STAR WARS™: TIE Fighter Special Edition

This game is awesome!! But its important to remember you can NOT play this game without a joystick. Don't even bother buying it until you have one.

TIE Fighter had a lot of people confused back in 1994. Everyone wanted to be Luke Skywalker flying X-Wings for the Alliance against the evil Empire...who would want to actually fly FOR the bad buys. The folks at Totally Games answered that question by giving us an amazing and compelling story, along with some of the most memorable missions and set pieces you'll find in ANY space combat sim. This game, as X-Wing before it, can be quite puzzly in nature, but once you accept that, you will be in for the ride of your life. As a purist, I recommend the 1994 version due to the amazing interactive music (iMuse) system, which has dynamic, reactive music that changes as you play. The later editions used more standard redbook audio. That said, if you have ANY interest in space combat AT ALL, you owe it to yourself to add this game to your collection. After playing space games for over thirty years, this one still is in my top 5 games of all time. Once you dive into it, you'll easily see why.

GOG staff comment: The 1995 DOS CD version is now included as of 28.04.2015. TIE Fighter is one of my Top 3 games of all time, but how you do not include the definitive 1995 CD-ROM Collector's Edition version is a travesty. Ask anyone who played all 3 versions (1994 floppy, 1995 CD-ROM, and 1998 Windows), and the 1995 CD-ROM edition was by far the best version of the game. It quadruples the resolution from the original release (320x240 to 640x480), retains the wonderful iMuse soundtrack that provides much of the game's soul, and adds voice briefings and in-mission voice, as well as the Enemy of the Empires campaign. The GOG version will never be 5 stars so long as the 1995 CD-ROM edition is missing.

As someone who has played practically all space combat games since the early 80s let me tell you this.. Take the awesome combat mechanics from Xwing add an amazing story ala wing commander and improve on every single point and you have the best space combat game ever made. Yes Freespace 2s combat is awesome, yes privateer adds more freedom but there is no package that feels so utterly polished and enjoyable as Tie Fighter. Get the original imuse midi soundtrack and you quite possibly have one of the best game soundtracks ever made aswell. I played through the game recently again with an Xbox Controller and yes its doable but of course get a good joystick if you can... This is a review of the original CD version i havent played through the GOG version yet.