STAR WARS™: TIE Fighter Special Edition

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+++

The only problem I've with this game is the 3D graphic option: it makes the computer crash. A joystick is REQUIRED for 1998 version, not for the previous ones but it's strongly recomended. The games itself is beautyful, played on hard difficulty (exp. chapter V) can be a real, real pain but that's the nice part ! I prefer tie vs x-wing because there are lot of functions, missions are pretty understandable (a lack of x-wing). A great classics, fully worthy for a try

I played the crap out of the original 1994 edition back when the game first came out. This game was everything that the movies were missing. Wars among the Stars. Dog fighting Rebel ships and blowing stuff up! Still to this day, nobody has developed such a deep and fun combat flight simulator. I just about had a heart attack when I saw the email from GOG had finally put Tie Fighter and Wing collector's editions up for sale. I didn't even think twice and bought it, and neither should you. BTW there are some who are complaining that this collection does not include the 1995 CD collector's edition which is pretty much the same as the 1994 version (which is included) but ran in double the resolution and speech during mission briefing and radio chatter. The 1998 collector's edition uses the XWing Vs. Tie Fighter engine with massively enhanced texture mapped graphics, CD music, and cockpit engine sounds. There is limited music while navigating around the game which has been replaced with ambient sound effects which does blow, but missions do have music. No, there is no midi music in the missions, but the CD music isn't too bad. You'll be too enthralled with the mission to care about such things anyway. Other than that both the 1995 and 1998 editions have the same crappy intro. The original 1994 version has the best intro by far. Lastly, you will do yourself a great injustice by playing this game with anything other than a flight stick. You'll need one hand on the keyboard pretty much at all times and flight stick will give you the precision that you need to dogfight effectively. I tried it with an XBOX360 controller and it blows. Also I hit a few snags after installation with graphics being weird colors and an error upon startup on the 1998 version. I remedied this by telling the game *NOT* to run as the administrator. Also I had strange colors and terrible performance on the 1994 original. I fixed this by changing DOSBOX output from "surface" to "DDraw" MUST BUY