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X2: The Threat

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6.4 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 27 critic reviews
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Based on 22 votes
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Game Info

Publisher: Enlight Software

Developer: EgoSoft

Genre(s): Space Simulation

Players: 1

ESRB Rating: T (Teen)

Release Date: December 1, 2003

Summary

X2: The Threat offers players a rich storyline and a boundless game play universe. In X2, the player takes on the role of a pilot indigenous to the X-Universe. The story unfolds as the soon-to-be hero and his companion attempt to steal a ship. After a failed, action-packed escape, he soon finds himself aboard a security ship and destined to live out his days on the cold, prison-mining world of Artur. With a dynamic universe and a plot expertly weaved together the story of The Threat is sure to intrigue players of various genres.

Also On Metacritic

GAMES: X: Beyond the Frontier X3: Reunion

Also On The Web: GameSpy Preview Official Website

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Computer and Video Games

Perhaps the finest game to strap on its space-trading boots since the seminal "Elite." It's better than "Freelancer," better than "EVE Online," better than the original "X: Beyond The Frontier," better than any number of Privateers, Battlecruisers, Freespaces and Frontiers. Best, best, best. Am I making this clear enough? [PC Zone]

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Total Video Games

It completely blows you away – you’ll be convinced there’s actually a micro-universe living within your PC! The only concern we have with this game is that there is no real learning curve to speak of and the lack of any meaningful tutorial certainly makes it a hard game to approach.

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GameSpy

This is what space games should be about: lush scenery, freedom, and room to roam. "Elite" is dead. Long live X2.

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PC Gameworld

If you are looking for a cross between a 3D spreadsheet and "Battlestar Galactica," with a side of patience and a twist of plot, then X2 lands right in your space station.

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Gamer's Pulse

Tremendously realistic graphics and audio bring the world of space travel to brilliant life. While the story serves as a driving force for the single player campaign, it never fully develops into anything worthwhile.

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GameZone

Though its not a masterpiece and falls in the growing crowd of space simulators like "FreeLancer," it’s a game that almost everyone will appreciate.

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Worth Playing

Those who don't go beyond the first few hours of play will probably call the game mediocre, possibly even amateurish. But give it time, avoid the story and I'll bet half my fleet you'll enjoy X2: The Threat.

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Loaded Inc

One of the most involving space sims released for a while and it's only let down by a complex and rough interface design and the dodgy voice acting.

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ActionTrip

Its non-linear gameplay will occupy you for quite some time, until you become an expert pilot, professional trader or whatever. The sheer quantity of missions, challenges, and star systems is almost unbelievable, so there's no question that you'll have your hands full throughout the whole game.

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PC Gamer

Gets bogged down in a few of the traps created by its ambitious, free-form design, but an invigorating game emerges anyway. It's certainly in the same constellation as "Freelancer," if a lot more challenging. [Mar 2004, p.66]

Gamer's Hell

Loaded with enough features to keep a serious space simulation nut busy for a long time, however, its steep learning curve and surface dust can cause many a casual gamer to shy away from it, opting out for something along the lines of Freelancer instead.

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Play Magazine

If you'd enjoy a solid trade sim set in outer space, then check out X2, but don't forget to bring as much patience as possible. [Feb 2004, p.50]

GameSpot

X2 does offer some highly satisfying gameplay--if you're willing to stick with it. It's not a game that has any reasonable prospect of revitalizing the space sim genre, since it's from a small developer and isn't particularly accessible, but it's a game that highlights why the genre was once much more popular.

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PC Format

It’s astoundingly beautiful, too – by contrast, "Freelancer’s" visuals are like watching a brick float around a bucket of custard. But, needless to say, X² isn’t for everyone – but if it’s immersive liberty rather than fast thrills you’re after, it offers an almost incomparably satisfying experience, just so long as the really bad stuff doesn’t stop you from putting the hours in.

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IGN

What still stands out is the sluggish flight model that makes it nearly impossible to continuously target and hit an enemy vessel; the corrupted save games (which is supposed to fixed in the patch), and the general slowness of the design that feels like it was designed to pad length.

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Game Chronicles

A bold experiment that ultimately fails under the weight of its own ambition. There is nothing here that hasn’t been done in other games and done better, and while X2 might combine these elements, it fails to improve on any of them.

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Game Informer

With the depth of everything and overall graphical sophistication in X2, it could have been a much better title. [Feb 2004, p.112]

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Gamers Europe

Like its predecessor, X2 is still lacking in cohesion. Its scope has vastly improved and this is a very immersive title, but it doesn’t invite you in. You have to work for its love and get past its many ugly points – just how can you willingly subject a player to those cut scenes?

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Computer Gaming World

A deep game worthy of exploration and discovery - you'll just have to exhibit nigh-infinite patience with its glacially slow build-up and general unfriendliness. [Mar 2004, p.86]

1UP

Please God, afford Egosoft the time needed to rework the game via some sort of expansion, patch or Gold Edition so that I may finally be content with existence. As is, this bizarre flip-flop of "Freelancer" that features no interface or enjoyable action but a ton of diversity and extended appeal just isn't any better than all right.

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Adrenaline Vault

X2 contains a great sandbox adventure complicated by an ignorable single-player story and fiendish menu driven control system.

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GameShark

Fix the damn game up, give me an actual living universe, and a combat system that makes sense, then we'll talk. Until that point, I'm going to blast through "Freespace 2" again and look forward to the online-only rendition of the game series (due out in the distant future) with hesitant anticipation.

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Eurogamer

You're probably looking at a good thirty to forty hours of gameplay before you start to touch on the high-level possibilities of X2.

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Computer Games Magazine

Even a game with outstanding eventual depth needs to give players some evidence early on that rewards will eventually apprear. [Mar 2004, p.69]

Yahoo! Games

Lots of different stars, ships, and aliens may be nice, but there is no excuse for unwieldy controls, a horribly high learning curve and pacing that takes a good dozen hours before things get interesting.

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games(TM)

Even regular space travel proves trying; rescued from the unconvincing hands-on control by an efficient autopilot system, your journeys become a case of merely clicking on where you want to go and fast-forwarding time until you get there. This reduces the game to a dirge of menu surfing and loses all the sense of adventure on which the genre was built. [Feb 2004, p.119]

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eToychest

There are so many details packed into this game that the learning curve is not so much a curve as it is a cliff and more than a little persistence will be required to get anywhere in this game.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this game is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jor L gave it a3:
You have to spend quite some time to get past over the learning curve and a lot more to get to the point where the game really becomes interesting. Just then, your lasts hopes for the game will be crushed by the frequent crashes and the sense of wasted time.

James D gave it a1:
I bought this game to get some use out of my damn joystick. Lets get a few things straight with the people who made this. 1. Having a custom system of time measurement does not add texture, or make it cute, its boundlessly annoying, especially when all measurements of time end in "azura" and theres like eight of them. 2. Unlike shooters, there are more than three things you can do in this game, so the uninformative tutorials (which aren't even incorporated into the main campaign by the way) don't help in the slightest. 3. The targeting system is the least intuitive i have encountered, EVER 4. When mission 1 is "fly for a really long time and then fly back for a really long time with a possibility of getting killed along the way back", have an AUTOSAVE before said possibility of getting killed, so you don't have to fly for a REALLY LONG TIME once more. 5. I don't have anything else to whine about, but i'm certain this is because i couldn't play any more of it without my colon leaping out my mouth and gouging my eyes out, rather than any lack of complaints. In summary, i feel dirty having played this game. If you want to support independent game studios, a quick google will give you a million better games than this one.

Eric B gave it a1:
Hopeless waste of time. Controls are jerky, awkward and non-definable (so you'd better like "up is down" otherwise you're stuffed if you want inverted controls). Didn't give it long enough to assess the gameplay as I didn't get that far. Sat for 10 minutes in the tutorial which, I assumed, would teach you something about the game controls/interface/gameplay before realising that it wasn't actually a tutorial that taught you anything - you apparently have to teach yourself that too, as no helpful messages appear at any point. Even after you manage to get your ship moving and get bored enough to blast away at a space station, there's nothing to tell you whether what you did was right or not, just some 'fed style ships blowing you away to tell you it wasn't. Not so much a tutorial as a waste of time to download it. Bought this as a download bundle with X3, which I'm cancelling. Even though it's a few more pennies lost, I'd rather save the bandwidth.

Okrim S. gave it an8:
Very good, "Elite like" clone.

Emory D. gave it a10:
This is simply one of the best games I have ever played, it does have a learning curve to it but, the game teaches you how to use all the controls. Also, the game has the ability to mod it, you can apply mods that will add alternate story lines or missions along with new ships (such as ships from Star Wars or Star Trek). The game also, along with the story line is extremely open ended game, you can choose to follow all the missions TeraCorp gives to you or you can ignore them, although the game bugs you a bit to get going and continue the missions. But, the game has all of its little quirks (just as all games do) the game is just spectacular.

Peter B. gave it a3:
Here we have a game with an interesting story line, pretty graphics and the most abysmal control scheme since Dr. Derek Smart pinched out the last Battleship game. There is absolutely nothing in this game worth the time it takes to learn how to play it. Avoid at all costs.

Bryan H. gave it a10:
If your into space games that last along time and have great graphics then this is the game for you. Awesome.

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X2: The Threat

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