[03/01/05] TIE Fighter

[L.S.D]

Game: Tie Fighter

System: PC

Emulators: Duh?!? Do I have to answer this?

 

Intro:

It was 1993 when Lucas Arts released X-Wing. Immediately, my

childhood life is never the same again with my time spent on

shooting down those pesky TIE Fighters all the time. In 1994,

Lucas Arts did the impossible, by releasing TIE Fighter,

giving you a chance to serve the Emperor and Darth Vader.

And I found myself been shooting Rebel scums ever since.

 

Tie Figther is a space flight sim with a little story and action

thrown in. You will be in the shoes of a rookie pilot, piloting

one of the seven spacecrafts available,fighting the Rebels and

complete missions for the Emperor. The story happens right after

the Battle Of Hoth. And it will take you to numerous places that

you might recognise. You will see familiar spacecrafts as your

opponents like X-Wing, Y-Wing, A-Wing, Shuttles, Frigates and so on.

You will be ordered to do missions after missions while

helping the Emperor to check on his own subjects. You can even

fly together with Darth Vader!(Just don't try to issue

any orders to him!)

The version that I am currently playing is the TIE Fighter

Collector CD Rom Version, with upgraded sound and some

graphical upgrade.

 

Graphics:

Graphically, this game is amazing, 10 years ago. Although

you can't compare it with today's standard, it is still top

notch. The graphics is polygon-based and was rendered quite

beautifully. And all the spacecrafts are quite detailed and you

know what it represent. Meaning X-Wing looks like X-Wing,

TIE Fighter look like TIE Fighter and Star Destroyer look like

STAR Destroyer. The cut scenes are well done enough.

Most impressive is the details during the space combat.

You will see space debris flying past you, lasers passing you,

nearly clipping your wings, the enormousity of Star Destroyer

and its awesome power and so on. With the current standard

machine more than capable of handling the graphical requirement,

it is really an amazng experience when you are engaging in

a furious dogfight, with all the Rebels and Imperial forces

meshed together. Visually stunning.

Graphics : 10/10 (even for the dated graphics, 10 for being

able to convey the awesomeness of Star Wars universe

to the player)

 

Sound:

Star Wars game is Star Wars game. So, expect all the familiar John

Williams' scores are in. The Imperial March is pretty impressive.

All the music are there so no complain there. ANd the sound effects

are really top notch. You will hear the wooshing of the laser sounds

as it passes you, or the sound of X-Wings zipping passes you.

Standard Star Wars sound as I say and considering this is a 10 years

old game, it is amazing

 

Sound : 10/10 (i think the sound is even better than Battlefront

in some cases)

 

Control:

In the floppy version, you can use the mouse to control the spacecrafts.

For the CD-Rom version, it requires a joystick at all costs. I think

it is a good move because you will be having a terrible time trying

to make a turn using the mouse (I do that 10 years ago:P).

And as a space flight sim, TIE fighter has complex control. You

will have buttons to set the rate of laser recharge, how you want

to place the shield around your spacecraft, the speed, targeting the

enemies. But it is easy to learn up and in case you forget, you

could always bring up the command list during in-game by

pressing "k".

With the complex control, it really give you the feeling of piloting

an actual spacecraft. With shorcuts, you can also issue commands

to your wingmen (which is quite common now in most multi-player FPS

game). The responsiveness depends on the joystick that you use.

With this game, I don't feel any lagging in the response and it

really helps especially in tight situation. THe usage of joystick

and keyboard together is a nice experience.

Menu-wise, it is a nice change. Instead of getting a boring menu

table to select, you have a whole space station (or is it inside

a Star Destroyer) as menu. Choosing the door will move you to

the area you wish to go. Mission-wise, you can choose to talk to

officers for flight objectives or look at the mission board

for briefing. It keeps the navigating between missions or area

interesting.

Control : 10/10 (make you feel like you are really piloting a TIE)

 

Gameplay:

We have come to the most important part of the game. And this is

the part where TIE Fighter shines. First of all, this game has

a storyline. THe game will start normally. You will be doing

what a normal Imperial pilot will do; patrolling, guarding

shipment, capture Rebels or attacking a squadron of Rebels.

As the game progress, the story will unfold and you will discover

new twists and unexpected events. A normal patrolling mission

might become a capturing mission or a mission to destroy a frigate

as the missions progresses. This kind of unexpected events really

spice up the whole game and make you keep coming back for more

as you want to complete these extra events. You get to pilot

in seven spacecrafts. You have the normal TIE Fighter (which you will

use quite often), TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber, TIE Defender,

Assault Gunboats and TIE Advanced. In the final parts of the game,

you also get to fly a new version of TIE. Each spacecraft handle

differently and with different attributes to it. You can also

choose which missiles to be loaded to your ship. With so many

spacecrafts to master, rest assured that you will be playing

this game for quite some time. The difficulty of this game

is not as punishing as X-Wing but the AI is quite good.

In fact, it is so good that you will find it is hard to

outmaneuver some of the enemies, especially those pesky A-Wing.

But overall, it is still in accpetable level and didn't really

affect your enthuasism to finish this game. In fact, you will

strive to improve your skills even more.

Only one downside, Imperial foces outnumbers by the Rebels?!?

please...

Gameplay : 10/10 (You will keep coming back for more)

 

Overall, I will give the game a 10/10. A really perfect space

flight sim, which is unrivalled even to today.

 

I give this game

[Gryph]

Great review for a great game. I feel so old when saying that playing TIE Fighter was back in the day. TIE Fighter, X-Wing, and X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter are probably my favorite flight sim games.

[Agozer]

This is arguably the best Star Wars game of the past. Well, Dark Forces and jedi Knight were cool too, but still.

[L.S.D]

This is arguably the best Star Wars game of the past. Well, Dark Forces and jedi Knight were cool too, but still.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have never play Dark Forces before but Jedi knight is cool.

But still, TIE is the BEST Star Wars game ever.

 

I would rank all Star Wars game that I have ever played as this:

1. TIE Fighter

2. Jedi Knight

3. X-Wing (the difficulty is really punishing)

 

The rest is just mediocre or craps (who want to fly a Naboo starfighter? )

 

EDIT: It seems that I don't get much feedback for this We must be very old to talk about this game

Edited March 3, 2005 by L.S.D