To start 2004 off with a bang, zap and kaboom! we decided to take a look at a game which many of our readers, even those that are into PC gaming, may not be familiar with; X2: The Threat. Published by Egosoft , X2: The Threat has not had anything like the hype accompanying several recent, underwhelming game releases (Max Payne 2 anyone?) and that's a pity, because the ambition of this game's design deserves attention. X2: The Threat is a space-simulation that mixes fairly typical story driven missions with an extremely detailed and complex economic system, achieving a sort of pseudo-RPG effect as players choose whether to follow the missions or branch of into one of the many entertaining career possibilities afforded by the free-form universe.