Star Wars: X-Wing - Collector Series

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.