X: Beyond the Frontier and space trading

              Reviewed by Andrew Wielochowski

"Braben has met his match". Having read Julian Gregory's review
last issue of Frontier Elite II, I realised I couldn't leave it at
that and must highly recommended X: Beyond the Frontier to
everyone, in particular those adoring space trading sims.

The last Frontier edition was Frontier First Encounters. Taking
off from Elite II, it had improved graphics, more in the way of
good missions and had secret built in missions but in the
wholeness of truth it was the buggiest piece of crap Braben could
have released. However undeniably it was one of his greatest
works, much better than the overrated original Elite, which
judging by the high commendations I doubt anyone played. :)

After than space trading sims went into a kinda downward spiral.
LucasArts, I believe, still pumped out their poor Wing Commander
series and deep in the depths of Gametek Battlecruiser was being
invented, a space trading system destined to stir hype with the
saucy advert and then to drop like a stone ... a failure. Then
enter Privateer 2: The Darkening, flanked with FMV and graphics it
also had the space combat and trading atmosphere of FE2 and FFE,
but never had the same feel: trading and buy and selling involved
hiring a cargoship and basically it was good, but not good enough
and again nothing yet equalled Braben's Elite series. Now enter a
couple of minor take offs like Hardwar ... all flung to the ground
again ...

And the space trading scene went into a decline and nothing was
produced!!!!!

Until the release of X: Beyond the Frontier in 1999 (I think). X:
Beyond the Frontier is gobsmacking in terms of graphics and the
sheer wonder of the plot and the entire X universe. Unlike FFE and
FE2 the galaxy isn't made of hundreds and hundreds of star
systems, but this is no let down. Traversing the length and
breadth of the X universe is not done by picking your location
then hyperspace jumping to them, instead it is done by the use of
jump gates which take you the next star system to west or
whatever.  This is good and quite effective, for the plot and
style of the game as well as for the fact that there are fewer
star systems than in FE2, FFE.

Also what is a big relief with travelling is that the X: BTF ships
don't require any fuel of any sort. There is no explanation for
this, but I suppose it's feasible ... you don't really think about
this much though because the game becomes so absorbing. You begin
doing a little test flight and then horror happens and you find
yourself plunged into a different location with a large destroyer
in full view, sounds a bit like Farscape. And you discover your
shields, lasers have all vanished and you're about to explode,
thank god you are in the Teladi system.

They give you some shields and update your computer and give you a
small number of credits to begin trading with. The catch is you
owe them 3000 credits once you start making cash, but - hey, they
saved your life. From here it all becomes very familiar.  Each
system has a trading port, but also they may have a variety of
other factories and plants, you can visit the plants and buy their
produce or sell them produce and then just trade like you would in
any space trading sims.

The difference is you can fly around all these buildings in space.
And you cannot land on planets but the gaming is so absorbing.
The main draw back is you have to buy the time compression
equipment meaning that travelling long distances can be very slow
at first. Another major fact with X is that trading doesn't stop
at the checkout, before too long you can hire a transporter and
purchase your own factory or building and then get it dropped off
somewhere, then you can manage it for the making of greater
profit. I suggest you buy your first power plant in the Seizewell
sector (where you start off) this will bring in the cash.

Soon you'll be equipping yourself with shields, lasers and defence
and bounty hunting comes into play and the need to trade and own
power plants is more important. Like in Elite (all the series) you
have ranks ... Well, you do in X but you have ranking for 5
different races, as and when you discover them ... ranking goes up
by destroying pirates and the lethal Xenon ships in their sectors
as well as trading with them ... which is why you're destined to
become very popular with the Teladi very quickly, because you
start all your trading there.

Off course while things can be built things can be destroyed and
it is quite possible once you have the fire power to wipe out
every building in a whole sector ... although then everyone in
that sector would be after you and you wouldn't be very friendly
with them.  I'm friends with all and I target Xenon ... the Xenon
are worth so much from bounty hunting and fly in small clusters,
that once you have the fire power and the shields it isn't worth
picking on the pirate ships, and I concentrate on the Xenon which
means I pick up about 2000 credits for each fleet I wipe out. They
haven't killed me yet :) well, at least not those fleets in good
sectors .. the Xenon sectors are a different matter.

Of course while all this plain old trading and battling is taking
place a plot and missions are waiting to be discovered. It isn't
easy to discover them, but once you've got past the obstacle and
found something in some asteroids it all becomes clearer ... a
good thing is that there is no pressure on you to do the missions
and it can be done in your own time. Also you can hire ships from
your factories to come and defend and fly with you or just defend
the base. Unfortunately in X you cannot fly different ships ...
but the upcoming expansion pack called X-tension will allow more
ships to be bought and flown, more smaller message board type
missions and more on the big mission. It will be available as a
data disc or a stand alone.

Quite frankly X is brilliant, it has the graphics, the wonders of
space flight, with soft and atmosphere setting music. Another
feature is that the cock pit of your ships changes colour
depending on the colour of the suns or the clouds in the sector
you're in. Although travelling is slow at first it soon speeds up
... it is really brilliant and the X-tension pack should greatly
add to this with the ability to fly more ships. If Elite 4 is
still in being developed, they'll find it very hard to compete to
the standard of X.

  !!!!!!!!!!!!I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Name: X: Beyond the Frontier
Price: œ19.99
Developer and distributor: EGOSOFT and THQ
Websites to visit: www.egosoft.com
www.beyondthefrontier.com












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