Star Wars X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter

"Could have been great ..."

This game could have been THE best in flight simulators. It really could have. Unfortunately, when you take a great idea, and rush it, you get X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter.

Single Player: 6

Anyone who ever played X-Wing or TIE Fighter, knows that those games had awesome storylines. The campaigns were magnificent for a single player. So, the folks at LucasArts decided to combine those two games, and make it multi-player. They did a good job on the latter. The former does not exist. Sure there are Training Exercises, and Combat Engagements, but nothing else. The Combat missions have no background. You get a briefing, and you're off. You can play any mission, any time. They don't progress, seeing as you destroy the same Star Destroyers every time. Oh no! It's the Avenger again! Wait, we already destroyed that last mission. It just doesn't go in order, and you don't feel like you must go on right away to save the Alliance or something.

Multi-Player: 10

At least this was good. Up to eight people can play and kill each other in their favorite Star Wars starfighter. You can play the standard Combat Engagements together, or against one another. Or, try a Melee and duke it out in an asteroid field. Thank the lord they did this right.

Ranking System: 10

I had to put this in a catagory because I was simply amazed. You start off as a Trainee, and the more kills, accuracy, and missions you complete, the higher you'll get on the Rank chart. And trust me, there's a lot of ranks to go through. Ranks come easy at first, as you go through Officer, and Veteran. Then you must actually set the difficulty to HARD, so you can get the blue, ''Excellent Performance'' mission ribbon. Then there are also gold medals for Battles (which are missions stringed together), and gold trophies for Melees. I haven't gotten to the highest rank yet. I'm only an ''Top Ace 2nd Level'', but I haven't played for a while, anyway. Maybe I should.

Graphics: 7

They weren't bad, but they sure weren't good, if not fair. The starfighters themselves looked sharp, but the capital ships like Star Destroyers and Frigates are terrible. They look like toys. The ships don't take on any visual damage, and the size distortions are HORRIBLE. A Star Destroyer is supposed to hold over 50 fighters, but it looks like it can hold no more than 12. A Nebulan-B Frigate is supposed to hold 24 fighters, it can carry 2. Well, there's imagined hanger space where you can't fly into, but it couldn't hold any more fighters, anyway. The shields seemed non existent, too. At least put a blue flash for shields.

Challenge: 8

Easy is cakewalk. Your wingmen overtake the enemies no matter what the odds are. Medium difficulty is well balanced. HARD is impossible on some missions. It doesn't matter if you and 23 other X-Wings face off against 6 TIE Bombers without warheads. The X-Wings will lose.

Gameplay: 5

The only reason you'll keep trying after you beat all the missions, is because you'll probably want your rank higher. Which means getting better mission ribbons. There are no storyline campaigns. You have to buy ''Balance of Power'' to get a decent campaign add-on to this game. With BoP, this game wouldn't be worth it. With the added costs of BoP, and the cinemas you get with it, it's well worth it.

The Final Word

If you like Star Wars, and if you like blowing your friends or other people to atoms, this is the game for you. If you like plot driven games, you will want to buy Balance of Power along with this. It doesn't take up much space, and you don't need a high speed computer. It's fun, but no storyline makes this game, ''The game that could have been ...''

Overall Rating: 7.0
(Not an Average)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/02, Updated 02/21/02