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« on: September 10, 2025, 12:00:19 am »
97. Star Wars: Tie Fighter (PC)
I originally was going to drop this game due to how insanely difficult it gets very early on in the game. However, after semi-deciding to abandon Tie Fighter, I decided to watch some very helpful guides on Youtube on how to handle various combat scenarios I continuously struggled with before. I applied my newfound knowledge and while it took some trial and error to get the hang of, the game and its gameplay quarks just clicked and I was on my way towards serving the Galactic Empire once more!
Despite never owning Star Wars: Tie Fighter when I was a kid, one of my neighbors did have this game on his family's DOS machine. I loved watching him play it and watching the story progress through the game's amazing pixel art cutscenes. At least at the time, it was like watching a brand new Star Wars movie; keep in mind this was before the prequels were released or even announced. Still, I never really played Tie Fighter on my friend's PC since the game's controls and mission objective system sort of went over my head. Fast forward two decades later and I finally bought this game on GOG for myself. Then fast forward another ten years and I finally got around to playing this PC flight sim classic.
Still to this day, Star Wars: Tie Fighter is an excellent, very impressive game. Replaying it nearly 30-years since first watching my neighbor and friend play it, it still looks visually appealing and has this magnetic quality that still persists. As I mentioned earlier, there are amazing pixel art cutscenes that capture both the feel of the original trilogy movies as well as the look and vibe of the then fledgling Star Wars expanded universe. This goes as far as even including Admiral Thrawn in a decent amount of the game's story, which by the way is essentially the bread and butter of this game. In fact, the story will be the driving force as to why your will want to soldier through some incredibly difficult and at times frustrating missions. It's all great stuff and definitely depicts some of the very best of the Star Wars expanded universe.
Other than these excellent pixel art cutscenes that depict the story, similar pixel art is used in the base hub you'll be utilizing for a variety of activities including getting briefed for missions, getting simulator time in the various craft you can pilot, and even viewing scenes and battles you've fought. However, despite all the excellent pixel art in this game, the gameplay itself is almost entirely using 3D models. These models all look excellent and art an upgrade over the original DOS version of this game released in 1994. When you're in the middle of a large scale skirmish, or flying alongside a an Imperial Star Destroyer or Rebel Corvette, the game will instantly make you nerd out. It was absolutely impressive when I watched by friend play Tie Fighter back in the mid 90s, and it's still awesome looking to this day. Perhaps the only thing I didn't care for when it came to the visuals in Tie Fighter was the unfortunate reality that you'll have seen 95% of what this game has to offer about half way through it. While it would have been nice to see different ships or scenarios play out, it does little to distract from what is otherwise one of the most visually impressive and source material faithful games from the 90s.
While I'd say the visuals in Tie Fighter barely fall short of perfect, the audio absolutely does hit that standard, all things considered. The soundtrack, the weapon effects, the hyper drive noises, and the voice acting are superb in this game. Most are lifted straight from the films. John Williams' legendary score blasts during missions, giving you goosebumps as you frag X-Wings or escort a transport to capture a rebellion outpost. Even the voice cast sound similar to what was present in the movies. James Earl Jones and Ian McDiarmid unfortunately don't reprise their respective roles as Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, but their substitute voice actors do an incredible job in those roles, especially the guy doing Vader's voice. Even original characters deliver their lines with convincing performances you'd fully expect to see in the films if they appeared there. Again, I have nothing negative to say about the audio in Tie Fighter. 10/10, it's amazing. In fact, the audio as well as the visuals and story mentioned above are so good that they do an amazing job at masking the gameplay, which is pretty good, but certainly far from perfect.
As a flight sim, Tie Fighter can at times be a little too realistic. While this might sound like a contradiction, if you think about it, if you were a lowly tie fighter pilot in a relatively large scale battle, your chances of getting taken out by a stray laser blast or torpedo would be very high. You'd essentially be cannon fodder and more likely expected to die in combat than return to see another mission. This is absolutely true in Tie Fighter as well, however it's too a fault. There are various strategies that you can employ like ordering your squad to cover you or scatter, these don't always work out the way you'd want them to when it comes to ensuring your own survival or the success of the mission. The best strategy I was able to consistently is to keep your distance from large, heavily armed craft or chaotic, large scale skirmishes. Essentially, homing missiles and torpedos are your best friend. Still, this is not a sure fire way to get through every mission and you'll still die a ton in this game and fail missions frequently. There are secondary objectives you can accept from a guy who gives orders directly on behalf of the emperor. Sometimes these secondary objectives mesh well with your primary objectives, but other times you really have to pick and choose when you complete these secondary objectives and when to write them off as a loss for the sake of just getting through the mission. Speaking of missions, there are quite a few in Tie Fighter, however they all generally involve the same sort of tasks; protect this ship or outpost, scan this ship or this cargo container, destroy this rebel fleet. Despite how interesting the story in Tie Fighter is, this game starts to feel like Groundhog Day given the lack of mission diversity. Still, when you look past these issues, Tie Fighter is a very immersive, fun flight sim and being placed in the middle of the Star Wars universe makes for a pretty fun game, even over 30-years after it originally came out.
It's easy to see why many consider Tie Fighter to be one of the best, if not the best Star Wars video game ever made. The game still awes from a visual and audio point of view, however, your mileage will vary with the gameplay depending on how brutal and unforgiving you like your flight sims. Some of this is due to realism to a fault, but also partially due to limitations of the technology afforded to Tie Fighter when it was first released. Still, you'd be absolutely hard pressed to find a more classic retro Star Wars game or a game that represents how amazing PC gaming was back in the 90s. (9/9/25) [38/50]
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