Space is the place for me, and as a longtime fan of the space trading genre I’ve played a bunch of them. Most recently I’ve resumed playing X2: The Threat from Egosoft. The game has a very bad plot, positively awful voice acting and cut scenes, and a poor user interface that’s heavy on memorization. So why do I play it?

X2 has a deep economic engine that lets you own multiple ships and stations, automate some of what they do, and generally build a massive economic empire. It’s also really pretty, has flexible camera controls, and twitchy and difficult combat. If it weren’t for the Argonopedia, I wouldn’t have known how to get anywhere in the game — it’s that newbie-unfriendly — and combat is so difficult that I avoid it completely and enjoy the ride. If you have a pretty modern rig you might want to look at X3, its sequel, but I’ve seen X2 for just ten bucks in bargain software racks at major retail chains.

I spent the limited gaming time I had this weekend trucking around the safe side of the universe in X2 buying cheap energy cells to feed my teladianium factory to make big profit. What did you play?