Face it folks, the space game market just really isn't taking off. The last noteworthy releases were the near-legendary Freespace 2 (anyone who hasn't played it yet is really kicking themselves in the face by missing out), the decent-yet-disappointing Freelancer, and the slightly underrated space-piracy game, Independence War 2: The Edge of Chaos. All great titles, but as far as the present and future goes, there just isn't much for us sci-fi fans to dance about. As much as it should be a crime against humanity, punishable by death for those responsible, Freespace 3 will probably never be released, the Independence War series is now dead in the water, and even Imperium Galactica 3, an incredibly promising strategy title was canned by it's publisher, and was only barely salvaged by a third party. Yup, we had Homeworld 2, which made its mark on the gaming industry fairly recently, but that's it - we don't even know for sure if there will be a third to the series or not yet. What else do us hardcore space game fans, scattered and bruised by corporate idiocy and an incredible run of bad luck have to look forward to besides third party releases like Starshatter and Babylon 5: I've Found Her? No offense to the authors of these fine projects, of course (both of which I enjoy the tasty prospect of playing) - I just want my Freespace 3, dammit.

Electing to jump out in the face of disappointments and cancellations to yell "Me too! Me too!" is development company Enlight (along with their buddies at Egosoft) with a new title intended to help keep the space game genre going for a little while longer. Presenting effectively the third game in a long-running series, X2: The Threat is an intergalactic trading game, with some combat and story thrown in for good measure. And when I say "thrown in", I'm not speaking figuratively, as you'll learn by reading on. First, some background. Several years ago heralded the release of a revolutionary title called "X: Beyond the Frontier". It essentially tossed the player into a (somewhat) hostile and unknown universe when an accident sends his jump-capable ship spiraling to some far-flung edge of the galaxy. His vessel crippled, the player encounters a race of greedy profit-hunters (essentially similar to the Ferengi, except they look like lizards) who offer to fix up his ship, give him some starting dough (which later must be returned, of course), and then send him off to go make money and start a burgeoning empire. The game's attraction was its completely open-ended gameplay, as well as the ability to amass great fleets of ships and stations - provided the player had enough money, of course, which had to be built up through trading. It was a cool game for its time, but was marred by a few flaws, including some occasional bugs, the inability for players to get out of his own ship, and the clumsiness of the interface which prevented players from tracking assets reliably from out-of-sector (from what I recall anyways). A little while later, the company released a second product called "X-Tension". Much as the name implies, this was an expansion on the original title which unlocked all sorts of new functionality for the game. No storyline (including the ability to use different ships) this time around - the player was simply set loose in the universe to do whatever he wanted, even if that eventually met wiping out all his neighbors and exterminating entire races. A cool title, which was eventually patched to include even more additions (such as the ability to purchase and use certain capital ships in a limited manner), but even this succumbed to numerous limitations and issues.

X2: The Threat is the newest title off the assembly line, and boasts a boatload of new inclusions to the series. I'd almost dare say that the development team was taking an entirely new approach when making this game, but as I played on more and more, it became apparent that there were just as many new features as there were old ones (though this ratio may lean a bit heavier towards the latter than I let on). Probably the most notable inclusion is that the game tries to have a somewhat decent plot this time, rather than something half-arsed that barely holds the player's interest. Let's dive into the story and see how the game holds up, shall we?

The game opens up with the player (one "Julian") and his buddy, Bret, attempting to steal a ship from a station belonging to one of the game's major (and only human) races, the "Argon". The duo successfully break in and try to escape the responding security forces, but they are quickly disabled and surrounded. Fast forward a bit in time, where Julian is being transferred to a prison facility on a transport ship. The vessel is intercepted by an Argon Carrier, where Julian meets one of the Argon's prominent leaders, "Ban Danna". He's offered the choice of either getting a basic ship and carrying out jobs for the Argon (specifically, "Terra Corp", one of the largest businesses in that quadrant), or heading back off to rot in jail. Take a guess at which option Julian chooses. As for the reason why Ban Danna is offering a convicted criminal a job roaming free in the galaxy with an armed ship and no kind of legal restraint? You got me, but players will have to play the game for themselves to learn more from the storyline. Suffice to say, Julian is given a junky "Discoverer" type vessel, a basic job running some supplies to a distant facility over in the next sector, and starts off on his big exciting quest in the X universe.

Before delving on further, I'd like to state my first major complaint about the game (and it's an incredibly common one that just about everyone shares). The cutscenes are, quite easily, the worst I've ever seen for nearly any modern game in existence (at least, any title deemed worthy my attention). The aforementioned cutscenes are, in fact, a somewhat new addition to the game series, as the dialogue-driven ones actually take place inside of ships and stations and have visible characters interacting with one another. While this effect was refreshing in doing away with the whole "universe feels dead" feeling the previous games in the series offered, it only helped somewhat due to the poor presentation. The actors themselves are terribly detailed, the camera direction is atrocious (there were so much panning and spontaneous cuts that I sometimes felt nausea), and the animation is definitely sub-par. I kept peering closely at my monitor trying to look for the invisible strings powering these supposed marionettes chatting with my character - it was just that bad. On top of that, the conversations didn't match up with their subtitles, not only due to spelling errors or word differences, but because they sometimes went completely out of sync. Who beta tested this thing?

With that off my chest, let's dive into gameplay. I've already mentioned Julian's reason for being there (kinda, the plot doesn't really delve into the character's history much or give me reason to give a damn what kind of person he is), but the game itself has a completely non-linear approach, and the player is free to do what he wants and advance the plot completely at his own pace. The entire galaxy is free for him to explore, but in order to actually make a difference and stance a chance out there, money is required. Just like the X2's predecessors, the primary focus is on making money. What are the best ways to do this? That's up to the player's intellect, wits, and luck, but there are many tools to assist in this endeavor. Probably the most straightforward way to do this is the process of trading commodities. Settle on a product, research the best price on it, dock to a station (cool note: docking with a station is now a little more involved, as players can actually fly around inside and search for a parking stall, or just hit ESC to skip the whole process), fill one's cargo hold with the sweet, sweet goods, and then launch again in search of a buyer. Deceptively simple, yet also time consuming and tedious, especially without the proper equipment. Since the Discoverer the player starts out with is a scouting vessel with a very high speed but dinky cargo capacity, the first order of business is usually to obtain a freighter (the change to cargo in X2 also makes this a necessity, as products now have a "size" rating - tiny scout ships can't hold XL-rated (extra large) cargo, for example), which can hold huge amounts of cargo, obviously meaning more potential for profit. Making enough money to buy one can be tricky (and is also a little unnecessary, as the game gives a dinged-up Mercury-class freighter after a couple of plot missions are done), but fully equipping one to be decent can also be a real challenge.

Let me veer off a little here to discuss ship specifics. The X2 universe contains many ships, all falling under pre-set classifications. M0-M2 equate to capital ships (higher numbers indicate stronger vessels, though capital ships have specialties - a Destroyer might be better for combat, but a Carrier can obviously hold many fighters), M3-M5 indicate fighters, and a new "M6" designation is for the Corvette class of medium vessels which were added to X2 (Corvettes are nice, speedy assault craft that usually contain a single main weapon, a couple of defensive turrets, uber shielding, and have the ability to carry a single M5-class scout vessel). "TS" indicates a "transporter" (don't get excited, it's just another way of saying "freighter"), while "TP", another new class to X2, indicates a personnel transport used for carrying people (though I prefer to just employ them as speedy freighters for light cargo runs). Finally, "TL" class vessels are used for holding insane amounts of cargo - including entire station packages (TLs must be used for the player to build new stations, and he can either buy one himself if he's filthy rich or hire one patrolling a given race's home sector). Anyways, once a player has settled on a ship to purchase and has somehow built up enough cash to obtain it, he's then tasked with the fun job of kitting it out. Ships all come with a stock level of equipment, but these items are usually junky and won't hold a candle in a fight. Not only must shields and weapons be taken into consideration, but there are numerous sub-upgrades to also purchase, including increases to maneuverability, top speed, and cargo capacity, to cite a few examples. The exception to this rule is that shipyards (the primary places to buy vessels - each unique race has at least one in their home sector) sometimes have "M" and "L" variants of ships in stock, which can be purchased for an additional fee. These variants have better equipment installed on the craft right from the get-go, saving the player the hassle of having to find a separate station selling the goods he wants ("L" variants generally include the best possible equipment a ship can carry). The downside is that this doesn't necessarily cover the sub-upgrades I mentioned, and the only ships that stock variants are shipyards. So when it comes time to purchase that colossal Argon Titan you've had your eye on (hahaha, yeah, right, like you'll ever have that much money in this game), you won't have a chance to dance and party, as the mammoth vessel will be given to you with a single crappy shield generator and no weapons. Have fun spending the next three hours desperately flying around the galaxy trying to find the equipment you need to turn that capital ship from a gigantic floating target into a death wagon.

There are some new elements to ship-purchasing and equipping in X2 I want to mention before getting back to the whole "making money" thing. Rather than just piling everything into the standard aforementioned shipyards all races have, the developers have added a new station type; identified as a "Wharf" or a "Showroom" (each race varies their name on this station type). This station is used to purchase the new types of vessels available in the game (the Corvette and Transporter vessels, specifically, though they sometimes hold others). Also, as I mentioned vaguely above, shipyards can now be used to grant players full access to all of a given race's available capital ships, but the insane cost required prohibits anyone from buying them until they've pretty much mastered all the underlying elements to the game beforehand (and then there's the equipment issue I mentioned above). Another new addition is the ability to kit out multiple ships at once. Normally, when buying a vessel, the player is delivered to a dialogue where he can check the existing stores in a nearby equipment dock and order extra equipment to be kitted out on his ships (such as guns and upgrades) before taking them out for the first time. Originally this required several visits to the screen, as only one ship could be set up at a time, but a new interface change allows for all the ships purchased in a single order to be equipped at once (buying this equipment will tally up the cost for all ships, so no freebies). Incredibly convenient, but a shame it wasn't expanded on further. Aside from those items, however, everything's pretty much the same as it's always been for the series.

Trading commodities is one thing, but the real profit comes when players start their own business. Setting up a station doesn't involve any ridiculous expenses or massive paperwork - instead, it's as simple as hiring a TL-class transport vessel, ordering it to dock at a given shipyard, then going to said shipyard and purchasing a station. Following that, all that needs to be done is to fly out to the sector where the station is to be set up with the TL and ordering it to begin construction. Voila! Of course, actually running the station and turning a profit is a bit more complicated. Different stations churn out different products (and also have different requirements), but the best one to start off with is generally the venerable Solar Power Plant. As nearly every station has a need for the Energy Cells it produces, one can buy low (Crystals, required to produce the Energy Cells) and sell high to turn out some easy cash over time. Players can either handle the purchasing and selling of goods for their station on their own, or configure it with a few pre-set variables (such as if the station is open to NPCs for trading, or how far freighters will go to try and purchase/sell goods), and then purchase a couple of freighters to automatically handle the logistics. This process is fairly straightforward (and is covered in one of the tutorials the game ships with to introduce new players - another nice addition), though money must be allocated to the station from the player's account in order to get the goods flowing. You can't buy something for nothing in the X universe.