Star Wars: TIE Fighter (DOS)

Discuss Review + Want + Have Contribute

Description

You are a member of the Imperial Navy, eager to fight the Rebel Alliance and other scum to strengthen the rule of Darth Vader and the Emperor.

The follow up to X-Wing is a space combat simulation set in the Star Wars universe. There are 7 campaigns, taking in over 50 missions. You often have wingmen who can be given orders to help you out. The detailed storyline is driven by cutscenes. You will fly a variety of craft from the lowly Tie Fighter to the speedy Tie Interceptor to the high-powered Tie Advanced. On each of these, balancing engine/laser/shield ratios in real time is crucial to getting the most power and safety.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Part of the Following Groups

• Gameplay feature: Recordable replays
• Gameplay Feature: Targeting system
• Games with manual lookup copy protection
• Genre: Simulation - Space combat
• Sound Engine: iMuse
• Star Wars licensees
• Star Wars X-Wing / Tie Fighter series

User Reviews

Note to self: Buy a joystick	Alex Man (32)
The elite: The best action game ever made for a PC.	Rick Jones (111)
A masterpiece of the space-sim genre.	Steelysama (106)
Great game that lived up to my expectations.	tuxu tuxu (3)
A game that makes you wonder - did George Lucas skip on movie starring you?	tige kala (5)
Classic sequel to 'X-Wing'	Ashley Pomeroy (233)	unrated
For me, this defined Star Wars...	Quackbal (51)
The definition of the genre.	swaaye (35)
The good guys ALWAYS win. Right?	Sam Hardy (82)	unrated
NO# 2 IN MY ALL TIME HALL OF FAME!!	William Shawn McDonie (1182)

Critic Reviews

High Score	Sep, 1994	5 out of 5	100
MikroBitti	Sep, 1994	98 out of 100	98
PC Gamer	Oct, 1994	96 out of 100	96
BiT	Dec, 1994	92 out of 100	92
Play Time	Aug, 1994	90 out of 100	90
Score	Oct, 1994	90 out of 100	90
GameSpot	May 01, 1996	8.8 out of 10	88
PC Joker	Aug, 1994	87 out of 100	87
PC Games (Germany)	Aug, 1994	85 out of 100	85
PC Player (Germany)	Aug, 1994	85 out of 100	85

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Developer information	16	Indra was here (20902) Feb 13, 2013
Star Wars: TIE Fighter	2	Indra was here (20902) Jun 18, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Star Wars: TIE Fighter appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Coruscant

The high-orbit view Coruscant as seen in the intro (when the Star Destroyers approach it), looks curiously faithful to how Coruscant looked in the prequel movies, which were filmed five years after the game.

However, the collector's CD-ROM enhanced intro cutscene, features a different view of Coruscant orbit, blue with clouds, totally unrelated to the appearance of the planet-wide city we know.

Demo

In an early coup for advergaming, TIE Fighter's demo dropped jaws when it opened with a brief ad for the then-new Dodge Neon automobile.

Manual

Included with the game was the shortstory The Stele Chronicles which follows the young Maarek Stele, a top notch swoop jockey who's home planet has been at civil war for decades. When The Empire arrives and declares martial law in the system Maarek see's his chance to join up with The Empire and become one of the greatest Imperial pilot's of all time...

The manual has been merged together with shortstory, meaning that you learn tactics and instructions on how to operate your fighter whilst Maarek Stele is being trained at the academy. In the Offical Strategy Guide to Tie Fighter you learn more about what happened to Maarek Stele.

References

• In one of the training missions, you're called upon to protect a "Star Tours" ship from attack, a reference to the popular ride at the Disney theme parks.
• Many of the 'pirate' ships (neither Rebel or Imperial) have cryptic names. It's worth checking what they say in reverse. For example, on Mission 1 of Battle 11, the pirate ship is called 'yrabrab". In reverse, this spells 'barbary', which was a Mediterranean coast base for pirates from the 16th-19th Century. In missions that involve 'space pirates', look at the names yourself and try to figure it out!
• In Battle 9, mission 6, there is a Nav-Bouy with the designation CRM-114. If it looks familar, it should. It's the designation of the decoding device in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove: or, How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
• The creators were obviously quite fond of pop culture. In mission 1 of Battle 10, there is a buoy designated "MST-3K", aka the acronym for Mystery Science Theater 3000

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • July 1996 (Issue #144) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #56 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
• PC Gamer
  • April 2000 - #23 overall in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
  • April 2005 - #13 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list

Information also contributed by Apogee IV, Boston Low, Cameron Rhyne PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual, Quackbal and WizardX

Related Web Sites

• The imperial Order (Fan site )
• TIE Fighter Corps (TIE Fighter gaming club.)
• X-Wing Collector Series (Lucasarts's take on the entire classic product line.)