STAR WARS™: TIE Fighter Special Edition

Real pilots don't need shields.

Often, when I buy games from GOG, I find that time has either not been kind, or I really liked some fairly average games (or maybe a mix of both?) TIE Fighter is not one of those times. It was and remains one of the finest space sims ever made, with a challenging (but not frustrating) difficulty level, excellent mechanics, a wide variety of Imperial ships to fly, and graphics which have aged remarkably well (at least on the DOS CD version, the win 98 version has some horrid low res textures that actually look worse than the '94 Gourad Shaded ones) Frankly, for £6/$9, if you have a joystick get this game.

I've played this off and on for many years and is very addicting. Can be frustrating trying to get the specific goals sometimes, but, overall, is very worth it. Aside from the others in the series, never another game like it. This is probably the best in the series. X-Wing was groundbreaking, but not quite as developed. XvsT was more for multiplayer and not a complete game. Alliance was much better technically, including graphics, but not as overall enjoyable -- different experience. Tie Fighter was the best of them all. Warning: Not completely compatible with Windows 10. Will not launch (runs in background) unless you delete/rename winmmm.dll. This allows it to run, but you lose the background music in the game.

Total immersion in a game is an elusive goal. Many current and older games try to give the player an experience of being a part of the game world created, making them forget that they are sitting at home in a computer chair or couch in front of the TV. If I could literally put myself into a TIE Fighter cockpit to play this game, I don't believe I would feel any more immersed into the world of Star Wars space combat. This is an excruciatingly hard, complex, deep, enjoyable and satisfying game.

I wrote a similar review for X-Wing, but this game is just enough different to warrant its own review. The X-Wing game series was LucasArts' answer to Wing Commander. They took the genre by storm letting everyone take part in the "Star Wars" story. The winners of the competition between Origin Systems (Wing Commander) and LucasArts were fans of the genre. We got several incredible, fun, and amazing games from 1991 through 2000. Back when this was originally released, I was a huge fan (and still am a fan of) the Origin Systems Wing Commander series. I was afraid this was going to be a rip off of Wing Commander using the Star Wars license (in short, I was afraid it was going to suffer by comparison). However, LucasArts created an excellent series of games (X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and X-Wing Alliance). The story was engrossing, the controls intuitive (without being a carbon copy of Wing Commander), and it was a blast to fly as the Imerperials and learning to fly all the types of TIE fighters (some not seen in the movies!). As I noted earlier, the control scheme and "feel" of the ship vary from the Wing Commander. That doesn't make either of them better than the other, but it just makes each game a fun and unique experience. I had the original games, then the CD versions, then purchased the X-Wing Trilogy Collection when it was released in 2000 (still have it...http://www.ign.com/games/star-wars-x-wing-trilogy/pc-855091), which was a collection of the games when they were reworked for Windows using DirectX. I see that this purchase includes all versions of the game along with the "Enemies of the Empire" expansion, which added excellent storyline to the overall game. If you enjoy space combat sims, this game, X-Wing, and X-Wing Alliance are "must haves" for your collection. All three games are highly recommended. A+++