Star Wars: X-Wing / Tie Fighter

[LHammonds]

You know, I wouldn't mind playing a particular game to this very day that was created almost 20 years ago! And that is X-Wing (the whole series). I think it would be just as fun to play today as it was back then. A re-make of basically the exact same gameplay, missions and controls but with today's graphics and sound FX would be an easy money-maker.

 

Anyone that has not experienced X-Wing should check it out if you are into space simulators.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Xwcd.jpg

 

Here are some of the things I really liked about it:

 

• Space felt 3D and you could rotate your craft in any position you wanted for your attack.
  
• Your onboard energy was finite but you controlled how much was given between the 3 major systems: Weapons, Engines, Shields.
  
• You had control over your shields distribution where all could be focused on the front, or all on the back or evenly distributed back to front.
  
• You had control over your weapons where each of the 4 lasers could be fired slowly at the same time, or just 2 at a time, or one at a time providing a kind of rapid fire mode.
  
• The onboard flight recorder allowed you to playback everything in the mission like a VCR player and from different views.
  
• Enemy targeting systems were very effective such as your R2 unit allowing you to target select an incoming torpedo with the press of the spacebar.
  
• Speaking of the R2 unit, you can have him repair systems in whatever order you wish for even more control.
  
• AI buddies were also nice to have and you could issue them orders such as attack or ignore your target, cover me, free to engage, etc.
  
• I cannot remember for certain but I think this also included a "slide" ability where you could turn your ship in a different direction and still drift in your original direction allowing you to pull off some nice maneuvers.
  

 

 

LHammonds

[SilverDNA]

Yep i played it too but i was a bit embarrassed how slow the X-wing was looking ( i know it could have been made a bit faster looking in the star-fields) but at least it had shields but I always would go back for any Y-Wing and A-Wing mission in this game.

Still have the CD ....

And modded some missions back in 1995 for it, but I sadly don't know where i left them.

My favourite self made was a defence battle between a star destroyer and two frigates where you had to protect the frigates of fighter attacks and help to destroy the Stardestroyer.

 

Can agree on your opinion LHammonds it would be a great idea to have this with todays graphic.

A real classic game.

But Tie-Fighter Vs X-Wing was more advanced in my opinion but had good missions as well. Either way I like the idea since it would bring back some old good memories.

Edited March 1, 2011 by SilverDNA

[LHammonds]

Actually, it doesn't even have to be Star Wars...it could be a generic universe. The gameplay would be fun in any setting.

 

Total Annihilation got a make-over with the Spring RTS Engine. Too bad there isn't an equivalent platform for space sims that could capture the same feel of this game.

 

LHammonds

[SilverDNA]

Best fro me suited gaming would be like frontier (very realistic flight and a loot of ships, but please leave the old super bad copy protection out of the way ) it was one of the best. since i like to be a smuggler/ trader I like the old style trading of Elite or Frontier and privateer but X-universe (X3) is to much micro management. A good storyline and the freedom of where to go next,

Exploring and mining are some great options in such games. Sadly such pearls of games arent made any more.

Such is sadly found only on MMORPG's and I don't like such games.

[LHammonds]

Are you trying to blind me with your cyborg laser vision in your sig? hehehe.

[evilneko]

I had the original floppy version of X-Wing. I spent several hours just going through the training missions when I first got it. I remember thinking it was a very, very unforgiving game, and much preferring TIE Fighter when it came out because of its new tiered mission goals and the fact you could still progress the story even if you cheated.

 

I'm pretty sure you can find X-Wing on abandonware sites. Supposedly it runs decently in DOSBox. If you had the CD version and still have the disc you can even mount it and install with DOSBox. Same for floppy, if your computer still has a floppy drive... and the floppies still work.... :wallbash:

 

I don't think X-Wing, TIE Fighter, or for that matter any of the Star Wars space sims had proper newtonian motion though. Pure turn 'n burn. Privateer came close though, you could kill your engine and rotate around. There's an open-source remake for that available, using the Vega Strike engine.

[HellsMaster]

ohmigawd those be real memories! Epic star fighting game back then!

[LHammonds]

I forgot about the Vega Strike engine. Just checked and they are still on 0.5.0 that was released back in 2008. I'll have to re-visit that game and see how it plays.

[Dark0ne]

Space Sims have been very neglected of late; I can only think of the X-universe games keeping it going and they weren't exactly great (Eve Online doesn't count).

 

Tie Fighter was one of my favourite games of all time. I played it first, before X-Wing, so going back to X-Wing was hard work but I got used to it in the end and loved both games. X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter was just an awesome game, along with the expansions. I don't think I ever finished X-Wing: Alliance, which is a shame.

 

I recently reinstalled Freelancer with a housemate to just do some multiplayer missions together. I really liked that game too and felt it was a good space sim for the "casual gamer". All mouse and keyboard and you didn't need a degree in engineering and aircraft dynamics to pick up the game.

 

I never played Freespace or much of the Wing Commander games but I agree that it's a real shame the space sim genre has been left to die :(

[CommanderCrazy]

Hold your horses there Dark. There's a new one in the pipes.

I'd give a link, but my phone cant.

I think its called 'Dark Prophecy' or somethin like that