So, with X:Rebirth just around the corner *squeeeeeeeee!* I thought it might be interesting to see a few stories people might have of their experiences of the surprisingly stealthy, much underrated, space sim.
Mine is of my first encounter with it, from an era when Gordon Freeman had only just picked up a crowbar for the first time.
At the time I had a fascination with older computers and my darling of the moment was an Amstrad CPC 464. Severely old-school: integrated cassette drive, grey, green, red and blue keys, greenscale screen that also served as the power supply.
My favourite game out of the large box I had bought with it at a car boot/garage sale was a certain vector graphics masterpiece that had no plot, no 'end-game' and only one music track, in which you flew a ship. You bought cargo, traded it for profit and used that profit to buy better weapons, more fuel, more gadgets (oh, how I loved that docking computer). I, of course, refer to the progenitor of the sub-genre, the original: Elite.
At the same time I had come into posession of a demo cd-rom from a long-forgotten PC magazine, given to me by a friend who recommended the Alien versus Predator demo with headphones and no lights (another story, which I will not be telling here). Also on that cd-rom was a demo for a game I had not heard of, but I kind of liked the name.
So I installed it and double-clicked the new icon on my Windows 95 desktop and was regaled with the tale of advancing tech, terraformers and emerging from a new dark age. Then I played through a simple flight controls tutorial before finally diving into the game itself. Six hours later I realised two things:
1 - It was now three am.
2 - I was hopelessly addicted and this was only a demo!
X:Beyond the Frontier and its descendants are still a staple of my game library, and I really can't wait to see what they have done in the time they have taken with the latest release. I recommend this series to any who like games with substance that require effort, and who have the patience to learn how to be competent at such games as Dwarf Fortress. For those veteran traders who have taken the time to read all this and to any who are considering trying one of these for the first time:
"Captain of the Teladi Company sssSpace-Fleet ship Phoenixss wishess you: Good Profit!"
Mine is of my first encounter with it, from an era when Gordon Freeman had only just picked up a crowbar for the first time.
At the time I had a fascination with older computers and my darling of the moment was an Amstrad CPC 464. Severely old-school: integrated cassette drive, grey, green, red and blue keys, greenscale screen that also served as the power supply.
My favourite game out of the large box I had bought with it at a car boot/garage sale was a certain vector graphics masterpiece that had no plot, no 'end-game' and only one music track, in which you flew a ship. You bought cargo, traded it for profit and used that profit to buy better weapons, more fuel, more gadgets (oh, how I loved that docking computer). I, of course, refer to the progenitor of the sub-genre, the original: Elite.
At the same time I had come into posession of a demo cd-rom from a long-forgotten PC magazine, given to me by a friend who recommended the Alien versus Predator demo with headphones and no lights (another story, which I will not be telling here). Also on that cd-rom was a demo for a game I had not heard of, but I kind of liked the name.
So I installed it and double-clicked the new icon on my Windows 95 desktop and was regaled with the tale of advancing tech, terraformers and emerging from a new dark age. Then I played through a simple flight controls tutorial before finally diving into the game itself. Six hours later I realised two things:
1 - It was now three am.
2 - I was hopelessly addicted and this was only a demo!
X:Beyond the Frontier and its descendants are still a staple of my game library, and I really can't wait to see what they have done in the time they have taken with the latest release. I recommend this series to any who like games with substance that require effort, and who have the patience to learn how to be competent at such games as Dwarf Fortress. For those veteran traders who have taken the time to read all this and to any who are considering trying one of these for the first time:
"Captain of the Teladi Company sssSpace-Fleet ship Phoenixss wishess you: Good Profit!"
