First Look: X-Rebirth

In the distant future, the X universe faces a period of profound and irrevocable change. While the universe stumbles towards an uncertain future, countless adventures await as new enemies rise in search of power.

Pros:

• Full 360 pad support straight out of the box.
• Pad works well with the game and all menus are operational via the pad. It uses all the buttons and the in game GUI relies on a press a button down and highlight the option then release.
• Story mode has an ongoing tutorial system so you always know how to do things like docking, fighting etc.
• Average voice acting that is not necessarily bad but then it is amazing either.
• Highways in game allow you to travel around much faster, Slip streaming ships already on the highway allow you to reach faster speeds. Entering and leaving the highway is simple enough and even controlling your ship whilst on thew highway is easy. You cannot cause any serious damage by colliding with ships.
• Environments are huge and detailed. Every station, dock looks different.
• You spend most of your time flying around and exploring new areas whilst exploring the stations on foot in a first person capacity. The flying is responsive and easily accessible. Hovering up and down or even docking is straight forward.
• The game on the whole is a lot more accessible to the new player. The X games carried a tag of being notoriously hard to get into, With new players leaving frustrated or confused or even both. Here everything has almost been arcadified, Meaning less menu options, simple controls and more clear fighting execution.
• Good soundtrack that keeps with the games atmosphere. Music will change depending on in game actions like, highways, fighting etc.
• Hire crew members and seek out new parts for your ship. The story missions will see you scouring the globe for not only parts but also collecting and dropping off materials for people. You will interact with many many NPC’s. The missions are varied and just different enough to keep you engrossed.
• Plenty of video options for you to tinker with.
• Steam trading cards.
• Fast at loading the game upon start up and swapping areas doesnt cause any major loading to be done.
• Freeplay mode for those that want to avoid the story and have a bit of fun or brush up on their skills.

Cons:

• Corrupt saves are a widespread problem.
• NPC characters look wooden, lacking any emotion or even detail. They look so bland and well, lifeless.
• Textures take a while to load, Especially after you leave a highway.
• The game is not fully optimized for the higher end pc with frequent FPS drops and bad stuttering a common issue.
• Bugs and glitches are littered throughout the story with some being so severe that it halts any progression. The more minor bugs being the invisible walls or the poor hit detection whilst shooting.
• The game can lock up or freeze at any point.
• The lands may be vast and look great once loaded, But the whole X series legacy feels somewhat diluted in this iteration. Story mode is limited in the way that after a while all missions feel very much like a point A to point B collection affair.

In Summary, The potential for a decent game is within the game, But the bugs and constant issues stop the game from ever getting out of the starting blocks. Fans of the X series will feel like this game has no place within its legacy. Gone is all the in depth strategic skills and instead replaced with a linear story with very basic space combat. Its a shame as the game has a huge potential to be a great addition. The devs are hard at work at fixing the problems, Evident by the almost daily updates. But with corrupted saves and saves not working with every patch, Gamers are not feeling the point in putting any serious time into it.The modders are on the case though and have released details on how to modify your save so you can miss out notorious story bugs, But that’s all well and good but for a 40 pound game you expect the story to at least work correctly. So as it stands it is entirely up to you if you want to give the game a try.

Note:

We chose to put this piece up as a first look as to review it now would be unfair. The game is in a bad way and needs some work for it to reach its full potential. We will of course re visit the game in a few months to see how things have improved and will of course release a full review.