Skip to main content

Star Wars: Tie Fighter: My 5th Favourite Video Game

Released: July 1994
Publisher: LucasArts
Developer: Totally Games
Platform: DOS, Windows, Mac
Type: Space Fighter Simulation
Graphics: Narly
Game Play: Narly
Originality: Narly
How many hours I’ve wasted: Narly
The Nostalgia Factor: Nary

"Alpha one, mission critical craft under attack!
Alpha one, mission critical craft shields down!
Alpha one, mission critical craft hull condition critical!
Alpha one, mission critical craft destroyed!
Abort mission, mission failure!"

Tie Fighter was the much anticipated sequel to X-Wing, the first fighter simulation released by Lucas Arts and these two games are probably the best fighter simulation games of any genre ever developed. Tie Fighter was one of those games I'd personally waited years for... finally an opportunity to pilot a Tie Fighter and shoot up hapless Y-Wings.

As with most games released by LucasArts over the years, the graphics and sound for the period were nothing short of outstanding, particularly keeping in mind the limited power of PC's of the time. While the graphics and cut scenes may look somewhat aged now, the are by no means objectionable. The sound, high speed action through numerous challenging missions and the in depth plot are still more than enough to draw you in, convincing you that you're not playing a game, but rather that you are an elite Tie Fighter pilot, maintaining order in the Galactic Empire.

Tie fighter featured numerous adversary craft to dogfight with while piloting a versatile arsenal of Imperial fighter craft. Detailed controls allowed the player to control their spacecraft to a level never seen before (or since that I'm aware of), and direct wingmen to attack other spacecraft or specific areas of spacecraft.

Several ad-ons to the game and the high attention to detailed strategy and tactics kept this game fresh and enjoyable long after its original release. Every once and a while, I'll power on my old iMac 333, and play a few rounds of Tie Fighter.

While there have been many exciting Star Wars fighter games since (chiefly the Rogue Squadron series for Nintendo), none have approached the detail and excellence that was found in Tie Fighter. Unfortunately Lucasfilm has stated repeatedly in the past that they have no intention of rebooting this particular game (they seem to be more focused on lame material from Episode I, II  and III), but I'm hoping now that Disney owns the franchise, they recognize a cash cow when they see it and pursue a re-release of some sort that would be a fitting tribute to the original designers. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Free Software for Some, Empty Wallets for Others

As an IT professional (and a cheap bastard), it infuriates me when I see people being roped and lured into spending hard on cash on expensive software solutions when there are a multitude of open source, free alternatives readily available on the internet. Stop throwing your money at greedy corporate executives who certainly don't need yet another fancy chess set (that they don't even know how to use) carved out of some endangered species or another ocean going yacht to add to their fleet. Why spend hundreds of dollars when you can pay nothing at all (most of these software projects accept donations, which I would strongly encourage). You'll feel a lot better donating ten bucks for some fabulous software and keeping the free software revolution going, than lining the pockets of the above mentioned corporate goons. Here's some stuff you'll find useful at home: Gimp : A flexible and comprehensive alternative to throwing hundreds of dollars away for Adobe Photosh...

Christmas Shopping for the Smart

I recently completed my annual July Christmas shopping and a friend noticed the large amount of shopping bags coming out of my car. He casually inquired what it was all for and when I remarked, it was for Christmas, he looked rather puzzled and asked "why now?" Why now indeed? Let's face it, Christmas shopping is an incredible pain in the ass at the best of times... unless you do it in July like the smart, organized people. Let's look at the many benefits of completing the task, six months ahead of schedule. 1. Shopping in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt is a hell of a lot easier than shopping in several layers of clothes, heavy boots, scarves, woolly hat, and heavy fur lined coat. Sure, just like wearing all that crazy winter survival getup, you may get a little warm and uncomfortable lugging all those bags around, but the difference is that I can buy a cool drink, sit out in the shade and relax outside. Relaxing and taking off all that gear just isn't possi...

I got nuthin'

Recently I have received a number of compliments for my blog.  I certainly can't take all the credit... I have to give a special "thank-you" to all the flaming morons I'm surrounded by for supplying me with quality material to complain about. That said, there are unfortunately long periods where I don't post anything because I run low on anecdotes because the morons just aren't being entertaining enough... that or I may be otherwise distracted with my current Minecraft (or Mindcrack as I call it) addiction.   I have considered engineering situations wherein the morons would create some interesting anecdotes, but unfortunately most of these would likely result in a lawsuit and/or jail time. So, in future during the dry periods I will be posting a series of cartoons drawn several years ago by myself and a friend of mine. I don't claim to be the best artist or for the material to be entirely original (it's a little derivative of the Far Sid...