But I recently found X3 R again in my old games box and thought I'd make a concerted effort this time. So patched it up and went through the laughable opening sequence (power of the khaak? You're kidding right? You know that what it sounded like?), the puzzling 'down on the planet shooter sequence' (even though it seems you can't make planetfall in the game proper) and then spent hours making milkruns in the Argon system as I wanted to play as a trader. Don't blame me - this is the first X game I've played and I'm not up on the all the details.
Anyway, I thought I was doing well enough so I bought missiles and upgraded my engines and shield. Then I went to Farnham's Legend. And each time, I kept on getting owned by the fighters. I'd get close to the pirate station, the b*tch who was supposedly helping me would give me some co-ordinates, the finicky interface would come up, (yeah I really want to be working with a point and click interface in the middle of a firefight) I'd select and hit Sift-J, and 'insufficient energy'. What? Followed by death. Wonderful - and of course, it's my fault no doubt.
Ok - I need to get a better ship. I look for advice. The best advice is 'sell your lasers'. Well of course, get given a ship and then sell its offensive weaponry to get ahead. That makes perfect sense. I do it though and it nets me more credits than all my milkruns X 20. Sigh.
I'm still commited though, so I do a few more milkruns and make enough to sell my old ship.
Now I just want to sell my old ship and buy a new one. And if you visit a car lot with a similar idea, chances are you can drive in, sign some papers and drive out in a new car. Not In X3 R though. At one point I'm back out in space while my old ship is still docked at the shipyard when I just wanted to sell it and buy a new one, undock. Why can't I do that? At that point I gave up.
So then I read X3 Terran Conflict improves the interface considerably. Aha! I'm still not ready to give up on the X3 universe. So I lay down the money. I'm determined to get into the X3 universe because I know there is a deep game behind all this irritation.
So I install and choose the trader option. Aniticipation's high. There's some obvious changes to the interface. It's looking good. Then the tutor asks me to destroy a few crates with my lasers. Turns out my ship doesn't have lasers. You're kidding. Seriously - is this true?
