heh, the thing about X2 and 3 (never played nore knew of the first one till recently
) is your not stuck to the story, and every review i've read for either of them states this, and emphasises (bleh misspelled i know) this fact.
the biggest thing about the 2 games is they offer the freelance play of doing whatever you want, namely you can get your fleet going, and wipeout the universe, or just become a legitmate buisnessman, and trade your way to power. X3 even offers alternate lives to play as, instead of sticking to the main plot, you could start as a pirate, a merchant, or even an explorer, each with its own name, and ship (on a couple) seperate from the story character.
its almost as though they tacked the plots into 2 and 3 merely for those who want half a purpose to their existance in space, but other than that its a free for all do as you please.
now if it had multiplayer where you could take your fleet vs someone elses, or did a guildwars style free MMO thing, that'd be neat, but we can only wish for such things usualy
but yeah, GFX are awsome, story sux (in both) i miss the cockpits (why is it cockpits are getting the boot out of sims lately?!? WHY?!) and honestly, in preferance, i preferred to scroll the UI with my joystick hatswitch as in X2 compared to the mouse controls of X3, but thats cause i have to knick my mouse for the joystick due to lack of desk space in my barracks room
and the camera in X3 has to be recentered manualy, that bugs me a bit too...
and AI in X2 seems like it crawled out of the dark and never bothered opening its eyes (likes to ram, even after the patches i get rammed constantly from any angle)
okay, i'll shutup now