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Following X: Beyond the Frontier, its expansion pack X-Tension and the sequel X2: The Threat game titles, Egosoft launched another sequel, X3: Reunion. The game takes place in the same X universe, but in a different time, with a different story behind it.

The history, in chronological order

The first one, X: Beyond the Frontier is set approximately a thousand years into the future, in which the player takes the role of Kyle Brennan, a test pilot for the X-Shuttle. The shuttle has the ability to jump from one part of space to another via a wormhole.

Something goes wrong, however, and Brennan ends up in a strange part of space, many light-years from Earth. He soon encounters some aliens, the Teladi, who are fanatical capitalists who are interested in nothing except making a profit.

Seeing the helpless Kyle as a potential investment, they offer him a loan of some money and give him some hints on trading in the X Universe and amongst its various alien races. Although it is referred to as the "X Universe", it is actually the same Universe in which the Earth is set, although hundreds of light-years from the Solar System.

Although the player has a great deal of freedom in where to go or what to do, there is a background story involving descendents of humans who were lost hundreds of years ago in a war with rogue terraformers. X-Tension, although referred to as an expansion pack, it is, to all intents and purposes, a sequel.

The first, X-Tension takes place after the story in X: BtF has been concluded and Kyle Brennan, who the player once again takes control of, decides that, if he is stuck in the X Universe with no ability to get back to Earth, he might as well make the most of things and become an adventurer. There is no back story in X-Tension, it is purely open-ended, with the same mix of trading, fighting and building factories.

As well as updating the graphics and adding a new musical score, X-Tension addressed many of the criticisms of the original. The player’s craft was pre-equipped with weapons and a time-accelerator, and furthermore it is possible to fly different spaceships and even go for a space walk in spacesuit. The X Universe was expanded, with a total of ninety systems to explore, and even the ones that appeared in the original game look significantly different thanks to the new graphics.

One criticism shared by both games were the very basic manuals, and though some players no doubt enjoyed having to figure out to progress through the game by themselves, many gamers and reviewers did find it frustrating that they were left largely in the dark at the outset.

As with the originals, the game is a space simulation, whereby the player is set in the X Universe, many light years from Earth. Unlike the expansion pack, X-Tension, X²: The Threat, whilst giving the player a great deal of freedom, has a background story. It involves an alien race known as the Khaak, who have invaded the sector intent on domination.

The player takes control of Julian Gardna, a pirate and thief. Other characters include Ban Danna, an Argon Commander with a close relationship to Julian’s father, Elena Kho who has a high ranking in Terracorp and uses that asset to help Julian and her daughter Saya.

The game features a new graphics engine and a much larger Universe, with 130 space systems and 60 different ships to pilot, along with a great number of missions to complete for various factions and groups.

It was generally well received by critics, with many reviewers praising the graphics and the amount of freedom offered to the player. Common complaints were that X²: The Threat, like its predecessors, was quite slow paced and had a steep learning curve.

The X universe is the setting of the space simulator series X. These games include X: Beyond the Frontier, X: Tension, X2: The Threat and X3: Reunion. The X universe is what the players call the system of sectors which make up the play area. These sectors are connected by jump gates which link semi-permanently to other gates. There is a good chance that the X universe sectors are all contained within the Milky Way Galaxy.

Currently there are around 161 known sectors within the X universe with two more as plot only sectors such as the Sol System. The notable sectors include the newly reconnected Sol System, the Argon Federation home world “Argon Prime”, the Boron Kingdom home world “Kingdom End”, the Teladi Company headquarters “Seizewell”, the Split Dynasty home world “Family Pride” and the Paranid home world “Paranid Prime”.

Sectors are normally based around star systems with inhabitable planets or easily acquired resources. The boundaries of the sectors within the games are vast. The player may travel in one direction until the computer can not process the co-ordinate data anymore. The area where the player will spend the most time is between the gates. The gates are normally arranged in a north, east, south and west pattern.

Many stations are located within this grid. In some of the X-novels such as Farnham’s legend, the distance between the gates has been described as vast, some taking a days travel at very quick velocities. Within the game the ship speeds are more subdued so the gate distances normally range approximately from 60 to 150 Kilo-measurements. Kilo-measurements roughly translates to Kilometers.

Shortly to put it, X3 is yet another sequel of the X series, which not only lets the player follow an interesting story, but it also leaves a lot of freedom to him. He can trade freely, build an empire solely based on trade, or become the most wanted pilot in the X universe and take command of his own armada.

The game has some predefined game modes, like Normal, which includes the storyline at an average difficulty setting, Quickstart, the same but on an easy difficulty. In addition, we can start off as an assassin with a suitable ship, or a trader with some funds and a cargo ship and other modes.

I was surprised to see that the game allowed mouse controls. Not only did this made it a lot less difficult, seeing as I do not have a decent joystick. With the use of the mouse, you can steer your ship left, right, up, down, fire, select next target and many more, depending on how you configure it.

The keyboard is a must in this game, as it allows you to assign a lot of controls like Open Bay Doors, or Jumpdrive, and others. For the beginners, I will start with the basic commands, so I apologize to the advanced that already have played the game and know them.

To increase thrust or decrease it, you can either press "x" to accelerate, or "z" to reduce speed. In addition, if the need comes for a full stop, like the imminent "hug" of an asteroid, you can always press "backspace" and the ship will stop in only a few meters.

To avoid incoming fire or missiles, one can strafe using the "wasd" keys. They are always useful in big fights as you can avoid a lot of fire. Using them, I challenged a Mammoth type destroyer and took half it’s shields down when I stupidly "hugged" a huge asteroid.

I will leave the rest of the key for you to discover. In addition to the classical keyboard and mouse system, we can also use the keyboard, mouse and joystick all at the same time. While we can control the ships pitch, fire and targeting with the joystick, other movements like strafe and other actions with the keyboard, we can also use the mouse to quickly select opponents from our view, or use it to get a more detailed view of the enemy.

While this is a much more exciting mode of play, I fear that humans only have two good hands with which to play, so you can efficiently use only two devices at a time. My best recommendation would be the mouse and keyboard system.

The game is truly unique, every time you start another game. This is due to the fact that you are allowed to take your time regarding the storyline, follow it or just dump it. Another interesting thing is that you will never find the same circumstances every time you start a new game.

Even the prices vary, not to much though, the news on the BBS, or Bulleting Board Service are different, and sometimes, even the general arrangement of the ships is a bit off. In addition, non-story stations vary, if in a game you saw a Solar Collector Plant, in another, you might see a Cahoona Bakery in its place.