I'm old enough to be retired, broke enough to still need a job. From the days of Vic-20, Commodore 64, and the mighty Amiga, I've flipped between Sci-Fi and Fantasy games. As a matter of fact, in the 80's my favorite two were "The Bard's Tale", and "Elite." Both have been strong influences. Both have also been modernized and re-released as Kickstarters within the past few years. Bard's Tale didn't keep the flavor of the old game, and I never finished playing. Maybe some day. Currently, my favorite fantasy game is Skyrim, though Runescape and Guild Wars 2 were a lot of fun too.
Elite became "Elite: Dangerous", and I loved it for a long time. It was perfect for me. After a stressful day at work, I'd jump in my ship and head for the stars. Took a real-time trip to the center of the galaxy, which literally took me 2 months of travelling. The peace and solitude were life-saving.
Anybody who plays space sims knows Elite Dangerous, and probably has strong opinions about it. The whole space legs thing was a huge debacle that would have killed my enjoyment anyway, but before getting that far I caught Covid and was sick for nearly a month. The symptoms in my case were reduced reading comprehension, loss of memory, and vertigo. A year later, I'm mostly recovered, but not entirely. In particular, I can't play Elite any longer. The mind-muscle connection is gone. Where it used to be as easy as thinking of a command, and doing it without stopping to consider what controls to use... now I have to stop constantly, and check what the command is, which keys or buttons to hit. Trying to play just depressed me.
I play (and do love) "One Man's Sky", and it's definitely easier, yet very rich and rewarding. But ultimately, space combat was missing that feel of real space, of flying with 6 degrees of freedom. It's a great game that I still play, but couldn't replace Elite.
With the Steam cards, the search was on for an easier space sim, that gave the same exhilaration as Elite. Out of several fantastic possibles, Everspace 2 was looking good. Until someone mentioned X4. It has the 6 degrees of freedom, in a way that feels a lot like Elite. It has a lot of complexity, but in a different way from Elite. The whole "living, expanding galaxy" sounded great. So did the single-player option. I don't like being tied to online multi-player games. But the real clincher was the empire-building. My impression is that only a small part of the game is live combat, and much of it can be played at leisure, via menus.
The hope is, that my impaired memory can manage the combat and time-critical elements. The rest, I can take my time, research anything at need, and play without pressure.
The last piece of the puzzle was when Steam had the New Year's sale. X4, plus the 3 DLC at the time (Split Vendetta, Cradle of Humanity, Tides of Avarice), and some sound tracks, were available for $39.14. That left me with .86 cents!!
So here I am. Documenting my progression mainly for myself. To see my progress, help me remember where it started and how far I've come, and things that I've figured out along the way, but may forget later. But it's here on Google Blogger, just in case anybody happens across it. Maybe someone with similar setbacks can gain some encouragement, or offer me some... Either would be great. :^)
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