point. You have 30 different stations.... practically unlimited credits.... great..... what now? The grand promises of fully simulated economies disappear when you realize the good old GOD engine is still at work, spawning Xenon ships out of nothingness. Some may say that this paved the way for Foundations... (only a marginally better game in my opinion), thus justifying it's existence. But for me, I'm still feeling a bit ripped off by this game. Pros: Great at teaching people XML Visually Pleasing The Skunk is a overall decent ship to be spending your entire game in. There is actually a main story in this X game. Cons: Your ship is named the Albion Skunk.... With no way to modify it. I mean.... even giving you the option to change it back to the Pride of Albion would have been a huge improvement here. How in the world did multiple people in Egosoft think that it would be funny? The Skunk is the only ship you will use. Even in 2020, the economy still breaks down after about 100 hours in a run, forcing the player to build aspects of the economy by themselves. Watching hostile ships appear out of nothingness really hurts the immersion, and is frustrating for folks who put the time into clearing sectors. Best Voice Actor in the game is Betty (your ship's computer).

Back in 2013, this game and its release was an absolute disaster. It was riddled with game breaking bugs and crashed all the time and it lacked most features. Because of that, I put it quickly aside, went back to X3TC/AP and didn't lose another thought about it. Fast forward 5 years and they release X4, a broken mess, missing most of its features and shallow as can be. I tried to launch X3AP, but tbh, I played that game, too much, far too much and the graphics and everything just isn't doing it anymore for me. So, I had that itch that needed scratching and omg did X-Rebirth deliver. Now first of all, DO NOT USE MODS, or at least not right away. I had a couple of gamebreaking bugs, which I almost blamed on the game, but which were actually caused by mods. So now I am playing the campaign on hard without any mods, 100% clean and I didn't have an issue so far. I saw someone complain, that it took some time to build the first station during the plot, and I was scratching my head... Did that person even follow the plot? YOu are stranded in DeVries a system that was cut off, like the rest of the galaxy, from any other sector. It's infrastructure is lacking even the most basic goods, like food and water and anything Hi-tech is scarce as can be. So it needs some exploring and scouting, to find all the goods required, to build that base. that being said, now that I think of, it's not actually that hard, IF you don't add any of the OPTIONAL defene modules to the first Core part of the station. Anyway, the game is just such a gem NOW, in 2019. It is beautiful, arguably more so than X4, which just looks steril without soul. XR has a soul, it has real different factions, a (back)story, ugly faces and sometimes weird voice acting, BUT it has that "it". And sure, it is a bit out there compared to its precessors, but it is actually FUN to play and very immersive. I am actually having FUN playing... So if you already own the game, go play it now, if you don't you can get it for probably 5$ with the 2 dlc's. Give it a try, in Ultra High Settings and give it a chance, it will blow you away.

Im not really a Combat guy any more. I play this game for the beauty and ambience that is X. I own 3 X titles, and of all 3, Rebirth and Foundations are ma Favourites. I recomend this game if you are the type of person who enjoys the unknown universe. This is the closest I will ever come to space, and it is great! Egosoft even thought about us guys with minimum setups. Runs great in my i5 with 8 gig of ram an a 470 gt card. Linux distro is Mint, by choice.

It's a burning pile of garbage. Maybe the devs tried to recapture the experience of playing X: Beyond the frontier, thier first game in the series. Just like in X:BtF, you control a single ship, but while in XBtF you were in control of the Xperimental Shuttle, in X:R, you're in control of the Albion Skunk (aptly named because it stinks). In X:BtF, while the start was slow and tideous, by the later stage of the game, your ship turned into the most outrageously overpowered thing in the known universe. In this, by the end of the game, you ship is slighly less ♥♥♥♥ than at the start, but you still can't do much. The whole "sacrifice your shields for some extra speed" is just a bad concept, in fact, they removed it and gave boosting its own bar in X4, the sequel game which is just so much better. The X Universe games have a motto : Fight, Trade, Build, Think, so lets see how this game fits in those categories. Fight : You weapons are weak, they barely do any kind of damage, they have a ridiculously short range for most of them, they overheat in the blink of an eye, and the whole swapping back and forth can be frustrating in the heat of the battle. Not only that, but NPC ships of the similar size/function are generally better. The Skunk with all its weapons, shields and upgraded to the best ones you can get, will still get wrecked by a bunch of pirates because your time to kill is abysmal, you can't eliminate threats fast enough. Even using missiles has a drawback if an enemy is shooting at you when you fire it, because the missile will get hit and explode in your face. Trade : This one is bad. You'll have more fun day trading in real life than doing whatever this. You open the trade menu, you find a good deal, you select the freighter that you want to use to make that deal and send it to get it, rince and repeat (except that you have limited trade commands unless you upgrade the software on your ship. I know it's ~900 years in the future, but calling subordinates and maintaining and excel sheet is too hard for the cutting edge on board AI of the Skunk. Oh, almost forgot, to get the damned up to date trade deals, you have to have an informant on board the station, which you get by doing the "smalltalk" mini game, which consists of lingering near the NPCs on stations, waiting for someone to say something, accosting them and playing a timing minigame. THE DIALOGUES CAN'T BE SKIPPED. Build : You get a construction vessel, you pick a preapproved plot for the station you want to build, you supply the materials (hard because of the plot turning the main suppliers against you) and waiting until it's done. Think : I still think about all the different things I could've done with the money I spent buying this game. Now, some rapid fire complaints : -Weapons do no damge -Upgraded weapons do no damage and overheat faster -Some enemies damage bypasses shields (looking at you, Xenon) -Some of your projectiles will clip through enemies. I don't know what causes this. -The highways are idiotic. If there's an M-Sized ship in front of you, have fun getting ejected over and over again. I've tried bypassing them by going to the sides, or above/below them, but no, you bump into them and you get ejected. In fact, the whole highway "mini game" of having to dodge traffic is badly implemented, you see a green or red trail behind ships in the highway. If it's red, you will collide with the ship, if it's green, you're safe, except that's not the case, because I've been by green trails multiple times. -Flying sucks ass in the game, you will travel for hundreds kilometers in the DLC areas because the infrastructure is just not there. -The whole walking around stations and talking to NPCs nonsense, a complete waste of time -If an NPC starts talking to you, all of your menus are locked until they're finished saying whatever repetitive nonsense they have to say The game is ass.

People moan and groan and nitpick. Idiots, really. This game is not like other X games. I will grant that in full. But it also doesn't make it a bad game and definitely not as terrible as people want you to believe. If you're an economy head that absolutely, positively, MUST have a living, real economy then this is not for you. If you're more of a captain than an admiral and need to be at the helm of every ship you own, this game is not for you. If you can look past these two obvious deviations then beneath that you will find what in my opinion is a great game..and although I will get burned for this I consider it a far more complete game than X4 in its current state. And although the aforementioned deviations from the X series do come with cons, I find they come with just as many pros as well. In this game the universe will not head towards eventual death and stagnation (as in X4) since the economy is generated and not real. I also find myself far more immersed here. There is always something going on pretty much everywhere you go. In this game I do not need to wait six hours for the shipyard to construct my ship because it is running short on engine components (such as in X4). Building ships does take time..but an appropriate amount of time here. If you enjoy space sim style games and can deal with flying a single (highly customizable and upgradeable) ship and don't get bothered by a fake economy then this is an awesome game and a must have to your collection. Just my 2 cents.

Who wants a space sim where you can only fly ONE ship? On top of being stuck in one ship, there are STILL a ton of glitches, broken missions, and general nonsense going on in this game. I tried to like it, but for every good thing I found about it, there were two bad things waiting to be discovered. Man, this is a huge disappointment after playing the other X games. Seriously, skip this one.

The developers of this game have never heard of the term "user friendly". It's one confusing mess from the start. I judge games by the way beginners are eased into the game. It should be instinctive, with plenty of explanations and examples to help the newcomer. None of that in this game. Compared to X3 Reunion, X Rebirth is a time-wasting flop. The maps are awful and lack information. The menus are equally ghastly and confusing, and there's too much keyboard. As a sequel to X3, it's a disaster. The only place for it is the nearest dumpster.