Star Wars: TIE Fighter
Description official descriptions
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.
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Credits (DOS version)
76 People (66 developers, 10 thanks) · View all
Project Leader / Translation | |
Voice Production | |
Translation of Manual | |
Editor | |
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Layout and Design | |
Project Coordination and special assistance at LucasArts | |
Project Coordination and special assistance at Lucasfilm Ltd. | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 90% (based on 20 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 117 ratings with 14 reviews)
For me, this defined Star Wars...
The Good
I got this game in Christmas '96 when I was a whole lot younger, and it's something I'll always remember. I'd wanted this game for 2 years, having obtained the demo version from a magazine. It was worth the wait (although I wish I hadn't had to), and I ended up ruining that Christmas by playing it the entire day! Didn't get far, of course. It betters X-Wing in a fair few aspects (I got this before X-Wing), and it is very appealing to take the side of the ''bad guys'', so to speak. You get a far wider range of craft selection in this game, from the standard TIE Fighter to the futuristic Missile Boat. The new speech effects in-game are enjoyable and provide yet another sense of "realism" to this fantasy universe.
The Bad
I feel the game tagged off a bit when you begin to fight traitors in every mission. It gets fairly confusing fighting craft that appear to be one of yours, yet you end up getting a laser going straight through your engine.
The sound effects in this game are relatively poor, apart from the voices. I have to say I much preferred X-Wings 'classic Star Wars' sound effects. The game can also crash, and the sound gets stuck, resulting in a required reboot.
The Bottom Line
There are bad things, as with many games, but this game is brilliant. I recommend the Collectors Edition for people who have not yet obtained this game. The 'more realistic' version that comes with X-Wing/TIE FIghter and X-Wing VS Tie Fighter Limited Edition is not worth the hassle. It requires a fairly fast pc with at least Win95 to run properly, which is a very unlikely combination in this day and age, so I strongly advise getting the original editions.
This game defined Star Wars for me, and it's not too late for it to do that to you.
DOS · by Quackbal (45) · 2005
The Good
The sequel to 'X Wing', 'Tie Fighter' added lots of improvements whilst not reducing the essential good-ness of the original. The most important addition is a difficulty slider - 'Tie Fighter' can be completed by mortal people. The plot, in which you defend the galaxy from from evil Rebel terrorists, is a nice touch. The graphics have been overhauled, and despite being gourad-shaded polygons they're effective, and move swiftly on a 486 DX/33. 'iMuse' is back (you get to hear the Imperial march in AdLib FM), and it's generally a more satisfying game, with a wider range of ships and an incentive to play it in the harder difficulty levels in the form of advancement into a 'secret society'. As a single-player game it's much more satisfying than the disappointing 'X Wing Vs Tie Fighter', too.
The Bad
Truth be told, there isn't much wrong with this game. Some of the unfair, 'protect the vulnerable crates / transports' missions are back from 'X-Wing', but they're toned-down. Even the fact that you're flying an unarmoured light fighter isn't a great problem, as you're deceptively tough. The biggest problem is technical - it's quite possible this game won't work with your modern machine due to difficulties with VESA drivers.
The Bottom Line
Still great fun today, an addictive space combat game with ridiculously cool space hardware.
DOS · by Ashley Pomeroy (225) · 2000
Great game that lived up to my expectations.
The Good
* Newtonian story line [the game push the story to you as hard as you push the game], ability to join the inner circle.
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On top of getting the mission accomplished message the player gets to receive medals for extraordinary fits in battle.
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The GFX and GUI are adequate to the time of it's conception.
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The player get to fly a wide variety of crafts.
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Enemy deployment noted in Intel reports plays a key role in craft armament phase.
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Different locations for each of the chapters adds to the games richness.
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the ability to change chapters even with out finishing them first decrease frustration level, the player can get back to a hard mission later on.
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GOOD old Star Wars music.
The Bad
* No personalization to the character accept for the different medals the player receives. -
No personalization to the player's craft, in real life pilots and army vets usually know that "your weapon is a part of your body" and that your craft is your weapon. Tie fighter takes the least personalized "Oh-spawn-already!" approach.
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Good OLD Star Wars music.
The Bottom Line
To make a long story short: Tie fighter was created in times when GFX weren't enough to make a real impact on sales since there was no real ability to have complexed graphics. The story line got the job done and let the player feel like he wasn't the bad guy even if he flew for the empire, unless of course you wanted to run secret errands for the emperor and be accepted in to the ranks of the dark society of the Imperial intelligence, that's a whole lot different story... I've been playing PC\console games for well over 20 years now and to my humble opinion is that lucasarts really maxed out their investment on this game. I personally hope that lucasarts will remember us joystick people and will make a "Freelancer\Parkan II\X3:reunion"-ish style game ;) Tie Fighter gives you the thrills of a good flight sim while involving you in a story line that takes you on a too well traveled though shady path. Two thumbs up, WAY UP!
[...and these are just few words of this great lucasarts game]
DOS · by tuxu tuxu (2) · 2008
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Developer information | MrFlibble (18234) | Feb 13, 2013 |
Star Wars: TIE Fighter | tuxu tuxu (2) | 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
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Related Sites +
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TIE Fighter Corps
TIE Fighter gaming club. -
The imperial Order
Fan site -
X-Wing Collector Series
Lucasarts's take on the entire classic product line.
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Droog.
Additional contributors: Trixter, William Shawn McDonie, Adam Baratz, Patrick Bregger, darkpilot, FatherJack.
Game added August 21, 1999. Last modified January 24, 2024.