When you saw Star Wars, didn't you want to take part in the space battle, where you can blow up the Death Star? About 16 years after Star Wars was released, there was a PC game released where you could do that. This is a space combat simulator where you can fly the Y-wing, X-wing, A-wing and B-wing (with an expansion, or the later versions). The game was called X-Wing. I played it at a friend's house when I was in the 8th grade.
It was the best game I have ever seen. You can fly an X-Wing and you have mission objectives. The space flight was totally unrestricted, you could go as far as you cared to go in your fighter. You probably shouldn't venture out too far, because you have to complete your mission objectives. For the time, the graphics were pretty good. The controls were great. You had the option of setting your weapon and shield recharge rates and you could transfer laser energy to shields (or vice versa). Laser energy can be double-charged. A doubly-charged laser is more powerful than a single charge, and has a different sound. The music was Star Wars music to boot-(midi quality, but that was the best at the time).
You can target enemy ships, cycle through targets and identify ships to see their cargo. Y-wings and B-wings are equipped with ion cannons. With these, you can disable your targets. A disabled ship is stationary and cannot fire lasers or weapons. Most of the missions were destroy, capture or escort-or a combination thereof. The mission briefings and story will take you through events from before the first Star Wars movie, up to the Battle of Yavin and beyond. It ends just before the Battle of Hoth (in the Empire Strikes Back).
You will face TIE Fighters, TIE Bombers, TIE Interceptors, TIE Advanced (like Darth Vader's TIE Fighter), Assault Gunboats, Shuttles, Transports, Corvettes, Frigates, and Star Destroyers). Also you could face pirates who could be flying ships similar to your own (Y-wings and X-wings). There are also freighters, containers, and tugs who serve as the cargo ships in the game. Don't forget about satellites, mines, probes, and nav buoys.
Granted, there aren't many different ship types, but you could do quite a bit with what is available. I thought hey this is great. Not long afterward, they made a sequel to the game.
This game called TIE Fighter, came to be the best PC game I have ever played. It surpased X-Wing by leaps and bounds. First of all, on this game you are flying for the Empire! It was the first and only Star Wars game where you are totally on the side of the bad guys. Instead of shooting TIE Fighters, you get to fly them and have to take on the Rebel Alliance and all kinds of pirates, along with rogue Imperial threats.
One of the best things about this game was the story line. The briefings, debriefings and cut scenes melded perfectly with the mission objectives. Even the mission briefings and debriefings were entertaining. You kept trying to gain higher ranks. There was also a secret order of the empire. You got a special secret order rank if you complete enough secondary mission objectives. This rank was a tatoo on your arm. In this game, there isn't just one set of mission objectives, there are 3 kinds of mission objectives: Primary - what you need to do to advance to the next mission; Secondary - what you need to accomplish to gain secret order ranks; and Bonus - what you need to get extra points and really get on the "good" side of the Imperial officers.. hehe.
This game started with the same engine and improved graphics and more types of craft. It was about 5 times more ships and objects than the original game. Instead of different craft there were platforms and asteroid-shaped bases. It added a whole new dimension to what kind of missions you could perform. Mine fields could be filled with type-3 mines which will launch a missile at you when you destroy the mine. (If you shoot the mine a certain way, the missile will explode when you destroy the mine). The controls are almost the same, with a few added features. You can target components on capital ships. This means you can shoot the ship's turrets and laser guns and warhead launchers first. Once these are destroyed, the ship will not fire on you (with a few exceptions).
After a while in the single player campaign, you get to fly suped-up Imperial fighters. The TIE Advanced, TIE Defender and Missile Boat are very powerful craft. With these, you can destroy dozens and dozens of enemy ships in a short period of time. With some practice, you should dominate space--and I did.
You start out in a dinky TIE Fighter which is bound to be destroyed many times if you do not take evasive action. The good news in this game is you can automatically back up your pilot file, so you can pick up where you left off if you made a critical error--as in your ship blew up or you were captured. Another aid was the warning sensors above your targeting reticle. You could see if enemy fighters were attacking you (with a red box), enemy capital ships are attacking you (with a green box), or missiles are targeting you (with a yellow or red flashing box on the right).
With the controls in these old games, you can turn, pitch and roll at full throttle at the same rate as you can when you are throttled down. It is not as "realistic" as the newer games in the series, but c'mon we are in space shooting up Star Wars ships, why make it more realistic?
TIE Fighter, along with X-Wing have been hacked and mission builders have been created for both. You can also create your own ships, battles, and pilot files. I was in a Star Wars club that was based upon the game TIE Fighter. It was fun for quite some time, because of all the things you can do with custom missions in this game. Plus we expanded upon the ranks and medals so it was like our own little Empire. That club still exists, despite the fact that the game it is based upon is now over 13 years old.
In terms of story line, playability, and customizability, this remains to be the best PC game ever. I have not played any new games nearly as long as I have TIE Fighter. I still play it once in a while. I am not as good as I once was, but it is still fun (and that is what matters most).
Ok. After this hit game, they wanted to continue the series of X-Wing games. They made their first multiplayer version of the game. (This is when LucasArts began outsourcing their games). The game was called X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. It was a pretty bad rehash of the original games with some features that downgraded it. You now have less-powerful ships, which cannot turn as fast as they could before--you have to go down to 1/3 thottle to get a turn rate almost as good as what you used to have. It now features CD-quality music, but the game pauses when it changes tracks. This is not good in a multi-player game. There are some more craft, but you are flying the same old missions. Some missions are exact copies of TIE Fighter. There is no clear single player campaign. There are gobs of missions. And each mission has about 12 different levels of completion. From uncomplete, reprimand, satisfactory, to who knows how good because I got sick of playing the same old missions.
They made an expansion to this game which had a Super Star Destroyer in it, but I didn't bother to get that far because the game play was so bad.
The last game of the series arrived and was called X-Wing Alliance. This game kindof made up for X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. There was once again a single player campaign that wasn't a rehash of old missions. There was a plotline, but was set for a younger crowd I think. I was 18 when I first got this game, and it might have been better if I was about 12 years old. This game had even more ships. The graphics were much improved--the first one to use somewhat decent 3D rendering.
A bonus with this game was you finally get to fly ships similar to the Millenium Falcon (at the very end you get to fly the Falcon). You can dock with craft, or pickup objects and drop them off. You are Ace Azzameen, a kid in the family's cargo business. This means flying the cargo ships is a must. You are starting out neutral as far as the Empire/Rebel thing goes, but you join the Rebels about 8 missions in the single player campaign. After joining the rebels, you don't leave the family business entirely, as there are some family missions to do during your campaign missions with the alliance.
You can earn much the same medals as was offered in the original X-wing. On this game, there are many more ranks you can achieve, along with a pilot rating. The Pilot rating extends beyond the single player campaign, into skirmish missions and multiplayer combat missions. In the combat chamber, you can create your own missions within the game. These missions are very basic, but it is a place to setup combat flying any of the flyable craft in the game.
This game was enjoyable and I play it ocassionally. The plot isn't as good, but it is something to go through at least once. You have a droid companion who is kindof annoying. I guess that was a signal that Star Wars is bound to come with an annoying sidekick. (Episode I was only a year away).
I wish LucasArts would have continued this series of games. They could have made a sequel to TIE Fighter specifically, which let you fly the imperial ships after the Battle of Endor. Yes, the empire is basically gone, but there are still imperial factions out there. It would be nice to continue to fly for Grand Admiral Thrawn. (For those who don't know him, read the following novels: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.)
First of all, I'm not an avid fan of the FPS games. I do play them occasionally, and usually get pwned. Dark Forces was the first Star Wars game that is a first person shooter. (The kind game that began with Wolfenstein 3D and became a big success with Doom and hundreds or thousands of games came later). I played those as they came out. After going into space with X-Wing, I prefered to move freely in three dimensions as opposed to running or walking on the ground.
Anyway, back to the game Dark Forces. You are Kyle Katarn, a mercenary, who sides with the rebel alliance. He is first hired to deliver the Death Star plans (supposedly to someone who gives it to Leia Organa). After that, you are asked to investigate a mysterious Imperial attack. The empire created a new weapon, the Dark Trooper. It is a droid-like stormtrooper that is very powerful. You are tasked with destroying their production facilities. There are many missions and it goes through many different maps. The game is a puzzle along with being a basic FPS game. Today, the graphics look horrendous, but for the time they were pretty good. (To give you an idea how old it is, I think it was the first CD-ROM game released by LucasArts--many kids now cannot conceive of what games were on before CDs).
On the CD, it also had a demo for Full Throttle. It looked like a fun game. (I never bothered to get the full version.)
The game Dark Forces had a sequel. This was a much bigger hit than the original game. That is why the rest of the games in the series use the name Jedi Knight, instead of Dark Forces. As the name suggests, you eventually get a lightsaber and learn the ways of the Force. You also can engage in multiplayer combat. I didn't really play this game that much, but it seemed to have been enjoyable from what I heard from those who played it. Once again the game is pretty old and the graphics look bad now, but you got to remember what time it was made. It seems as the graphics improved, the story line of games declined.
Jedi Knight has an expansion pack named Mysteries of the Sith. I have it, but haven't played it that much--as FPSes aren't my thing.
Ok after a while they came out with another game in the series, this one is called Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. You can see they didn't want to call it Dark Forces III, as most people don't remember Dark Forces--but they remember Jedi Knight. Anyway, I played this game for some time and found it to be pretty fun. It is more of the same, but new graphics, and a pretty nice story. (I don't know all of it, because I didn't finish the game, but I can see where it goes).
It continues the series of not just being a kill everything, but there are some puzzles you need to solve in order to advance to the next area. The Jedi trial level took some time. It was frustrating at times, so for those who had a jumping and running challenge, you might want to stray away before breaking the keyboard or whatever else is in your proximity.
I think it is doubtful to see any more games in this series. It is a shame, since it was a great series. If they do, they should probably go with a different main character. Kyle Katarn (if he is used again) will be an old man. Maybe he teams up with Indiana Jones in the retirement home?
Ok this is a unique game that few people have liked. I think it is because of the steep learning curve, lack of good graphics, and the amount of patience needed to get into the good part of a game. This is a real time global strategy/logistics game. I don't know of anything else like it. Maybe warcraft is like it or the civilization games, but I really like this game.
At the beginning you choose which side you will control, the Empire or the Rebels. Choose the size of the galaxy, the difficulty level and the victory conditions (Headquarters only or full victory). You control either faction on a galaxy-wide level. The smallest level of control is with characters, ships, troops, defenses, manufacturing facilities. Most of the time you are dealing with things on a planet (or system) level.
This game is not for everyone. I have yet to find someone online who actually liked playing this game. I found that friends rarely had the patience for it, and got frustrated with their ability to play it. I found it quite easy after I learned how to play it. This is one of those games where you must read the manual before playing--one big reason why I think it didn't get much praise. If you are reading this and like it, please let me know. I downloaded an editor for this game, even made myself as a character. In order for me to lose this game against the computer, I would have to use the editor to make it harder than what the game does by default. I had to purposefully lose in order to see what the losing cutscenes are like in the end of the game.
I could probably devote an entire webpage to this game, which I may (if I get really bored).
I bought this game and regretting buying it afterwards. I got this game not long after getting TIE Fighter and hoped it would be like that. I should have tried it out earlier to find out this was an arcade shooter game. It is basically a movie that lets you do some shooting every now and then. It isn't a FPS--it is a single screen shooter--kindof like Lethal Enforcer for the arcade. If you were expecting anything more, you would be disappointed. The only interesting thing this game contributed to Star Wars was the TIE Phantom, a cloakable TIE Fighter.
Ok you know what MONOPOLY is. This is a computerized version of the Star Wars version of the game. C-3PO is the host of the game and guides you along to play MONOPOLY. This game has some bugs, and it helps if you get the patch and install it. There will still be bugs, but hopefully not bad enough to keep you from playing. If you set all the graphics on, you will see a cutscene when you land on any real estate property. If you do this, the game can take a very long time. I found it better to remove all of the video extras and sound and just get through the game fast. I don't really need to see the cutscenes--I've seen the movies a few times (HAHA).
If you like MONOPOLY and Star Wars this is a good game. I still play it. It tallies your overall wins. I am at about 44%. You are given a lot of options in the game rule setup. This will give you some variety--almost as much as you could do in real life. For me, I would prefer playing with someone with the real board game, which I have. But that isn't possible all of the time.
This game is almost like a RTS. But the interface and controls are kinda funky. The story is fine, but I just kind of lost my liking to the game after a while. The characters don't really seem to react to anything around them, you need to direct them to do everything. There are also some compatibility issues with the game. It is the first Star Wars PC game to require a 3D graphics card. This was a problem with most PCs at the time it was released.
I think they should have waited on this game, for when they got a hold of the AOE2 game engine for when they made Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds.
Did you play Age of Empires 2? If so, this is just like that, but it is Star Wars things. They add a starport where you can make air-based craft (X-wings, TIE Fighters, etc.). To counter the air attacks, they have anti-aircraft troops, vehicles, ships and turrets.
If you like a Real Time Strategy game, then try it out. It gets confusing and complicates it with more items and more technologies (compared to AOE2).
This game had an expansion come out the next year. The expansion adds some of the Episode II factions (Galactic Republic, Confederacy), and the idea of a starship--a big expensive ship that is like a flying trebuchet, but more powerful. If you play on the harder settings or against a human opponent on the expansion, get your aircraft and anti-aircraft items up as soon as possible. The starships are overpowered.
This is a great version of the game that is very popular now. It is just pure combat. You are a part of one faction and you are trying to take control of command posts and destroy your enemies. Pick from a variety of soldiers. Each has their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses. You can get into any vehicle or ship and fly it and shoot with it. It is nice to be able to get onto a speeder bike and just run over opponents.
This is a Star Wars version of Battlefield 1942. The sequel to this game will be out November 1st 2005. With the sequel, you can chose to be a Jedi. (I assume there will be a Bounty Hunter, to counter the Jedi).
This is one of the few shooter games that I have a chance since everyone is evenly matched and you can't survive long-without some help and extra effort. I have claimed many kills in multiplayer games against real people. One of the few games I can say that. This is one of the newer games I mentioned, you can still find this one in stores, probably for a low price--especially since the sequel is out now. Once I get the new game, it will be commented about in this section.
This is the first Star Wars MMO (Massively-Multiplayer Online game). This is an attempt to create the Star Wars universe online. You go online log in and make a new character and be in an online role-playing game.
I started playing this in April 2004. I had a great time and spent many many hours playing it. I met some cool people playing it who helped me out and we had fun playing and just chatting. When I started playing, you could go out on your own and be ok. You could also group up and have even more fun doing things.
Now--you MUST be in a group to get anywhere. They made some major changes to the game earlier this year (2005). If you don't have a good group of friends to play the game with now, you will likely be disappointed. Trying to join in groups now that you don't know anybody may not be as satisfying as everyone has their own goals and time schedules.
I originally reserved this domain and paid for webhosting for this to be a site totally devoted to Star Wars Galaxies. It continues to be a place where people can discuss various things in the forum. I noticed a resurgance in interest in SWG among some of the "old-time" players. It looks to be many more changes going on in the game so I'm not giving up on it anytime soon.
It may appear I have disappeared from the game completely, but my real-life obligations are taking a higher priority right now. I hope to get to play more often in the coming months.
Well, that is my take on Star Wars PC games that I own. For a long while, I bought Star Wars PC games, just because they are such. That isn't always the best way to go about things. I did find some rare gems and some horrible flops.
Best Games:
TIE Fighter
Star Wars Battlefront
Rebellion
Worst Games:
Rebel Assault 2
Star Wars Force Commander
Any of those old Episode I games
Feel free to discuss Star Wars games in my forum.