Is it really twenty years since X-BTF was released? Crikey!

@cody

Yes it's really that old! 😀

And the graphics have not aged that well either, but then I've never bothered that much about graphics. It's all down to the gameplay, that's what matters.

Posted by: @geraldine

I've never bothered that much about graphics. It's all down to the gameplay, that's what matters.

The graphics were often praised, but the gameplay was not.

That refers to Darkstar One. I rather liked the ship, but the game itself was garbage!

@cody

I am not seeing who you quoted there Cody, maybe their post is awaiting authorisation. But what they said is fair enough with regards to X BTF when compared to other games that were around then, especially the Elite series. However, to get anything out of it, it has to be played on it's on terms and at it's own pace, it's only now I realise that. Comparing it to other games, usually is a bad thing to do with it. This is why it's my 6th attempt at a playthrough. It's only now, in my autumn years, that slow pace it has starts to make sense.

As for Darkstar One, yes that was a game that promised alot but fell well short. However, there was an unofficial patch that improved things a bit and made it actually far more enjoyable. I did complete that one. Although the closest game to it at the time was Tachyon The Fringe and that romped all over it. Loved that game and it totally deserved a sequel or a re-master at least.

The quote referring to Darkstar One is from Wikipedia. Not always a reliable source, but it's spot-on there. As for X-BTF, I played that (straight out of the box) through a few times. It had something about it, but not enough to lead me into the sequels.

@cody

Ah! I see, sorry for the confusion! If you see X2 going cheap or even free someplace, think about giving it a go tho as it's the closest Egosoft came to making a game like Elite in my view. X4 seems to be following more in it's footsteps too.

Oh! And if you, or anyone else out there wants to try X2, do look up the High Definition mod for it over on Mod DB.

I have owned all of the X games for many years now (except x4) and I have never completed a one of them, I have tried but lost interest... maybe its my age hahaha I should make it a point to try playing XBTF and all of the others. I know there is mods for all of these that help the games out and in some instances change them visually as well.

I never completed Darkstar One, but I did play Tachyon the Fringe a few times and its a great game (just noticed its on steam). There was a conversion mod being worked on I am not sure if it ever was completed ( http://www.fringespace.org).  

The long winter months are coming maybe I should try to play some of these Egosoft games.... 😉 and write a small review, cannot make any promises.

@sscadmin

Another thing I remembered about X2 was it works much better using Joy To Key to remap some of the controls. This could be handy too for X BTF.

I'm going for XRebirth now, not a fan fav but it the only X game that I have spent some time playing. Never got that far into it despite spending a good fifty plus hours playing it, due to having to restart the game every time they patched it.  

@pinback

That is a much better game than it started out as Pinback. Rebirth is certainly worth a playthrough and looks simply stunning in places but I am determined now to do the series in order and for me, that means starting at the beginning all over again. It's gonna take YEARS basically! 😮 

Just a wee update. 🙂 

Set up a bunch of factories and have established a decent cash flow now for upgrades. The ship is now well equipped but could do with more engine tuning. Also did a little of the plot progression and the next thing is going to see the Goners with a video disk I found. This was a real hunt for this thing by the way, I nearly gave up but found the right asteroid it was hidden in finally. This is now officially the furthest I've ever gone in the game.

I hope to start XBTF near thanksgiving time gives me a few more weekends to complete a game or two. I will look for some mods as well for XBTF to see if I can spruce up the 20yro game 😉 Haha least you made a factory, I never got that far to make a factory of any type in any X games so you can tell how far I got before loosing interest 😲 

@sscadmin

If you turn up any mods for X BTF let me know here would you D1? I couldn't find any.

As for me, trying to gather a strike force for the final battle with the Xenon. Sounds easy enough but it isn't. The factions won't help until you have a great reputation with them all. So working on that now.

Was not X-Tension some sort of mod of X BTF or it might have been a sequel, can't remember off hand with out digging it out. 

@pinback

No Pinback. Extension was a standalone game in it's own right sitting between X BTF and X2. Think of it as Homeworld Cataclysm is to the rest of the series. It tells the story of what happened after the events of the first game. Also it made some much needed improvements to the game itself too.

I forgot to update this..... I tried to play XBTF... yes I could get it to run on Windows 10 with my setup, but I would have to play this in a small window on my setup my ultra wide monitor is a struggling point for this game and I will probably skip it and move to X2. I did look online for mods or fixes for ultrawide screen setups and I couldn't find one that worked well enough to make it playable. Maybe I shouldn't have waited like 20yrs to play it 🙂 haha

Probably would not work with Steam big picture mode on a monitor, but I wonder if it would work on a TV.