STAR WARS™: TIE Fighter Special Edition

X-Wing was a good game. Really revolutionary for it's time. Yet it was difficult in the worst kind of way: it's difficulty frequently made no sense. Some missions weren't difficult, they were downright cruel where it was luck more than anything else that had you beat it. The story was also pretty paper-thin. TIE Fighter changed all that. On hard difficulty, it could still be a very brutal game. Yet the difficulty made sense. More often than not you could control the engagement, and when you failed the mission, there was always a reason why. Most importantly, they created a storyline. that storyline is still more Starwarsy then anything of the prequels, and I would say rivals the original canon itself. They accomplished this by doing something pretty revolutionary at the time. It wasn't so much "shades of gray" as being an adult in storytelling. The Empire wasn't some comically evil organization. They were ruthless in efficiency. You saw things from their eyes. They intervened in civil wars because from an Imperial standpoint, systems embroiled in war disrupted business, and could set a precedent as it spread elsewhere. They didn't care who was "right" or "good", they craved stability above all else. As a TIE Fighter pilot, you were an agent of that stability. You weren't joining a dark side death cult, you were acting as the Emperor's eyes and ears. While that might seem paranoid, you rapidly realize that such extra TLC is needed, as even in an autocratic empire human greed still runs unchecked. Most importantly, the story is mainly told in the action. Little actions you take in combat end up having profound implications in later missions. Everyone knows how the controls (especially with a flight stick) are very responive, and the combat is exhilarating. This is still one of the greatest pc games ever made, and now you can find out why.

Minor issue in that there is noticeable lagging when transitioning between objects in the concourse, and there is no music in the hangar, which shouldn't be a problem with modern systems. Good job GOG, now bring on X-Wing Alliance!

Awesome game, now can't wait for X-wing Alliance and X-Wing VS Tie-Fighter....oh and Full Throttle too :-)

I played - and beat - this game back in the day w/o a joystick. In fact, I prefer it. There's nothing quite so much fun as as playing w/a mouse - holding down that left click and doing some crazy maneuvers in really frenetic combat. Truly the best star wars game out there.

I often grade other flight sim games based on this one. In my opionion it helped set the standard for a good space combat flight sim game, and loving Star Wars of course helped. The graphics may be dated, but the game still has a cool story line with twists and turns to enjoy, good controls and fun ships to fly. It's a must for any combat flight enthusiast.