X Rebirth

 PC
User Score
3.2

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 1310 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 275 out of 1310
  2. Mixed: 111 out of 1310
  3. Negative: 924 out of 1310
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  1. CalUKGR
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    This is a huge disappointment: the game is janked. I have a PC that can comfortably run just about anything, including all the most recent triple-A titles with ease. Rebirth has serious problems keeping frame rates above 20, sometimes dipping well below. Incredibly (as if to add insult to injury), there are NO external camera views this is a baffling omission in a space sim, did theThis is a huge disappointment: the game is janked. I have a PC that can comfortably run just about anything, including all the most recent triple-A titles with ease. Rebirth has serious problems keeping frame rates above 20, sometimes dipping well below. Incredibly (as if to add insult to injury), there are NO external camera views this is a baffling omission in a space sim, did the developers forget or just not bother?

    Absolutely dreadful if the developers are prepared to patch this game it MAY survive this launch debacle, but as things stand there are many, many angry gamers flaming the Steam forum right now and with very good reason.

    Egosoft need to up their game and put in some serious effort to rescue Rebirth from an early death.    … Expand
  2. kotekzot
    Mar 14, 2015
    3
    Despite having been released over a year ago and receiving many patches, the game still severely underperforms on high-end hardware and does not have compelling gameplay. Expect to spend 80% of your play time flying back and forth through transparent space tubes, 10% flying around space stations within 10 meters of the hull to scan information points and giving trade orders to your ships,Despite having been released over a year ago and receiving many patches, the game still severely underperforms on high-end hardware and does not have compelling gameplay. Expect to spend 80% of your play time flying back and forth through transparent space tubes, 10% flying around space stations within 10 meters of the hull to scan information points and giving trade orders to your ships, and the last 10% pew-pewing spaceships with one weapon at a time.

    Here are some of the game's shortcomings:

    * Boring gameplay consisting mostly of flying through space tubes, as if you're playing some sort of public transit passenger simulator rather than a space game.
    * Vastly fewer weapon options with no ability to fire multiple weapons simulatenously.
    * You can only pilot one ship unlike previous games, where you had hundreds of choices in many ship categories, from scouts to carriers to freighters.
    * All objects in space are inexplicably surrounded by protective bubbles that absorb all damage from collisions, making the few precious moments spent outside space tubes even less exciting.
    * A lot of tasks needlessly require the player's presence, such as chauffeuring ship officers from stations to the ships where they are to work.
    * When talking to NPCs, you must wait for them to finish talking before your commands take effect, given the fact that a particular zone may have dozens of NPCs of the same type offering their services, this makes finding specific goods very annoying.
    * You are forced to use a cockpit, wasting 30% of your screen on what is essentially a static model with some flashing lights here and there. A discreet HUD overlaid on an unobstructed view of space would be vastly superior for many players.
    * The draw distance is depressing, with objects conspicuously popping in as you travel inside space tubes.
    * The 4 different sectors are basically palette swaps of each other with a few cosmetic differences (a cracked planet here, some space debris there, etc).
    * The script and voiceovers quite obviously weren't done by native speakers, resulting in strange and immersion-breaking dialogue and pronunciation.
    * Character models and station interiors are very low-quality.
    * The Teladi look like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. This would be funny if it weren't so tragic.
    * Your co-pilot's jumpsuit has an embarrassing boob window that betrays a lack of respect for the playerbase.

    The game does feature a few improvements, however they hardly justify all its shortcomings:

    * Capital ship components can be damaged individually, adding depth to capital ship combat.
    * More piracy options, now you can not only extort and salvage enemy ships, but also hack them to release cargo.
    * Station complexes now exist as superstructures rather than individual stations connected by spaghetti strands.    … Expand
  3. bboydp
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    First off, the graphics are nice when running smoothly, but that is about as far as this game goes on the PC, the voice acting is like a terrible joke, the controls are half-assed, and the UI is disorganized. The game looks like it could be beautiful and the controls could be fixed, but unless that happens, this game is not worth your time or money. This game needs to have an overhaul,First off, the graphics are nice when running smoothly, but that is about as far as this game goes on the PC, the voice acting is like a terrible joke, the controls are half-assed, and the UI is disorganized. The game looks like it could be beautiful and the controls could be fixed, but unless that happens, this game is not worth your time or money. This game needs to have an overhaul, then lets reconsider.… Expand
  4. Mortensus
    Nov 16, 2013
    3
    It's not the perfect game i hoped, at least not right now, but it's good nevertheless.

    I know they will listen to their customers, and i also put faith in the modding community so i can accommodate this game to my personal taste, put so far it's "good". The thing that is bugging me a little is that they insisted very much in the "immersion" but that part, the crew management, walking    It's not the perfect game i hoped, at least not right now, but it's good nevertheless.

    I know they will listen to their customers, and i also put faith in the modding community so i can accommodate this game to my personal taste, put so far it's "good".

    The thing that is bugging me a little is that they insisted very much in the "immersion" but that part, the crew management, walking in the stations, talking with pnj, that part was really poorly executed boring for me, way too repetitive, and the voice actor...

    The flying part is very enjoyable.

    I can't recommend to buy this game full price if you are not a "fan", but i don't feel robbed so far because after some hours, i know i have only scratched the surface.    … Expand
  5. TheAtomicOption
    Dec 29, 2013
    3
    This game has some incredibly fun moments that are absolutely ruined by the ridiculous number of bugs, terrible UI, and lack of information about how the UI works.

    This game has some moments that reminded me of the great classic Freelancer. The graphics are decent. You can trade stuff between zones to make money. You use highways and gates and it takes time to get around which makes    This game has some incredibly fun moments that are absolutely ruined by the ridiculous number of bugs, terrible UI, and lack of information about how the UI works.

    This game has some moments that reminded me of the great classic Freelancer. The graphics are decent. You can trade stuff between zones to make money. You use highways and gates and it takes time to get around which makes the universe feel big.

    But you can't trade, cause your freighter won't follow orders, and your computer only remembers available trades for an hour. There are some important orders for crew and captains that just plain aren't there (like hold position or goto zone X without me). Some main plot missions can't be finished without editing your save file manually, and the game occasionally hangs or crashes straight to the desktop.

    The combat is probably the best part. Fly around like in freelancer and shoot stuff. But boarding capital ships is pretty broken. Often your marines will all die while you're following the instructions perfectly with no explanation.

    Bottom line: this game has the potential to be great, but it needs another year of quality development time before it'll be worth the money.    … Expand
  6. Xehlwan
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    The game has huge potential, and has everything you love from the previous X games.
    Unfortunately, the experience is marred by terrible performance, blatantly bad graphics for anything that isn't a spaceship or backdrop, and a UI that is even worse than the dated one used in previous games.
    Add the frequent crashes, and other numerous odd design decisions, and this game is sadly best    The game has huge potential, and has everything you love from the previous X games.
    Unfortunately, the experience is marred by terrible performance, blatantly bad graphics for anything that isn't a spaceship or backdrop, and a UI that is even worse than the dated one used in previous games.
    Add the frequent crashes, and other numerous odd design decisions, and this game is sadly best avoided for the time being.    … Expand
  7. Squicker
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    Game is not ready for release. It is bug riddled, performance is atrocious even on Core i7 GTX780 and there is no proper joystick support, only gamepad! The graphics are dated, I'd place this game somewhere about 5 years ago, and the character models are awkward. The dialog is stilted and delivered by very poor voice actors.

    There is a tutorial but it is unintuitive. It is great    Game is not ready for release. It is bug riddled, performance is atrocious even on Core i7 GTX780 and there is no proper joystick support, only gamepad! The graphics are dated, I'd place this game somewhere about 5 years ago, and the character models are awkward. The dialog is stilted and delivered by very poor voice actors.

    There is a tutorial but it is unintuitive.

    It is great there are so many buildings with different modules to inspect etc, and the game is clearly brave in terms of scope, but the implementation is very weak indeed.

    I've actually asked for a refund for my game as this is not the game that Egosoft are advertising.    … Expand
  8. Ottomic
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    Steam shows my game time as 4 hours. I must have advanced 20 minutes at most on the campaign. The other 3 hours and 40 minutes have been spent trying to make the game playable with a joystick, and failing.
    - Awful human models.
    - Terrible textures - Unbindable controls - Joystick support sketchy at best (can't configure my HOTAS X) - Stupid in-station segments. - Obnoxious menu    Steam shows my game time as 4 hours. I must have advanced 20 minutes at most on the campaign. The other 3 hours and 40 minutes have been spent trying to make the game playable with a joystick, and failing.
    - Awful human models.
    - Terrible textures
    - Unbindable controls
    - Joystick support sketchy at best (can't configure my HOTAS X)
    - Stupid in-station segments.
    - Obnoxious menu system.
    - One flyable ship.
    - No mouselook in no external views.
    - Objects in space are static. No more 'match speed'.
    - Shaders look terrible.
    - Keyboard control over-sensitive.
    - Game-breaking bugs.

    Those are a lot of deal-breakers. Unlike X3, it is not an incomplete game with gaps the community can fill in. It is a game full of WRONG design choices that will require an amount of dedication from the community unseen of this side of MERP to fix. It's cool that you have an excellent modding community Egosoft, but it looks like it'd have been better for you to just straight outsource them during development.

    I would give this game a 4, because despite it being broken and unpleasant to the point of unplayability (especially when compared to the rest of the saga) it's got some interesting ideas and the developer has been pretty honest up until Rebirth, but Egosoft's attitude of what looks like not only over-optimistic previews, but also little pre-release information, what 3 days later looks like a full-on review embargo until they have some stuff sorted out, and not even preparing their forum from what they knew would be an onsaught of unsatisfied customers earns it a 3.

    X: Rebirth is a 3/10 game. This is shameful.

    DO NOT BUY until some of the more glaring stuff has been fixed. If that.    … Expand
  9. JerryYeh
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    Expecting Freelancer, instead got Duke Nukem in Space

    Okay, if anyone who hates Duke Nukem Forever or Aliens Colonial Marine, you can understand the feeling I have with X-Rebirth. I was expecting a AAA experience with a easier learning curve, which is what's been keeping me from getting into the X series in the past, instead I got a half-baked game with crappy performance issue, ugly    Expecting Freelancer, instead got Duke Nukem in Space

    Okay, if anyone who hates Duke Nukem Forever or Aliens Colonial Marine, you can understand the feeling I have with X-Rebirth. I was expecting a AAA experience with a easier learning curve, which is what's been keeping me from getting into the X series in the past, instead I got a half-baked game with crappy performance issue, ugly textures and low poly character model.

    I mean I can point you to various game from LAST-GEN has better aesthetic than this game, the Character Models for example What is this? Does it has less polygon than a teapot? How could it possibly looks so ugly anyway? And even if you bump all the effects to maximum it still looks like crap. The only good looking thing is SPACE, and SHIPS (from a distance.).Now the performance is horrendous as well, I can run Battlefield 4, Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3 with medium heigh settings at 30~40 fps, for this game I can't get 30 fps even if I put all the settings to lowest level. It's obvious this game is rushed or poorly designed.

    All the above mention is enough to stop me from playing, I'm not someone who judge a game SOLELY by it's graphics, but all these crap breaks the immersion. When a game with so much promise ended up like this.... it's just a total let down and unacceptable.    … Expand
  10. TheReject
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    I am 11 hours into the game, an unfortunately there are many glaring flaws in this game. I believe most of the technical issues will eventually be resolved, but there are some serious design issues which really drag this game down.

    I have long been a fan of the X series and I have been looking forward to this game for months, so my experience might be colored somewhat by my    I am 11 hours into the game, an unfortunately there are many glaring flaws in this game. I believe most of the technical issues will eventually be resolved, but there are some serious design issues which really drag this game down.

    I have long been a fan of the X series and I have been looking forward to this game for months, so my experience might be colored somewhat by my disappointment. I have been plagued with poor performance, constant game crashes which sometimes require a reboot to get out of, and numerous glitches in the trading system and missions that make advancement impossible.

    Again, the technical issues will be resolved via patching. What may not be resolved are the design choices that depart from previous X games. To list:
    1. You can no longer hop from ship to ship. You can own multiple ships and you can issue them limited orders, but your starting ship will be your ending ship and it will be the only one you pilot.
    2. The trading network has been neutered. You can only issue trade commands for your freighters to sell or purchase goods in their system only. You can't set up the elaborate chains that were possible in X:TC.
    3. Voice acting: You are chained to another character that has some of the worst voice acting I've heard since Final Fantasy X.
    4. Menus, sub menus, sub-sub-menus: You can't just buy a gun or missile while floating in space. You need to dock your ship, walk to the individual merchant, open a conversation, request to see their goods, request to see their missiles, then request to buy them, then tell them how many you want. Seriously, restocking missiles is a 5-minute ordeal after every fight.

    I think I see where they wanted to go with this game. They wanted to make it more appealing to the masses that were previously turned off by the massive learning curve the series holds. Unfortunately, instead of streamlining the game mechanics they just hid them behind a poorly-designed and time-consuming interface which is somehow more painful to deal with than the spreadsheets of the older games.

    I want to like this game so much, but there are just too many glaring flaws to get much actual enjoyment.    … Expand
  11. Animorganimate
    Nov 20, 2013
    3
    Bugs aside this review is based off the gameplay and design choices alone. Rebirth really shouldn't be considered an 'X' game. If Rebirth had been a new, independent franchise looking for a home on consoles, it would be a mediocre game at best (that's why I gave it a 3). But by slapping the letter 'X' on the box, Deep Silver has essentially suckered its fanbase in buying a bad game. IBugs aside this review is based off the gameplay and design choices alone. Rebirth really shouldn't be considered an 'X' game. If Rebirth had been a new, independent franchise looking for a home on consoles, it would be a mediocre game at best (that's why I gave it a 3). But by slapping the letter 'X' on the box, Deep Silver has essentially suckered its fanbase in buying a bad game. I have a hard time believing this game was initially designed to be an 'X' game in the first place. I feel like Rebirth was being designed for a different purpose and only later did it become Egosoft's problem. I look forward to a few years from now when this whole thing is forgotten about and a proper X4 is delivered to us.… Expand
  12. Darkmater
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    On a good note, they finally released the game, on a bad note its is shambles
    -- No Joystick support
    -- No head tracking support

    Didn't move the franchise forward, except make it maybe portable to a console in the future. Thanks for abandoning all things pc users want in a space sim.
  13. Gezzer
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    So this was in development for 7 years right? Why?
    I've never played any of the other X games so I don't know how this compares. But taken on it's own it seems like it's someone's "grand vision", that got hit with major feature creep and finally had to ship or it would never ship at all.
    I've only played up to the point where I have to deliver the captain to my trade ship (I think it    So this was in development for 7 years right? Why?
    I've never played any of the other X games so I don't know how this compares. But taken on it's own it seems like it's someone's "grand vision", that got hit with major feature creep and finally had to ship or it would never ship at all.
    I've only played up to the point where I have to deliver the captain to my trade ship (I think it is). I actually had to save and go online to figure out how to deliver her. It's not that there's a lot of actions that the UI needs to account for, it's the fact that it's so fcking unintuitive it fights you at every turn. So how do I deliver my captain. Well there's this tiny little green icon that when I double click it I'll get the docking menu. Again, why? They could of either had double clicking the entire ship when in range opened the dialog, or have an obvious docking platform to click on, but a small green icon in the captains HUD?
    So far the whole UI seems to be designed so that the developers can say, "It's a complicated game folks, see all the different UI elements we had to use!". You can have a complicated game with a simple and intuitive UI, it's not that hard to do.
    I also find that so far the surrounding in space is crowded to the point where it's claustrophobic. Well it's nice that space is populated so there's something to interact with it just doesn't feel like space. Add to that the fact that everything has information attached to it and it's really easy to be hit with information overload. The first battle with the 2 drones was like that.
    Which brings me to the only space station I've been on when I hired my captain. Small, but with no one on it except for traders and other essential NPCs. It just doesn't feel alive, no ones walking around. You have a really weird conversation system that has no underlying logic to it. And the worst thing? You have to maneuver yourself so that the NPCs are facing you or they won't talk to you. You can't click on them and have them turn around to face you? Nope. They ignore you and your conversation jumps to the next NPC facing you. As for the stealing system, it again feels incomplete. You open lockers right beside the guard with no reaction at all.
    Then there's the graphics. they're so hit or miss it actually makes the bad ones seem worse. For example there's a panel on the ship that the texture is so low rez that you can actually see the stair step effect on the letters. And this isn't up close either, it's at a normal viewing distance.
    I could go on, and on, but the truth is this looks like a game that could of been good, even great, but poor design decisions jump out at you at every turn. I'm almost put in mind of DukeNukeEm forever. It's like it was a labour of love and everything was sacrosanct to the developers so nothing could be reavaluated to see if it was working or not in regards to the overall game. So they struggled to get everything that they wanted into the game and more importantly get all the design elements to come together and work as a whole. And finally just started running out of resources and had to quickly slap a coat of paint on the thing and get it out the door.
    Sigh, like so many others before it I just have to wonder what could of been. As it stands now even with alot of patching to fix the normal and not so normal launch day bugs/issues I don't know if there's any way that the developers can fix the underlying problems of simply just a poorly executed design. Maybe like CD Projekt RED did with the first Witcher game they'll polish and refine all the glaring problems till they have a much better game. Then both issue a patch to current owners and a new improved release version. Then again those Witcher guys are a one in a million so I wouldn't hold my breath.    … Expand
  14. Chaz0r
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    There is an absolutely great game under this mountain of problems. Don't buy it yet! Follow the development of the game and see if and when they fix these problems. If they do and the game runs smoother, has less bugs and is more comfortable, then really, really buy it! But not now!
  15. sergeplay
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    X-universe is totally ruined. Never imagined that Egosoft can release a game of such quality. Menu controls are unusable, graphics totally outdated.
    I can barely imagine that patches can make this product playable.
    No more pre-orders for their releases.
  16. Louskrad
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    I'm writing this review with 1.12 patch. I am sad to say that this game is broken, full of bugs; so much so that you can't even continue the main storyline if you're not lucky enough.

    What is more disturbing is the flaws in game design. Map systems don't make sense, menus and UI need serious revamps, etc. I'll provide a pro-con list below, but make sure you check steam forums before    I'm writing this review with 1.12 patch. I am sad to say that this game is broken, full of bugs; so much so that you can't even continue the main storyline if you're not lucky enough.

    What is more disturbing is the flaws in game design. Map systems don't make sense, menus and UI need serious revamps, etc. I'll provide a pro-con list below, but make sure you check steam forums before buying, where you'll see every single forum thread about disappointment.

    Cons:
    - Extremely bad performance. The game seems not tested and even the high end PCs don't get good graphic performance. 5-10 FPS in some areas.
    - Bugs "Oh my deus, it's full of st.." ehem, "bugs."
    - Terrible UI.
    - Keyboard shortcuts (previously the heart of X games) missing and not possible to configure.
    - ONE ship. Yes, you can ride just one don't think you'll sit in the bridge of your destroyer.
    - No direct trade: gone are the days that you can dock a station and trade directly. You need to have a buggy AI do it for you. (Not kidding, you need to edit your savegame in an editor to correct AI problems most of the time you trade)
    - Awful NPC graphics and not the best voice acting.
    - Voice acting not finished in some languages.
    - No autopilot.
    - Stations can be built on pre-determined spots.
    - In short: even if the game is fully debugged in a series of future patches, this is not the X-Universe game you're looking for.

    Pros:
    - The new travel system (higways) seem kind of fun.
    - potential. since the game is open to modding, it is possible for the community to fix this game up at some point.    … Expand
  17. DemiGoth
    Nov 22, 2013
    3
    Game LOOKS good, but that's about the only positive thing I can say about it. The problem with this game lies in the performance that most players (me included) have. Decent systems that give 45FPS or more in other games give only 15FPS in X Rebirth. And it's just that why I give this game a 3 the performance is so low that it's UNPLAYABLE.

    On the good side though, EGOsoft is busy    Game LOOKS good, but that's about the only positive thing I can say about it. The problem with this game lies in the performance that most players (me included) have. Decent systems that give 45FPS or more in other games give only 15FPS in X Rebirth. And it's just that why I give this game a 3 the performance is so low that it's UNPLAYABLE.

    On the good side though, EGOsoft is busy patching, they did find the bug causing most of the performance issues (my bet it's mostly architecture of older Intel and all AMD CPUs). But a week down the road and a daily patch (yes, a new patch every day EGOsoft does really work on it!) still didn't give the performance every other game gives.

    So for now a 3. Perhaps I'll re-review it when the performance bug has been squashed and I can actually comment on the game itself    … Expand
  18. utkez
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    Totally unplayable for now. While this game shows some potential, it has significant technical problems. Campaign has some bugged scripts and overall performance is awful even on fast computers. Poorly implemented user interface doesn't help too. Wait for several months before trying this one.
  19. Arminius
    Jan 6, 2014
    3
    After I bought "Schicksalsklinge HD" in summer, I thought there will never be a game again that is that much flawed, bugged and unfinished at the time of release.
    Here I stand corrected.
    This wasn´t even a feature-completed Alpha when shipped, and it will take at least one more year of heavy patching to finish it. Sadly, I don´t believe it will live up to the expectations even when it´s done.
  20. pirikuras
    Nov 16, 2013
    3
    Good game for plenty of content and what to do,normal graphics. All very negative coments is from that kind of people who say heroes of might and magic 3 is beter then any other version ,but look into whose people who play homm 3 in 2013 :D their opinion just doesnt matter for normal people :D
  21. MevriS
    Nov 19, 2013
    3
    As I am about 15 hours into the game I am now able to give a short review about it.
    It is playable if you have a powerful gaming computer and as there are very few graphic options in the menu you won't be able to adjust performance according to your hardware as freely as pc games would normally allow you. Not to mention the serious optimization issues and frequent framerate drops that    As I am about 15 hours into the game I am now able to give a short review about it.
    It is playable if you have a powerful gaming computer and as there are very few graphic options in the menu you won't be able to adjust performance according to your hardware as freely as pc games would normally allow you. Not to mention the serious optimization issues and frequent framerate drops that occur even if you run it on an high end pc. It has a fairly impressive sound options menu though.
    Controls are smooth and mostly intuitive but compared to previous X titles it seems way to 'consoly' in my opinion even though they are still too clunky for me playing with a controller. Mouse and keyboard are working good but players with multibutton gaming mouses won't be able to take full advantage of their hardware as mouse controls aren't rebindable.
    Even in the current build 1.14 the game still suffers from frequent crashes and as it has no autosave you'll find yourself constantly mashing the quicksave button.

    With the mere technical apsect covered only story and gameplay remain.
    As for the story it is fairly engaging. Nothing too special, at least during the first few hours but definitely more immersive as most previous X Games. The fact that you only have direct control over one single ship this time somewhat limits your gameplay experience but helps identifying yourself with your ship and the protagonist on the other hand. I cant say that this i generally a bad design decision, it's just different. In fact the game is full of interesting ideas. The new Trade System is innovative but navigating and "finding" offers and sales can get really tedious. It seems like searching for collectables sometimes which artificially lengthens the game in a very annoying way.The Highways are a great idea as well but as poorly designed as the trade system to a grade it becomes simply illogical. Why am I moving faster if I put myself behind other ships on a lane? How do they build up speed in the first place because they don't seem to be bound to the same rule as me. It's ridiciously stupid, simply said. And now my major bugbear: the campaign bugged out. At some point you have to deliver a number of food provisions to a station but the game took away my cargo ship or "forgot" to give it back to me when it was supposed to do. And as your only way to trade goods, with exception of a small selection, is to ship it with large freighters (as far as I know the game does a terrible job at telling you things) I find myself completely unable to progress.
    There are some other minor and major bugs: ships disappearing from your Properties-Screen even though you can still see them on the map and even give them orders. trade commands that won't be executed correctly. The aiming assistance is irritating at best so far I haven't found out where to put my cursor if the target moves.. which most of them targets do,.. naturally. It's definitly not where the game suggests me to put it. The list goes on and on and on.

    All things considered, I believe I had about 6 hours of fun and 9 hours of frustration which leads me to my final conclusion:
    Do! not! buy! this! game! in it's current state. It has massive potential given enough time to be polished. As it is now, it's great ideas and innovations are plagued by bad conversion and legions of bugs.

    3/10 (2/10 if I weren't a fan of the X-Universe)    … Expand
  22. MadVandal
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    After over 20 hours of play I can pretty much sum this up as a huge letdown. I can live with poor looking interiors, NPCs, dialog, etc.. but the core components of what made an X game have been stripped down or removed.

    X has always been a deeply complex game of economic space trading an empire building/management. That is gone, along with a number of other basic features. No gravidar    After over 20 hours of play I can pretty much sum this up as a huge letdown. I can live with poor looking interiors, NPCs, dialog, etc.. but the core components of what made an X game have been stripped down or removed.

    X has always been a deeply complex game of economic space trading an empire building/management. That is gone, along with a number of other basic features. No gravidar (radar), no targeting/cycling system, no move to position/stop/attack commands to ship, no naming ships, no way to cancel pending trade orders, no way to stop ships from following you, no autopilot, no jump drive, no flying other ships, no universal traders, no parking of large ships at stations. The list goes on an on.

    The incredible array of ships in X3, consisting of dozens of different sizes and designs, weapon types and load-out options, software components (wares), upgrades, etc. are all gone in Rebirth. Rebirth gives you only a small handful of preset ship types, with only a couple of options. The incredible array of factories and stations that made all kinds different intermediate and end products has been cut down to a third of before. Placement and design of complex factories is gone, Rebirth only allows building of pre-made designs at fixed locations. The entire economic flow of goods appears to be gone...replaced with simplified artificial system.

    In terms of the universe, while X3 did have issues with large areas of space the was sometimes boring to navigate, the alternative in Rebirth isn't worth the trade off. Sectors have been reduced to 3-6 packed "zones" connected by magical highways (no real technical explanation for how humans pull these off). Unlike X3 where non-civilian ships flew with a destination and purpose, the ships in Rebirth are mostly eye-candy phantoms. Highway travel is an annoying and unnecessary mini-game with an engine sound effect so jarringly loud I end up just not bothering with the speed boosting mini-game to avoid the awful sound.

    In X3 you simply hit one key and get a view of all property, where is was, and what it was doing. Another key would give you a view of your credits and reputation. Those are gone, replaced by an ugly drill-though UI screen with a font 3-4x larger than needed that takes numerous key presses or clicks. It is impossible to play Rebirth using only the keyboard like in the past, you have to awkwardly switch back and forth between keyboard and mouse while in battle just to target ships or dock.

    The ship pathing AI, a function many fans asked for more polish after X3, is a absolutely terrible. Fighter ships attacking stations or large ships will ram into them and get stuck trying to turn around. Ships get caught in narrow spaces of large ship hangers or parts of stations bouncing back and forth between solid points. In past X games the act of flying a small ship into the solid wall of a station is almost certain death, as it should be. In Rebirth collision damage has been almost entirely removed to compensate for the poor AI. Collisions between capital ships and stations has been disabled allowing capital ships to actually fly through stations and each other. This opens an awful exploit where you can pilot you ship into the hanger bay of a capital ship and sit there safe from harm firing and damaging it underneath its shields, while on the outside fighters attempting to shoot you end up pound the large ship with friendly fire.

    There is speculation and some evidence that an attempt was made the bring Rebirth to the Xbox and something went wrong along the way. The communication/radial menu, and ship command UI appear to be three separate designs stitched together and don't flow well, a byproduct seen before when software development projects take drastic changes of design direction. In term of immersion and visual the game is an amalgam of ideas borrowed from Mass Effect, Blade Runner, and parts of past X games with mixed results. Topping all of this off are numerous game breaking bugs that clearly indicate that the final build was not tested. Many game play bugs are far too obvious to have been missed by testing. There are several ways to cause the campaign to get hung up with no notice. For example, if you loose a special one of a kind constructor ship given to you in the campaign it makes it impossible to a perform a building task given hours later bring the entire campaign to a halt with no warning or notice.

    Once of the biggest aspects of X3 was the many (often hundreds) of hours of sandbox style play and the use of mods. With Rebirth, once the campaign is complete, assuming you make it that far, there appears to little else to do with the game with so much stripped out.

    Fans waited seven long years for this and somewhere under all this mess may be a salvage X game engine, if and how long it might take to fix remains to be seen.    … Expand
  23. Guilherme_PoA
    Nov 18, 2013
    3
    This game is garbage...a lot of bugs...you can't finish missions...random crashes to the desktop...I can't even believe egosoft felt down so low on quality...their other games were buggy...but playable...none of them was like this...this game is really crap...it blow away all gaming experience with bad cut scenes, terrible voicing actors, extreme performance issues...terrible stations andThis game is garbage...a lot of bugs...you can't finish missions...random crashes to the desktop...I can't even believe egosoft felt down so low on quality...their other games were buggy...but playable...none of them was like this...this game is really crap...it blow away all gaming experience with bad cut scenes, terrible voicing actors, extreme performance issues...terrible stations and NPCs texture, ridiculous bugs on IA, economy, trading and overall missions...don't buy it, unless you wanna pay to be a alpha tester, if you're masochist or if you enjoy headaches.… Expand
  24. Scott44
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    I have played the X games for years and spent a lot of time in them, wonderful, immersive games.

    This is not X I dont know what it is but it's awful. I am bitterly disappointed. Terrible voice acting, terrible graphics (mainly inside stations), no camera views, silly minigames . There is no immersion for me here whatsoever. I can only assume the people giving it a 10 are    I have played the X games for years and spent a lot of time in them, wonderful, immersive games.

    This is not X I dont know what it is but it's awful.

    I am bitterly disappointed.

    Terrible voice acting, terrible graphics (mainly inside stations), no camera views, silly minigames .

    There is no immersion for me here whatsoever.

    I can only assume the people giving it a 10 are somehow linked with the company because it is nowhere near a 10 my 3 rating is an honest rating I tried to find some good points, but there are few.    … Expand
  25. kaffefeels
    Nov 17, 2013
    3
    Do NOT buy this game. The game is broken, mechanics flawed, main quests can't be finished as several of them are broken. The freedom aspect of this game is ruined, no matter how the beautiful the universe is. The economy is a lie. Everything they promised are either underdelivered or non existent.
    This is a broken console port of a game, that should never have been released at all.
    It    Do NOT buy this game. The game is broken, mechanics flawed, main quests can't be finished as several of them are broken. The freedom aspect of this game is ruined, no matter how the beautiful the universe is. The economy is a lie. Everything they promised are either underdelivered or non existent.
    This is a broken console port of a game, that should never have been released at all.
    It will take a very long time with patches and mods before this becomes playable. Those who bought it can only hope EGOSOFT continues with patches and fixes.

    Coming from X3 series, I regret buying this I feel robbed and lied to.

    I repeat: DO NOT BUY.    … Expand
  26. nothingfaced
    Nov 15, 2013
    3
    Be honest. The game was made for a console but they clearly couldn't sell it so, thus stuffed out to PC customers with marketing how 'fun' it is to no longer own strategy, fleet and resource management in favour of sitting in one ship with awkward UX and outdated, last gen gamepad based gameplay.

    No support for your PC peripherals? Check. No resource management? Check. Piss poor attempt    Be honest. The game was made for a console but they clearly couldn't sell it so, thus stuffed out to PC customers with marketing how 'fun' it is to no longer own strategy, fleet and resource management in favour of sitting in one ship with awkward UX and outdated, last gen gamepad based gameplay.

    No support for your PC peripherals? Check. No resource management? Check. Piss poor attempt to get all Mass Effect? Check.

    Its bad.    … Expand
  27. generalzee
    Nov 16, 2013
    3
    This game is in beta right now, despite the claim that it is in v 1.12. Large ships have immense problems navigating stations, often moving directly through them, or simply spinning in circles aimlessly. Missions cannot be completed because AI bugs out and can't find its destination (in Trade or in Escort missions).

    Of course, these things can be fixed as the game continues, but what    This game is in beta right now, despite the claim that it is in v 1.12. Large ships have immense problems navigating stations, often moving directly through them, or simply spinning in circles aimlessly. Missions cannot be completed because AI bugs out and can't find its destination (in Trade or in Escort missions).

    Of course, these things can be fixed as the game continues, but what probably won't be fixed is the terrible voice acting. Not since the 1990's influx of hastily-translated Japanese games have I heard voice acting so poor. Your co-pilot seems to be voiced by a woman who simply read each word in the dictionary once (which the editors cobbled together to vaguely form sentences).

    There's a lot of potential here, the stations are intricate and interesting, the graphics are beautiful, transportation is actually interesting for once, and the battles can be epic and fun, but the major bugs, and poor voice acting make the game in its current state unplayable.    … Expand
  28. DanishNinja
    Nov 16, 2013
    3
    his game is just I've now spent 5 hours on this, and i really regret it.
    The game is full of bugs and is optimized so bad that i get 35-10 fps on my gtx 660.
    I am an x3 veteran and this game is the crappiest game of them all. I regret having spend so much money on it. The x3 series was BY FAR better than this... It fails at such a basic level. Fx all the small menus, the character    his game is just I've now spent 5 hours on this, and i really regret it.
    The game is full of bugs and is optimized so bad that i get 35-10 fps on my gtx 660.
    I am an x3 veteran and this game is the crappiest game of them all. I regret having spend so much money on it. The x3 series was BY FAR better than this... It fails at such a basic level. Fx all the small menus, the character interaction and the frustrating fleet control! I'ts especially bad when you are going to use your trading ship since the maps requires a degree in f**king map reading to understand...    … Expand
  29. Bloodhawk
    Nov 16, 2013
    3
    The X series is known for its cruel learning curves and some what daunting scale, It's lure of big ships and tycoon station building, It's wow graphics and even its un-forgiveness. However, If these are the things you love about the series, its time to mourn in the wake of the newly released X:rebirth.

    Its flawed yet stunning graphics keep you captivated as you negate smashed planets,    The X series is known for its cruel learning curves and some what daunting scale, It's lure of big ships and tycoon station building, It's wow graphics and even its un-forgiveness. However, If these are the things you love about the series, its time to mourn in the wake of the newly released X:rebirth.

    Its flawed yet stunning graphics keep you captivated as you negate smashed planets, debris and beautiful super space cities. The much improved ship physics and travel make space battles more invigorating, even jump gates seem to make so much more sense as you look back a million miles away from where you just came. But as you play more, the games seems just that extra light year away.

    Us PC gamers are hardened to bugs, glitches and crashes, But sadly X: Rebirth almost drowns you in them. Your only allowed to fly the one ship your given, and buying a new ship feels like getting a new Lamborghini and then only being allowed to watch your friend race it around the block. characters are repetitive and creepy looking, however its forgivable seeing as its a space sim and not a FPS. Ship traffic shows a dynamic living world, however stalking them for good trade routes reveal that they are lost or just enjoy going in circles. walking around on stations just feel unproductive and unnecessary. The game barely keeps my attention for more then 4 hours and didn't ruin my social life as i hoped for in the next 2 weeks.

    Sadly Egosoft have become very much like that dad who is trying to fit in with the younger generation with its new looks and faster pace, but it try's so hard that it trips on its own complexity.

    Im going to crack out X:3 and help remind my self why I love Egosoft.    … Expand
  30. Tarskin
    Nov 17, 2013
    3
    I have played all the X2 and X3 games prior to this and was really hyped and looking forward to this game but... it just doesn't deliver anything compared to it's predecessors. The entire mini-game idea (finding boxes, trying to get close behind other ships in highways, hacking) is just beyond silly and kills immersion. The amount of game breaking bugs is just appaling, I have playedI have played all the X2 and X3 games prior to this and was really hyped and looking forward to this game but... it just doesn't deliver anything compared to it's predecessors. The entire mini-game idea (finding boxes, trying to get close behind other ships in highways, hacking) is just beyond silly and kills immersion. The amount of game breaking bugs is just appaling, I have played roughly 15 hours so far and of those 15 hours at least 10 were spent trying to get past a certain bug and the current bug that's got me stuck caused me to decide to just un-install this game, wait a few months and maybe try again. I find it much more likely that i'll just go play X3:TC instead which is superior in every way.… Expand
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Awards & Rankings

12
#12 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
55
#55 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
33

Generally unfavorable reviews - based on 24 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 24
  3. Negative: 24 out of 24
  1. IGN Italia
    Feb 18, 2014
    40
    Rebirth lacks inspiration, purpose, good ideas. It's riddled with bugs and, even when it seems to work, it manages to be dull. There isn't any true reason to play it.
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  2. CD-Action
    Feb 10, 2014
    30
    Instead of giving the series a new life the developers buried it and the patches are a classic case of ‘too little, too late’. There’s a lot of things you can forgive this game but not the fact that it’s boring. [02/2014, p.58]
  3. PC Gamer
    Jan 31, 2014
    39
    X misses the spot. The occasional bit of spectacle can't save this boring, broken and charmless space simulation. [March 2014, p.60]
    Read full review
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