Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
| Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Totally Games |
| Publisher(s) | LucasArts |
| Designer(s) | Lawrence Holland |
| Series | Star Wars: X-Wing |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | 30 April 1997 |
| Genre(s) | Space simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is the third installment of the X-Wing computer game series, although it is not a regular part of the series.
Including several technical advancements over the original releases of its predecessors, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter runs on Windows, requires a joystick, features a CD audio soundtrack, supports high resolution graphics, and brings texture mapping to the ship models of the in-flight game engine. It includes robust multiplayer options for up to eight players in free-for-all, team-based, and cooperative play modes, and has a sophisticated pilot and mission selection system that tracks the player's points and awards. In addition to selecting what craft he or she will fly, the player can choose his or her squadron (and thus role in combat) for each mission.
It is the only part of the series designed almost exclusively for multiplayer and/or personal practice only, lacking a storyline. Totally Games later released an expansion called Balance of Power which added a storyline.
Apart from new battles and missions, Balance of Power features a Rebel and an Imperial campaign of 15 missions each. The campaigns supported 8-player cooperative play. Both campaigns revolve around the same series of events, but with alternate endings.
The pack also adds B-wings as a pilotable craft, along with other vessels that are lacking from the original game.
A cut-down limited version of X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter called Flight School was re-released as part of the X-Wing Collector Series compilation, which also contained special editions of the first two Star Wars space fighter games. In this edition, X-Wing and TIE Fighter were retrofitted with the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter graphics engine, which uses texture mapping instead of Gouraud shading.
Though it was released almost two years after TIE Fighter: Collector's CD-ROM, XvT was developed under an attenuated schedule of approximately 14 months. This was because the development team had spent several months working on a "Millennium Falcon" game that ended up being cancelled when it was recognized that the team simply didn't have the resources in time and personnel to meet the exceptionally high expectations such a title was sure to generate. Much time was devoted to creating a hybrid game engine to handle first-person "run & gun" gameplay along with the familiar flight combat, and a complex interwoven storyline featuring both a Han Solo-esque "smuggler" and a Boba Fett-inspired "bounty hunter."
...
Wikipedia