I've always liked the Empire more than the Rebellion. When Luke was whining and being a crybaby, Darth Vader (who, as we now know, was also once a whining crybaby) was out kicking ass. The Rebels had their little hidden bases of suckiness, the Empire had the DEATH STAR. The Rebels were led by Mon Mothma, a kindly old British woman of a certain age, the Empire was led by EMPEROR PALPATINE, the embodiment of evil ass-kickitude. And while the Rebels had those prototypical (albeit cool-looking) starfighters, the Empire had the TIE Fighter, that awesome black fighter that made the "EEEOOOOOORRRRAAAAAAA" sound, and its kin.
When it came to X-Wings and TIE Fighters, sadly, the X-Wings almost always won. When it comes to X-Wing, the game, vs. TIE Fighter, the game, though, TIE Fighter is easily superior. In fact, TIE Fighter is easily the best space shooter (or vehicular combat game) ever in my opinion, far and away superior to modern travesties like Starfighter. In fact, in your reviewer's humble opinion, TIE Fighter might even be the King of All Video Games.
TIE Fighter is a classic free-form space shooter, of the genre that was pioneered by games like Wing Commander. It is actually a sequel to the game X-Wing, but it makes so many vast improvements that it is hardly recognizable as a sequel, as it simply crushes its predecessor beneath its jackboot Imperial heel.
For those unfamiliar, TIE Fighter's gameplay is mission based. You get launched from a larger ship like a Star Destroyer (or perhaps you drop into the battle out of hyperspace), and carry out some sort of mission involving destroying, disabling, capturing, defending, inspecting (aka flying close to), or escorting stuff. The kinds of ships that inhabit TIE Fighter's universe are vast, far more so than the variety of ships you'd see in the actual Star Wars movies. Besides the obvious different kinds of TIE Fighters, not all of which were in the films (TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber, TIE Advanced, the awesome-looking TIE Defender, plus a couple of non-TIE ships you get to fly), you have the rebel starfighters (X-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, Y-Wings), a few other kinds of starfighters used by all sides that aren’t seen in the movies, capital ships like the Corellian Corvette, Calamari Cruiser, Nebulon-B Cruiser, Star Destroyers, and many others, plus space mines, containers, cargo ships, space stations, Interdictors, and a lot more. All of these ships and craft have their own AI, their own weapons, and their own missions that they attempt to execute whilst in the game. They also all have their own strengths (Assault Gunboats have disabling Ion Cannons) and weaknesses (TIE Fighters have no shields and die with two or so hits, as you will soon learn). The game really succeeds in making you feel like a part of a cohesive whole, rather than one guy flying around shooting stuff, as most other games in the genre do.
Each mission in the campaign (which is not the game's only play mode) begins with a briefing, where you see a cool tactical explanation of what the mission is all about, what will be going on when the mission begins, and what you will be expected to do. Missions are story-persistent; you'll have a bunch of missions dealing with the same area, same ship, or same overall goal in mind.
During your briefing, you'll get to speak to the Flight Officer, a wonderfully voice-acted standard British-accented Imperial Officer who will give you detailed information on the mission. Sometimes you'll speak to a secretive cloaked figure, a representative of the higher levels of the Imperial government, who might give you a clue to finding some of the mission's bonus goals. Each mission has primary goals, which must be completed, secondary goals, which should be completed if possible, and bonus goals, which are not told to you and must be discovered. Completing the non-primary goals isn't a necessity, but you'll get cool cutscenes that you wouldn’t get otherwise for doing them. After you finish with your conversations, you select your auxiliary weapon (you always have lasers, some craft have ion cannons, and some have auxiliary weapons like homing concussion missiles or anti-capital ship rockets/bombs), and you're off.
Gameplay (which is superior with a joystick, though you'll have to use the keyboard either way) is in a completely free, 3D space environment. Fly wherever you want whenever you want. You can fire at anything, including friendlies, although obviously that won't help you complete whatever mission you're working on. The missions are challenging, story-driven, and brilliantly designed. Each mission has its own story and its own personality, one of the game's strongest assets. My own personal favorite comes near the end of Campaign 5, when you and Darth Vader tear through—actually, you can just experience that one for yourself. It really feels like you're taking part in a massive space battle, and that you're playing a crucial role in turning the tide of whatever campaign you're engaging in.
The dogfighting AI, which varies from ship to ship, can be extremely tough, especially when you face off against superior fighters (one on one, try taking down an A-Wing with a standard TIE Fighter. It cannot be done). You'll also have to take on many of the far larger capital ships using only your relatively small fighter. Consequently, there are a few bang-your-head-against-the-wall-hard missions, though the entire campaign (plus all the incredible expansion campaigns) can be completed by the perseverant, since the game will continually push you to become a better pilot. Extremely cool cutscenes (Vader choking people will NEVER get old) and the traditional honors of a high score await such folks.
You have an amazing amount of control over your craft. You can put all power towards the front or rear shields (if you have them), or stabilize the shields. You can mess with the fighter’s power core so that the engine or shield generator gets more power than the lasers, thus sacrificing power or defense for speed, or vice versa, or any other combination you care to think of between those three.
Most of the craft you'll fly will require you to manage things like mini-tractor beams, long-range weapons, etc. When your craft gets damaged, you'll have to prioritize the automatic repair system, or decide whether you should just eject (your character WILL die if you let the craft explode without ejecting too many times). You can move through a huge variety of cameras, targeting systems, information displays, maps, etc. Then you'll have to add in thinking about your wingmen and how to manage them. Then you'll actually have to figure out how to win the mission you're playing. Though this stuff gives the game a pretty sharp learning curve, it doesn't detract from the experience, as the game still plays very simply. The various bells and whistles just make it richer, once you master them, and you will, given a half-hour or so in the training modes.
Besides the primary campaign, which is rather hefty and fun (and even more so when you get the expansions), there are two other play modes. One is the Training mode, which is basically a giant obstacle course to fly the craft of your choice through, thus getting you accustomed to whatever ship you're using. The other is the Combat Simulator, which is just like the campaign mode, only it gives you more training missions, which teach you the basics of starfighter combat, how to manage all the ship systems mentioned in the last paragraph, and so forth. The Simulator also has some bonus missions which are unattached to the Campaign mode. Besides the play modes, there's also a cool holographic ship database to give you info on your allies and enemies, and a film function which lets you record and review your missions. These features, plus the sheer SIZE of the campaign (50+ hours. Guaranteed), give the game a good bit of replayability. When you finish the entire game, then immediately start a new one, you'll look at the first mission briefing and think "Wow, that was FOREVER ago."
Now, follow me here for a moment. Consider...If this game were to be made by Lucasarts, now in 2005, how would the story unfold? Well, you would probably start out as a reluctant TIE pilot, regretful of your duty and skeptical of the Empire. Eventually you would meet a female Rebel with a heart of gold who would show you the error of your ways. Eventually you would convince all your pilot buddies to join the Rebellion and save the Gungans from certain doom. Let me be absolutely clear, this is not what happens in TIE Fighter. No, you will blast your way through filthy rebels (who are frequently referred to as "traitorous", "scum", and sometimes, when they feel crazy, "traitorous scum".) through the entire game. The game unashamedly makes you into a "bad guy", and by the second section of the campaign, you will hate the pathetic Rebellion with a passion.
The game is, as mentioned before, wonderfully voice acted, even though substitutes are used for the two characters in the game that also appear in the films (Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader). Other than that, the game's inhabitants mostly consist of surprisingly well-developed characters who tend to be Imperial officers, such as the tech-savvy, resentful Admiral Zaarin, Admiral Harkov, the greedy, self-centered warlord, or your buddy the Flight Officer, who gives you all the briefings, debriefings, and hints when you fail your mission and have to do it over again. Also appearing frequently is Admiral Thrawn, the cunning tactician who appears in the Timothy Zahn books. The story is second only to the gameplay as a reason for this game succeeding so spectacularly.
Graphically, the game will not seem terribly impressive in a modern context, but it had an extremely good look for its time, and it's still quite serviceable. The TIE Fighter Collectors' CD, which sells for around $10 now (and features all the expansions) has far superior graphics to the floppy-based original, although inferior graphics to the 3D-accelerated 1998 remake. (which is nevertheless a worse game since it kills off a lot of the cool gameplay stuff, not to mention all the awesome music.) Going back to the good Collectors' CD version, made in 1995, the in-game objects are quite polygonal, but not at all bad, in fact they were well ahead of their time. What really sell the graphics are the ship interiors, cutscenes, etc. All the little things in this game are done very well.
Audio is fantastic. Besides the brilliant voice acting, you get your standard and faithful Star Wars sound effects. Hear the familiar whop-whop-whop of X-Wing lasers beside the beeoo-beeoo-beeoo of the TIE lasers, or that awesome hyperspace sound. All of this is accompanied by one of the best video game soundtracks ever. Instead of pirating from John Williams wholesale, as most Star Wars games are wont to do, TIE Fighter uses material like the Imperial March as a simple thematic starting point. The MIDI songs (besides the intro) are all original, fantastic, and are context sensitive. The music swells as you score a kill, gets tense and pounding if your craft gets heavily damaged, becomes heroic if you complete your mission, and gloomy if you've failed.
TIE Fighter is one of the only games in existence that has absolutely nothing wrong with it. Besides the occasional extremely-minor glitch, the game is flawless, a hallmark of many mid-90s Lucasarts games. If the kind folks at Lucasarts ever make another TIE Fighter involving Lawrence Holland, I will buy it without question (though I probably should have thought better of buying Secret Weapons Over Normandy just because Holland was involved).
If you're going to play this game, and you should, make sure to pick up the 1995 Collectors' CD-ROM version, which is easily the best. As noted before, it sells for $10, which is the best value I have ever seen on any video game. Unfortunately, Windows XP does not like the 1995 version and will only run the accelerated 1998 version, which is not as good. Thus, assuming you can't implement a backdoor solution to the incompatibility, what you need to do is back up all your files, uninstall Windows XP, install Windows 95, and then install TIE Fighter. The game IS that good, and you can put that on this reviewer's honor. Of course, this reviewer still has nightmares where the ship's computer voice says "Delta 1, incoming missile" over and over again before he wakes up in a cold sweat, frantically pressing a non-existent space bar, and dreams of blowing apart X-Wings with glee, their fragile little wings and parts spinning off into space.
