X: Tension Reviews

Horrible controls and same problems as X-BTF. Can be interesting only for nostalgia.

Excellent follow-up to the first game. However, this is more of a game for fans of Egosoft's X-series. For newbies, I recommend looking at X2, or one of the X3 titles. With that being said, this is WAY more accessible than the first game, with an enormous number of useful features being added. This game is very light on plot, so some players may pass it over if they prefer a more story-driven game. There is exactly one plotline, which is unlocked fairly late (you need good relations with the Paranid) and which is quite difficult, so you will want to take your time and expand your resources before starting it. There are some annoyances. Viewing sectors that you are not in REQUIRES a navsat in that sector. This also goes for using the jumpdrive and ordering ships. If you are not in the sector and do not have a navsat there, then you CANNOT jump to that sector or give orders to your ships and stations there. People coming from X2 or newer games will probably find this very irritating. There are also some other details, like a lack of sell orders for trade ships, for example. In general, the complexity is higher than the first game but still much lower than X2. This game is complete enough that you might play for some time after finishing the plot, but due to the aforementioned annoyances and lower quality compared to later games you probably would not make this your mainstay as an X-series fan. The first game in the series to really nail the 'I could just keep playing this for hundreds of hours' feeling is X2: The Threat. In my opinion. Compatibility-wise it suffers from similar issues to the first game. Compatibility with versions of Windows newer than 7 is flaky at best. Linux users may have an easier time as the game works on Proton Experimental as of September 2024. However, while the game is more stable than the first on Proton, intermittent crashes are still a problem. And NPC portraits are still broken. GE-Proton9-11 made the game more stable and fixed the portrait issues. Lutris' Wine-GE also works and was more stable than GE-Proton in my experience. Pretty good considering its age. Definitely one of my least played X games though. I jumped from the original straight to X2 so I had barely touched this until recently when I finally got around to finishing it.