Star Wars: X-Wing | |
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Genres | Space simulation |
Developers | LucasArts, Totally Games |
Publishers | LucasArts, Disney Interactive Studios |
Platforms | DOS, Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Linux |
Platform of origin | DOS |
First release |
Star Wars: X-Wing February 1993 |
Latest release |
Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance February 28, 1999 |
Star Wars: X-Wing is a series of space combat video games and an expansion of the Star Wars franchise that attempts to simulate the fictional experience of starfighter combat, while remaining faithful to the movies. The player took the role of a pilot of the Rebel Alliance, and, in later games, the Galactic Empire. To complete the games, players must complete missions such as simple dogfights with opposition starfighters, reconnaissance and inspection tasks, escort duty for freighters or capital ships, or attacks on larger opposition ships. In addition to dogfighting designed to resemble the free-wheeling duels of World War I, the games also offered the challenge of managing power resources and wingmen, and using weapons effectively.
The first game in the series, Star Wars: X-Wing, and the last, X-Wing Alliance, feature as their concluding missions recreations of the attacks on the first and second Death Star, respectively. In 1994, X-Wing won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1993.
Most of the games feature voiced (this was quite unusual in the days of the first two games, X-Wing and TIE Fighter) and hand-drawn (along with occasional rendered) cutscenes at crucial points in the storyline. They also feature music from the original trilogy (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi) that responds to the player's actions thanks to the iMUSE system.
X-Wing (1993) begins, seemingly, a few months prior to A New Hope and involves helping the Rebel Alliance with salvage, gathering intelligence, and ambushing Imperial forces. However, the second tour is driven mostly by the interception of the Death Star plans by secretly modified Imperial communication satellites, which prompts the player to help deliver the plans to Princess Leia Organa and eventually stop the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin. The third tour shows the Rebel Alliance desperate to discover the location of the Death Star while the plans are en route to the Rebel Alliance High Command.