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Summary
X Wing Fighter Game Online
A tremendous disappointmentThe Good
This was a very brave attempt to create a multiplayer-only game in the Star Wars universe, a few years before Quake III Arena and Unreal: Tournament made the multiplayer-only genre a convincing success. On its face it seemed like a good idea. Everybody wants to fly an X-Wing. Everybody wants to beat their friends.I write this from the perspective of the UK, where in 1997 most people who had private internet access only had a modem, and the game was not a great hit. Doom and Quake were popular online, but that was because students could play them on university computers because Doom and Quake did not require a joystick. It was hard to smuggle a joystick into university without attracting attention. And nobody wanted to because, compared to the previous games in the series, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter was an enormous let-down.
The positive. The graphics were quite attractive in their day, adding texture maps to the simple Gouraud shading of TIE Fighter. Some of the models had an impressive sense of scale. Because this was released in the earliest days of hardware acceleration it did not have 3D card support out of the box. You had to download a patch, which tended to make the textures look blurry. As I write these words there are no screenshots for the game because no-one liked it, and also I believe it ran under DOS. I have no idea if it will run on modern hardware.
This is the 'what I liked about this game' section.
The Bad
The game was not developed by the same team behind TIE Fighter, and it showed. The space combat was very poor, because the AI opponents were very obviously perfect, but slowed down slightly so as to simulate human flaws. They could sense your crosshairs and react to you, even from a great distance. They did not miss. Playing the game with bots was hilarious, because the computer opponents were so perfectly alike they would blow each other up at exactly the same time. The single-player missions were perfunctory. The missions were played individually. There was no ongoing storyline, no plot at all.And as a multi-player game the idea was flawed. Space is not an ideal venue for multi-player action because it is empty. There is no real cover and very little eye candy. The game tried to alleviate this by including asteroid fields, but they were spartan. Because the game was set in space - unlike a traditional flight simulator - there were no clouds, mountains, no gravity. As a multiplayer experience the basic gameplay was no different to ancient 3D space shooter games such as Star Raiders, but without any of the depth.
The Bottom Line
A brave try that failed on every level. It didn't even have a Star Wars vibe; the intro movie - which was rendered rather than being animated, as per previous titles - looked like something from Star Trek, and the polish that we had come to expect from Lucasarts was completely missing. After the triumphant TIE Fighter it was a particularly unimpressive effort. With one exception the company seemed to give up on space combat games entirely after this.Platforms: | PC |
Publisher: | LucasArts Entertainment |
Developer: | LucasArts Entertainment |
Genres: | Simulator / Space Combat |
Release Date: | 1993 |
Game Modes: | Singleplayer |
The idea is so simple it’s almost perfect. Everybody loves Star Wars. Computer owners love flight sims. So how about a Star Wars flight sim game from LucasArts? Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it? Amazingly, X-Wing is every bit as good in reality as it sounds in theory, and even though the game is not a rightful member of the genre (it’s technically a space combat game), X-Wing is the response most people give when they are asked “What’s your favourite retro flight sim?”
They drew a wealth of source material from their parent company to create a fully realized reconstruction of the unique Star Wars universe. Players train as Rebel pilots, then fly recreations of famous battles before taking on the might of the Galactic Empire in a serious of ongoing campaigns. Fly X-Wing, A-Wings and Y-Wing fighters against Tie Fighters, Star Destroyers and a plethora of other Imperial craft as you strive to destroy the horrendously powerful starship – the Death Star.
Although it doesn’t look like much to start with (since it’s in space there’s no ground or sky to pretty things up, and ships are made up of rudimentary polygons), there’s much more to X-Wing than first meets the eye – it’s by far the most action-packed, intense aerial combat game around, and the campaigns, flight recorder and career structure (you get promoted and win medals as you and your wingmen progress) make it as involving as any of the more conventional real-life flight sims.
Star Wars Tie Fighter Game
But most impressive of all is how the game achieves its primary objective – giving you the feeling that you are in a Star Wars movie, flying an X-Wing fighter. By that metric alone, Star Wars: X-Wing was one of the greatest movie-to-game adaptations of its time. You can customize shield and laser settings for optimum performance in varying battle situations, for example, command your R2 unit to carry out repairs, communications with other fighters in your group for formation attack plans. The things just feels so right, providing a world you just don’t want to leave. Enjoy.
System Requirements: 80386/33 MHz, 4 MB RAM, DOS
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Tags: Free Download Star Wars X-Wing PC Game Review
Platforms: | PC |
Publisher: | LucasArts Entertainment |
Developer: | Totally Games |
Genres: | Simulator / Space Combat |
Release Date: | April 29, 1997 |
Game Modes: | Singleplayer / Multiplayer |
X-Wing vs TIE Fighter is the third game in the X-Wing series of Star Wars space combat sims, and it’s about this time that the franchise had started losing its steam. The game suffered from a long list of small but persistent inconsistencies. Taken alone they aren’t significant, but there are enough of them to add up. For instance, when you enter hyperspace, the effect of blurring stars is missing. There is no speech behind the mission briefings. Many of the missions are directly ported from TIE Fighter. There’s little variety to the sound bites during gameplay. There are no Death Star runs. All of these details indicate that corners were cut.
But the biggest problem with X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is a lack of shape, a feeling that there’s no structure, nothing holding it together from inside. The included missions are simply scattered at your feet for you to pick up one at a time, in whatever order you like, using whatever ships and weapons you like. In a head-to-head combat, there’s no reason for players to use anything less than the best. This doesn’t do justice to the spirit of the Star Wars universe in which the Empire throws masses of cheap TIE Fighters against a handful of the Rebellion’s superior ships.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the system for score-keeping were more clearly defined, encouraging players to pilot weaker ships with less advanced weaponry. But the scoring is poorly explained and seems to only take into account success or failure regardless of the tools you use. The kills, which determine your pilot’s rating, are also poorly explained. Nowhere in the manual does it mention the difference between a kill (inflict at least 2/3 of the damage), a partial kill (inflict at least 1/3 of the damage), and an assist (a possible result if you inflict less than 1/3 of the damage).
The physics of “flight” in X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter have been completely revamped since the earlier titles. The ships behave as if they’re moving through an atmosphere, requiring slower speeds for tighter turns. Although some might complain that it’s now just a flight sim without gravity, this is a necessary concession to playability. Coupled with the excellent power management scheme and advanced targeting commands, this is by far the most sophisticated yet playable space sim available. Any attempts at “realism” would probably make for a less enjoyable and ultimately forgettable game. Do you remember the Microsoft Space Simulator or MicroProse’s Mantis? Me neither.
The improvements to graphics are mainly the addition of texture mapping to the polygons, which takes its toll on frame rate. LucasArts’ claims that this engine is so fast that it doesn’t need accelerator support are nonsense. This is especially troublesome in multiplayer situations, where poor connections between mid-range computers are intolerable enough. Ultraiso 9 usb create boot partition. Although the game theoretically supports four players over the Internet (via Microsoft’s Internet Gaming Zone, direct TCP/IP connections, or network emulators like Kali), even getting three players connected is an iffy proposition. Fortunately, there’s been enough kvetching that Holland has promised a patch to improve Internet connections and provide 3D support by mid-August.
Which brings us to the good news. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is, hands down, one of the most exciting multiplayer games you’ll play, if you play it right. One-on-one combats are pretty dull (turn, turn, turn, shoot, repeat), but coordinated team missions, whether cooperative or competitive, are uniquely satisfying. There’s nothing like leading a squadron of Y-Wings for a proton torpedo attack against a Star Destroyer, knowing that your buddy is curled up in a TIE Interceptor, trying to punch through your defensive screen of computer controlled X-Wings.
There’s a delicious terror when your opponent gets a missile lock and you’re in a TIE Fighter that’s about as sturdy as a Christmas tree ornament. I defy you to hold your heart rate steady with another player as your wingman while the two of you fight to defend a supply depot from Imperial Gunboats. See how little you care about the game’s shortcomings while you’re protecting your friend’s TIE Bomber squadron from marauding A-Wings with concussion missiles, hoping the power in your jammers holds out until they can get off their bombs.
For a long time, multiplayer gaming in space combat game were pretty tame. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter allows players to join something much larger, more epic, more frantic, more confusing, more tense, more exciting. Something just plain more. You may not realize how much is going on until after you’ve been killed and you find yourself watching the rest of the battle from the map screen, biting your nails nervously. This is what makes X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter truly special and what ultimately redeems it.
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is not perfect, but it works well enough to provide all the excitement of watching the movies. Assuming this is what LucasArts set out to do, so in this regard, they’ve succeeded admirably.
X Wing Fighter Game Free
System Requirements: Pentium 200 MHz, 32 MB RAM, Win95
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