![]() Image crudely stitched together from three cockpit views. It doesn't have time acceleration either, so this might take a while. Then I switched the multi-view display to targeting mode so I could try to figure out where the bloody thing is, as X-Wing doesn't put a targeting box around distant objects like TIE Fighter does (well it didn't until the 1998 release anyway).The left one is front view, the right one is rear view, the dots are enemy and friendly targets, and it's the most perfect radar set up in all of space combat gaming history because it's instantly readable and it makes sense. I targeted the furthest freighter and flipped the fighter to face it, using the radar circles on the top to navigate by.Plus I'm dumb and accidentally drive into things sometimes and it'd be nice to not instantly explode. I dumped all the power sitting in my laser batteries into the shields instead, because it's just going to leak out anyway without energy going to them and I believe shields discharge slower than guns.I only mentioned the keys because F9 and F10, seriously? I hit F9 and F10 a few times to set my laser and shield energy bars to zero, giving all my energy output to the engines.Okay there's no enemies around and I'm meant to be destroying helpless freighters, so here's what I did to start: You really do need one hand on the keyboard to play the game, either that or a controller with more buttons than the Xbox 360 controller I'm using. Also the wings actually lie flat against each other when they're closed!ĭamn it's been over three years since I last played one of these games and I still remembered all the keys instantly. Okay okay I'm being really harsh when it comes to X-Wing '93, seeing as it came out the same month as Star Fox, but you know what came out the same year as X-Wing '98?įactor 5's PC/N64 smash hit Rogue Squadron! Why couldn't my X-wing look like that? It's only a handful of polygons more complex, but it looks so much more accurate. So they had three tries and they still couldn't get it looking like an actual X-wing. It's also in 640x480 resolution, as was the style at the time. TIE Fighter engine with its high-tech 3D accelerated texture mapping and stuff. The 1998 remake was shifted over to the X-Wing vs.The original 1994 CD version I'm playing now was transferred to the TIE Fighter engine, adding Gouraud shading to soften the edges and make everything look like an inflatable toy.The red stripes are presumably modelled into it. The 1993 floppy disk version has flat shaded polygons with no textures.Here's the 1993, 19 versions of X-Wing to show how the graphics were improved each time. Bit of a shame though that the 3D rendered fighters don't match the art style of the destroyers. It's not technically a shot that you'll ever see in the game, but the art's just too good so I had to include it anyway. The game starts with a standard issue LucasArts logo and a typical Star Wars crawl before transitioning into animated intro sequence featuring Star Destroyers and TIE Interceptors and Imperial officers and everything!īut the filesize ended up too big on my animated gif, so I decided to do the next best thing and stitch a couple of the frames together to create this image instead. I can't help but wonder if the genre might have lived longer though if console gamers had gotten to play the best of them. After 1999's Freespace 2 bombed there just wasn't as much demand for space combat games like this any more. This was actually the very first Star Wars game developed in-house at LucasArts, by an independent team that later formed Totally Games and went on to make a bunch more X-Wing space sims (plus a Star Trek one) before kinda dropping off the map. ![]() It only ever came out on PC and Mac though for whatever reason (unlike the rival Wing Commander games which made it everywhere). Actually I suppose this one should count three times, as LucasArts kept rereleasing it with a new engine and different graphics throughout the 90s. Today on Super Adventures it is my privilege to bore you with my thoughts about the first hour or two of Star Wars: X-Wing: Space Combat Simulator: Collectors' CD-ROM '94! No, no, come back, I've brought gifs as well.Ī few months ago I said I was going to bring back balance to the site this year, and this post should finally pull the Star Wars games even with the Star Trek games (in quantity if not quality). ![]()
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