Star Wars: X-Wing - Collector Series

The Good
It's good that they thought updating the classic games. I wish many more games were updated.

In this case, the only improvements are the graphics and the ehm.. music, which is now cd audio.

By graphics we mean of course both the completely redrawn concourse screens and its cutscenes, introduction and of course the flight engine which now uses the XvT engine. The Death Star textures are really worth looking,

On a funny note, the droids of the concourse are somehow cartoony and remind me of Space Quest 6!!

The atmosphere is also changed. They environment is darker, more serious and 'techy'. To this contributes the absence of original music, replaced to an atmospheric humming (well, this isn't actually positive!).

And that's all I have to say about the good parts

The Bad
In one word: In these editions, all they did was improving the graphics. Everything else was left unchanged while some update would be needed, not to mention that some things were REMOVED.

What I mean?

• The great implementation of the imuse system of interactive music is replaced by cd tracks. The loss is compensated by the quality of cd music, but where is the old atmosphere?
  Some cutscenes are briefer. Some are ommited, like the taking off, the landing etc.
  Some screens were left unchanged, only with a cheap 'blur' effect to make them fit the high res.
  The screen of choosing co-pilots in X-Wing from preexisting ones, as well as the whole feature, is also missing
  The X-Wing tech room. You only see rotating holograms, not detailed and realistic schematics
  It's a bit ironic to have really high detailed textures on an X-Wing flight while everything is silent. Some in-flight speech would be needed. I know it's not an easy feat but its absence is obvious.
  Now you can't control your ship with mouse. Joystick is required. On the other hand, now you can't move the cursor with the joystick or the keyboard, only the mouse
  The concourse as mentioned, is darker and more serious, while music is absent. Some might like it, but why make the remake poorer than the original?
  Original TIE Fighter had two nice implementations that corrected some weaknesses of X-Wing: speeding up time for long and boring time-consuming missions and a simple and easy way of backing up your pilot in case he dies. Why these features weren't implemented in the remake of X-Wing now that they are availiable?
  
  The Bottom Line
  I think I have stated the whole situation in one word: graphics improved, the rest is poorer. This is pity that they lost a good opportunity

I really don't know what should i say if someone asked whether he would by it or not. It's a matter of preference. I am sure some people would like the changes, especially new players who havent experienced the originals. However some feats were not improved (eg. voice), keeping the games still outdated.

The Good
The implementation of the XvT engine to X-Wing and TIE Fighter is flawless. The graphics is the only thing changed, so the starfighters will still handle the same way they did in the originals, and not the way they did in XvT. The missions will be the same difficulty and play the same way you remember them. The game also uses the same rousing soundtrack as XvT for both X-Wing and TIE Fighter, which is a mixed blessing. No one can deny the power of John Williams' score, but it would have been nice to have had an option to listen to the original game soundtracks as well.

Thankfully, they have also removed that annoying "feature" in the original X-Wing that forced you to restore your pilot every time he died or was captured by the Empire, taking away all your points as a consequence.

The Bad
First of all, the game has some issues running in newer Windows versions, such as XP and 2000. The only way I could get it to run in XP was to disable the 3D hardware support. This made the game look less nice, of course, but it's still a step up from the graphics of the original games. It doesn't look like LucasArts is about to release a patch to fix this problem either.

While TIE Fighter was left untouched aside from the new engine and music, X-Wing received a few more changes than that, and many are for the worse in my opinion. All the rooms you could move around in, such as the Independence's concourse, the briefing room and so on, have been "updated" with SVGA versions. I'm not sure if these came from the Mac version of the game, but somehow they manage to feel a lot colder and sterile than the original locales, and that certainly isn't helped by the inexplicable removal of ALL music from those same areas, leaving music only in-flight and in all the cutscenes. This is annoying and takes away some of that wonderful atmosphere the original enjoyed, though it doesn't have any affect on the gameplay itself.

The Bottom Line
Well worth the money, there's no question about that. X-Wing and TIE Fighter, along with all their addons that naturally come included in this package, must have upwards to 200 missions combined. X-Wing Trilogy, which was released two years after the Collector Series, also includes X-Wing Alliance, so unless you already have the latter, that would be the bundle to get. Either way, these games should be in the collection of every self-respecting space sim and/or Star Wars fan.

The Good
I had been looking for X-Wing Collectors' CD-ROM and Tie Fighter Collectors' CD-ROM in stores for some time, but they're not available any more. One day, I bumped into this Collector Series edition. After playing for a while, I have mixed feelings of the game.

The engine has been updated to X-Wing vs Tie Fighter's engine. The in-game graphics, CD-music, sounds are good, correspond to XvT-style.

Mission selection interface have not changed from X-Wing and Tie Fighter. Essentially the gameplay remains, and that's what I expected from a remake.

The secret missions in Tie Fighter are still there, if you want to get into the Emperor's Inner Circle.

Storyline: It's actually fantastic to play through a part of the original trilogy, with sidequests and twists. Not to mention, you can fly on the surface of Death Star...

FMVs are EXACTLY the same... well that's good and bad and the same time.

The Bad
As I already told, the game is built upon XvT engine. Because of this and the fact that it was released in 1998, it's unacceptable that it doesn't run on NT-based Windows' (2000/XP). After a bit of tweaking (with App Compat Toolkit's QFixApp), I could make it run, but only with software rendering, no hardware 3D acceleration! (X-W vs. T/F does work). Totally Games could release a simple patch to solve this.

Another "dislike" of this engine, that it requires a joystick/pad. In the DOS version I could chase the enemy using the mouse.

CD Redbook audio cannot respond to events as well as the DOS version's MIDI. (E.g.: imperial music when imperial starships arrive) Well, it's compensated by the CD-quality. Several new campaigns would have been nice, and it would be great to solve the missions in multiplayer.

The Bottom Line
Just consider it a slightly updated re-release of two great games (plus some missions included from XvT). It isn't worth a full-priced game, but is more likely into the budget category. If you liked the original games, or you're an oldie-fan, it's for you.