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LEC games: X-Wing, TIE Fighter...

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First of all - don't ask why am I making this poll - maybe I simply had another sudden train of thoughts about "my perfect SW game" while playing KotOR

This poll is only for those of you who played BOTH the classic X-Wing & TIE Fighter games (or their Win95 collector's re-release - doesn't matter) AND the later X-Wing vs TIE Fighter & X-Wing: Alliance. All Larry Holland's babies.

This poll is NOT about "which game is/looks better", because newer games will always look better, while nostalgia makes oldies feel better. What I'm asking about is
how combat (dogfights) is handled in regards to speed & maneuverability.


There is a major difference between X-W & T/F and the latter X-WvsT/F & X-W:A. X-WvsT/F introduced a change in a way how the fighter turns - it was now important to set the right throttle (approx. 50%) in order to make tighter turns. Your starfighter was less agile while at idle or max throttle setting.

What was the effect of this change is that the starfighters were often making low-speed dogfights, literally turning around each other (since there's "match target's speed" button). If we compare it to the movies, the fighters in the flicks seem to suffer from inertia to some degree and can't make UFO-like turns. If they could, those TIE Interceptors which crashed in ROTJ (in hot pursuit after a rebel pray) could quickly set throttle to 50% (because change in maneuverability was dependant on the throttle setting, NOT actual speed, which decreased/increased with some realistic delay) and avoid crashing. I like it the way it's portrayed in the movies - the combat looks more like between contemporary jets, rather than between some extraterrestial anti-grav powered gizmos

We could argue like geeks about "which system is more realistic when it comes to the SW universe", but let's be frank - it's all about personal preferences and playability. I hated the new system, because in old games I was "teh mastah", while I started to suck major time, especially in X-W:A

P.S.: too bad that LucasArts "does not accept unsolicited work", otherwise I'd have few interesting concepts for them...
I saw the original theatrical release of the Old Trilogy on the big screen and I'm proud of it...
How did I accomplish that (considering my age) is my secret...
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Aww hell, classic X-Wing was the game I bought my first PC for. Never before had anything I'd played make me feel so much like part of the movies. And frankly, nothing I've played since has either. What an amazing experience it was. If only they would re-release it with today's graphical standards (like those in Rogue Leader). Outstanding. Nothing that followed was ever as good

Haha and I completely missed the point of the topic there - well done me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So back ON topic I prefer the XWA handling as I like the turning: quick cut to 1/3 speed for a fast banking maneouver before hitting the thrusters as you tear through a TIE fighter. Genius
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I've only briefly seen those games. Right now, I'm actually playing Rogue Leader through for the first time. That and Rogue Squadron are my two favorite Star Wars games by far. But then again, I've never played X-Wing or TIE Fighter.

There is no lingerie in space…

C3PX said: Gaffer is like that hot girl in high school that you think you have a chance with even though she is way out of your league because she is sweet and not a stuck up bitch who pretends you don’t exist… then one day you spot her making out with some skinny twerp, only on second glance you realize it is the goth girl who always sits in the back of class; at that moment it dawns on you why she is never seen hanging off the arm of any of the jocks… and you realize, damn, she really is unobtainable after all. Not that that is going to stop you from dreaming… Only in this case, Gaffer is actually a guy.

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Back then I played both X-Wing and TIE Fighter excessively. The strange thing is, I played with many different controls, like the mouse, a game pad and a joystick. They all had their special feel, although the gamepad was somehow most comfortable. What bothered me was that the button to roll the ship gave a too abrupt switch... it would've been nicer if the control would have had some transition from steering to rolling.
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I would love to replay some of them, but I cannot find my Gravis (Xterminator?) gamepad which was discontinued long ago, and it just wouldn't be the same. That, and they don't cooperate all that much with DOSbox.

Was anyone else here in the EH or the NI?
"It's the stoned movie you don't have to be stoned for." -- Tom Shales on Star Wars
Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived.
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X-Wing and Tie Fighter were classics and I liked the controls better in them. Though I did play X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter more because of a neat, fan-made, mission editor.

"Now all Lucas has to do is make a cgi version of himself.  It will be better than the original and fit his original vision." - skyjedi2005

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i haven't played the original X wing or TIE Fighter in so long that i can't remember what the controls were like, but i've been replaying through x wing alliance recently. That is such a fun game! i love the story arc. regardless of the fact that it wouldn't necessarily fit the movie cannon, it's dang fun! As for the control system, while i can't comment on the older one, i think this version is decent. As a pilot myself, i think it makes perfect sense for the maneuverability to be based on speed because that's how it works in the real world (ok, it's much more complicated, but the basic concept is there). One think i would've liked is to have a more noticable delay from the time you change the throttle setting to the time your speed actually decreases. But, i can always chalk that up to the scifi technology. One thing i really did like was how they used the rudder control on the joystick to roll & what would typically be the ailerons to yaw (this is backwards from a real plane). It gives it enough of a difference to feel like something other than an airplane (which it should, seeing as they are spaceships), yet remains a very intuitive control system.
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I haven't played the newer games as much as the old ones. But XW and TF ROCK THE HOUSE BABY!!!!

LucasArts made a major boo boo when they started going with space combat games like Rogue Squadron. That made it too arcade-ish where it was all action and no thought. XW took thought and strategy. I still can't beat Project Shantipole, dammit.
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Originally posted by: Nanner Split
Anybody remember the Rebel Assault games?

Oh yeah, I LOVE Rebel Assault! I have the one from the 90s for the PC and I still play it from time to time.
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I never really got into X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter. But X-Wing and TIE fighter was the best. I've beaten TIE fighter twice, but never could finish X-Wing, although I did get close. Lucasarts had some great games during this time. They had a couple of great combat flight sims during this period as well: Their Finest Hour:The Battle of Britian, and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. Then Lucasarts went into arcade-type games and things went downhill.
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My best friend at one time had all these type of games on his PC - Rebel Assault Tie Fighter, our favourite was X-Wing that game was well hard if I remember but it was fun we try and get some long periods playing it , one things that appealed to us at the time with these games were the cut screens, there was nothing better than completing a level and one of those cut screens came up, that was all the incentive we needed to keep playing hour after hour was to see another one of them...
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Ah, those two games. X-Wing and TIE-Fighter are two of my favorite games of all time. X-Wing was fantastic because the Star Wars simulator experience was the first of its kind. Then came TIE-Fighter, finally a Star Wars game where you could be evil - and it felt good!

(Yeah, I know about the old arcade games, but I've just barely played them, and the experience never came close to the Lucasarts games of the early 1990s.)
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Originally posted by: Number20
I never really got into X-Wing Vs. Tie Fighter. But X-Wing and TIE fighter was the best. I've beaten TIE fighter twice, but never could finish X-Wing, although I did get close. Lucasarts had some great games during this time. They had a couple of great combat flight sims during this period as well: Their Finest Hour:The Battle of Britian, and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. Then Lucasarts went into arcade-type games and things went downhill.


Yeah, I remember when that started. Rogue Squadron was the first like that......then Starfighter, Battle Of Naboo, Jedi Starfighter all followed the same formula. They are all basically the same game, just with improvements to graphics and gameplay.

The golden age of Star Wars LucasArts games was....X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Rebel Assault 1 & 2, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, and Mysteries Of The Sith. Haven't played much of XvT or XW Alliance, but I would put them in with the above group. Force Commander and Rebellion were the first attempts at SW strategy games.....I didn't play them much, but I didn't really like them. Those games are not my cup of tea.

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Originally posted by: Cable-X1
The golden age of Star Wars LucasArts games was....X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Rebel Assault 1 & 2, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, and Mysteries Of The Sith.

Yeah, the golden age was definitely the early to mid 1990s as I see it, though there have been a few gems since. My favorite Star Wars games will have to be X-Wing, TIE-Fighter, Dark Forces, Jedi Knight and Jedi Knight 2. I haven't found the time to play any the KOTOR games, but I've heard they're great though.
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KOTOR was supposed to be REALLY awesome. I had it, but I sold it. I've gotten so disgusted with the state of SW that I've purged everything from '97 up.

JK2 was pretty good, but it was Jedi Academy that kinda ticked me off. JK2 came out in April 2002 and Jedi Academy came out in August 2003. JA is basically a huge mod for JK2. It sounds to me that they released an earlier version to cash in on Episode 2's release and then put out the version they meant to put out originally with Jedi Academy. It was a theory thrown around after JA was released. I happen to agree with it.

A lot of the SW games of the last 6 years or so follow this pattern. There was KOTOR 2 which was rushed to completion for the holidays in 2004. Then there was the whole Galaxies debacle, which is well documented in other places.

Just seems like they're out for money and don't want quality games out there. Quality games keep people coming back. In video games, quality matters a bit.

Some of the gems are KOTOR, Galactic Battlegrounds was pretty awesome and the Lego one. I'm sure the new Lego one is probably awesome, but I won't buy it on principle. Lucas isn't making it worth it for him to hand over my money.
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I have little free time these days, but I've been trying out a slightly hacked version of X-wing from the Collector's Edition (with the better graphics), and X-wing Alliance.  Id' forgotten just how fun these games are, even years after first playing them and lengthy intervening time without.  It's so refreshingly nostalgic!

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That sounds awesome.  X-Wing is actually what really made me fall in love with Star Wars.  I was 13 when it first came out and I spent so much (way too much!) time playing it.  Probably played through the whole game (plus Imperial Pursuit and B-wing) 10 or 15 times.  I daresay I actually enjoy X-Wing more than the movies themselves...

Tell me more about this X-Wing hack!  Does it run on modern Windows?  Where can I get it?

Anyone remember different camera angles from ROTJ?

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I don't know about a hack, but someone has made new installers for the Collectors Editions, XvT and XWA to allow installation on 64 bit versions of Windows (the original installers are 16 bit and therefore don't work). There's also a lot of work being done to update the ship models in XWA to more detailed versions.

I've also had the DOS versions working quite well using DOSBox, although they need a tweaked configuration and enough CPU cycles to run properly.

Its really amazing the longevity of these games, there are still a few sites out there that are still updated (although not regularly) that focus on the original DOS versions! There are only a handful of games I can think of that still get this kind of support. A while back I read some comments from a couple of the original X-Wing team and there were some brief rumblings of a new X-Wing game or a remake, but nothing seemed to materialise from it. I think it was around the same time they started to release some of the Lucasarts back-catalogue on Steam, but a change of management soon put a stop to all that.

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 (Edited)

Rebel Assault 2 was ridiculously easy.

I returned it after finishing it in one sitting without breaking a sweat (still bothered to finish it though didn't I? Which says more about about wanting to see more Star Wars back then than anything to do with the game).

Ironically the PT would feel less like Star Wars (despite having slightly better performances from the actors) and be filmed in much the same way. 

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CapableMetal said:

I don't know about a hack, but someone has made new installers for the Collectors Editions, XvT and XWA to allow installation on 64 bit versions of Windows (the original installers are 16 bit and therefore don't work). There's also a lot of work being done to update the ship models in XWA to more detailed versions.

@Spilkabilka, perhaps hack is the wrong word, and CapableMetal is right; this is actually what I used, one with the new installer.  I found it on TPB.  But I also found these guides that could be helpful.

http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_X-Wing

http://www.savingcontent.com/2012/03/guide-play-x-wing-series-on-windows-7-with-an-xbox-360-controller/3/

Also, this site has a guide on how to update graphics for X-wing Alliance (which I had no trouble installing on Win7), and a mod that would change the game to the original X-wing misisons but with the updated graphics.  Pretty cool stuff!

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/11/play-x-wing-with-upgraded-graphics-trust-us-you-should/

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Also, if you do a Google search for Markus Egger, he has created the new installers for the Windows X-Wing series releases, plus a few more LucasArts games (I think a Rogue Squadron installer is also there) so you can use your original discs to install under 64 bit Windows.

Darksaber's Ultimate Craft Pack is an easy way to update the in-game ships, as is the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade craft pack, I don't know if these packs are compatible with X-Wing, TIE Fighter or XvT though, but would be surprised if there wasn't some way of converting them ;)

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ray_afraid said:

VERY interested in being able to play X-Wing with updated graphics and all that! I loved the original game and the B-Wing expansions. X-Wing is still my favorite Star Wars game thing. Thanks for these links and the info, Ender!

Glad I could help.  It really is neat.  Hope you enjoy! :)