X - Beyond The Frontier

Title: X - Beyond The Frontier
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: July 1, 1999
Date Played: March-April 2012
Time Played: 81 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:

Logo I Used For My Corporation

I have acquired the whole X series while it was on sale on Steam over Christmas 2009; however I did not sit down to play it until spring 2012.

In March 2012, I got bored of SWTOR, and got a burning itch to give EVE Online another go. It has been years since my 2009 dabbling with EVE, and I was curious to see how it evolved. Then I saw that I had the entire X series sitting in my Steam library, and remembered that someone told me that it was basically single player Eve Online. Awesome! Perhaps I could scratch the EVE itch without paying a monthly fee and taking things at my own pace, and best of all (also the worst thing) is that there will be an end to it. It will not go on forever like an MMO does. It will have goals that I can actually accomplish and prepare myself for EVE. And so I installed the 344MB X-Beyond the Frontier. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The game has a very interesting premise akin to the Matrix and Battlestar Galactica. After a brief tutorial you end up in an unknown galaxy with a broken ship and near death. A Teladi spaceship comes to your rescue and repairs your shields as well as uploads some information about the universe to your on-board computer. For this help you owe him 3500 credits.  This is where the game really starts, you are free to go anywhere and do whatever you want, you have only two goals. To pay out the 3500 credit loan, and find your way back to Earth.

Docking at Teladianium Factory

XBTF does not hold your hand, it drops you into the cold and harsh space, in the middle of nowhere and leaves the rest up to you to figure out. You can screw everyone and become a pirate, or start a war, or you can just follow the plot like I did. The progress of events for me went something like this. For the first 5 hours or so I explored the Seizewell (where you start) sector and made small trades taking flowers to oil refineries, and then oil to manufacturing plants, amassing capital little by little in order to be able to afford my own space stations. Then I spent hours 5 through 20 building ore and silicon mines, power station and several factories, hauling their supplies and getting their production going so that I can focus on exploration and domination while they earn the money needed for my ship upgrades.

Once I upgraded my ship's shields and weapon I spent several dozen hours exploring other sectors and expanding the reach of my corporation by building space stations in the "capital" sectors of the other races. Most of my stations (around 11) were located in Seizewell, I only built a few in the other Shipyard sectors. By the time I would make my way back to Seizewell from exploration missions I would have several million credits from my factories waiting for me.

Sector Map and My Exploration Route
(click to zoom)

The actual plot of the game is fairly short and simple. If broken down into short quests it would consist of less than 10 parts however to even start on the plot you need to have some decent upgrades and cash flow, which takes dozens of hours. I finished the game at 81 hour mark, which actually would have taken me 112 hours were I not to use SETA (a device that speeds up travel, and time 10 times). The ending was a bit disappointing, it was not very epic, there was no ending screen, there was no triumphant music or cinematics, in fact there was no credits. The game ended yet nothing really changed. It just keeps going... You can keep going to infinity, trading, and expanding your empire. You could start a war with one of the factions, or wipe everyone out. You could even say that the plot is there to give you at least some sort of guidance while you are learning the mechanics, and once you finish the plot that is when the game actually starts. If this was 1999 I would probably keep playing XBTF; however with 5 more in depth and more polished games already out, there is no reason for me to keep playing it beyond the 81 hours I have alreayd put into it. I will hold on to my saves, and perhaps revisit XBTF universe once in a while. My sights are now on X-Tension, the sequel released in the summer 2000.

Teladi

I do have  a few criticisms about XBTF. The keyboard mappings are pretty bad, and you are unable to remap anything. Mouse compatibility seems to be a little whack, and so I was forced to steer with the arrow keys on the keyboard. It actually ended up being not so bad, but Id love to be able to remap the keys. The plot is a little loose, and the voice acting is absolutely atrocious, not only is it hard to understand what is being said through a terrible audio filter Egosoft (developer) used, there is no option for subtitles, and any action will interrupt the audio with no way to replay it. So for example at the very end when you defeat the mothership, the guys that were helping you start talking to you, but their speech gets interrupted 1 second in because the on-board computer says something about a missile. I will never know what those guys wanted to say. The graphics are actually pretty good, although they could have done a better job with the seams and added more planet variety, I swear I saw the same Earth looking blue/cloudy planet in at least 10 different sectors. AI leaves a lot to be desired, instead of engaging into a decent dogfight they simply ram your ship, and at that point whoever has more shields wins.

Overall I really enjoyed X-Beyond the Frontier, although only covering one aspect of EVE Online (trading) and lightly brushing combat it did manage to scratch the itch. Although I still want to jump into EVE,  and probably will. XBTF was a lot more fun than I thought it would be, and I am looking forward to playing the sequel.

My Finishing Stats
(click to zoom)