I really enjoyed both “X-Wing” and “TIE Fighter”. The solo missions from “X-Wing vs TIE Fighter: Balance of Power” I only played through once. And “X-Wing Alliance” became overcomplicated for my taste.

“X-Wing” was way tougher than “TIE Fighter”, as it lacked very important features added to the successor: the function to match speed with target (as a result, Shuttles and Transports proved to be quite dangerous enemies, as you could easily crash into them), and the function to see the mission’s goals. In X-Wing, it was easy to miss out on some critical goal and be none the wiser. On the other hand, it made the victories feel more rewarding.

“TIE Fighter” is superior both in terms of the more coherent storyline, the aforementioned improvement in gameplay, the slicker graphics and sound, beloved EU characters like Thrawn. However, as far as cutscenes go, I prefer the classical disk version of those, instead of rather poorly-looking FMV from the CD edition.

Oh yeah, and the 1998 Windows versions are abominations that never should have seen the light of day.