Genre: Simulation
Publisher: Enlight
Developer: Egosoft
Release Date: Q4 2005

Space is mind-boggling in size and scope, yet few titles realistically manage to create that feeling of vastness. The sheer size of the universe can serve to make even the most bloated ego feel insignificant, but rarely has there been an attempt to truly recreate that experience. Thankfully, Egosoft has made great strides in this area by bringing us games such as X2: The Threat, a space combat, economic simulator, and empire building title that truly defined freeform gameplay. There was a story, sure, but you didn't have to see it through. If you wanted to go merrily on your way, capturing ships, building stations, and trading goods without even giving a second thought to the storyline, you had that option.

With X3: Reunion, Egosoft seems to have actually visited the future and traveled through space in their latest quest for the ultimate space simulation. It's the closest you'll come to actually feeling like you're traveling through a limitless universe while sitting in front of your computer.

While X3 started out as an expansion to the acclaimed but flawed X2: The Threat, it grew into a new game out of necessity. Somewhere along the line, the developers must've figured that they had ideas so grand that they couldn't simply tack it on in an expansion. Thankfully, it gave them the opportunity to improve and upgrade many areas from X2 that desperately needed tweaking.

Certainly, one of the most important issues to resolve was the interface and menuing systems. In the last game, the menus were somewhat complex to navigate and felt overwhelming to many who just wanted to manage their fleets and trade empires without too much fuss. In X3, the menus are much improved, with graphical displays that can be scrolled through with the arrow keys so you always know exactly what you're getting yourself into. There are still elements of the old interface in place, but those screens display critical information and couldn't really be improved anyway.

Egosoft has also added many new options for new and old players alike, depending on how they like to play the game. If you liked the old way of playing, you can jump into the story and build yourself up as in X2. For those who are a bit impatient, there's also an option to jump into the story with considerably more credits and another ship to help you jumpstart your career. In these two choices, you still play out the game as Julian, the main character from X2, but perhaps the most interesting new additions are the options to play the title without the story activated at all. Choosing an explorer, a trader, or an assassin, you're simply thrown into the universe to fend for yourself, with no kooky guys named after headgear to nag you. There truly is something for every X fan in this title.

The graphics in X3 have been greatly improved as well, but in the preview build, there were still some textures and other graphics that I recognized from X2. Additionally, it seems that some of the nicer graphical aspects that you've seen in screenshots were missing. Nonetheless, there were still enough new elements intact to excite the eye-candy lover, and perhaps the most striking of these were the planets. The sector Cloudbase South West, for example, had a gigantic planet that loomed ominously close to everything in the sector. By stopping my ship, I could see the planet slowly rotate below, the atmosphere hovering over the lit cities, and it was truly an awesome sight to behold. Of course, I had to try to fly my Argon Buster closer for a better view, and after being warned that I was entering the atmosphere, my ship burned up and exploded.

New gameplay elements are evident, but I didn't get to try out some of them simply because they were missing from the preview build. A bartering option was available when docked at a station, for example. The types of ships and factories in any given sector were not always ones that were present in X2. Upon entering the sector Red Light, I came across some Pirates battling some traders, and was surprised to see that one of them was flying a Split ship! It seems that the pirates aren't limited to their faction ships this time around, which should make things more interesting than they were in the previous iteration. The universe also seems to be livelier, with patrol groups flying together and passenger liners cruising along.

Combat and piloting got a tweak as well, and it became a bit easier to maneuver when in combat. I got into a fight with some Khaak ships and was able to hold my own a lot better than I would've been able to piloting a similar ship in the previous game. It seems that a slower strafing thruster was implemented, allowing you to move out of the way of oncoming ships but not at the unfair rate of speed you could in the previous title. You can get behind an enemy and sit on his six until he's dead a lot more easily than you could in X2, and I wasn't rammed once in all of my combat experiences. Of course, speed is still a great advantage, and my pitifully slow Buster couldn't hope to compete in a race against the fast Khaak scouts.

Unfortunately, my experience wasn't entirely flawless, but I blame it mostly on the fact that this is a beta build. There were several undefined menuing items, objects, and missing models and textures on ships, and even a relatively empty sector caused jumpiness and stuttering on my system. Sound was also another area where nothing seemed to be changed; all of the tunes I heard were present in the previous installment, and sound effects were also familiar. I'm sure these are issues that will be resolved before the title releases because Egosoft has always been on top of their game when it comes to fixing what's wrong in all of their titles.

From what I've seen so far, X3: Reunion will be the penultimate space experience. Beautiful graphics, open-ended gameplay, an intriguing story, and options galore form the core of what should be Egosoft's best game yet. It's obvious they've put a lot of work into this, and when it finally releases, it's definitely going to be bigger and better.