The day has finally come. GOG has just announced that they’ve teamed up with Disney for the digital distribution of more than 20 of their Lucasfilm games in DRM-free form. They’ve started today with 6 titles, among which are two cult space simulation games from the 90’s, Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: TIE Fighter.
GOG’s X-Wing edition includes the Imperial Pursuit and B-Wing expansions while TIE Fighter includes the Defender of the Empire expansion. Both games are both for Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8).
By the way, the other 4 Lucasfilm games released today are: Sam & Max Hit the Road, The Secret of Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
I grew up playing these games, a time where playing a flight simulator with the entire keyboard and a mouse was a lot of fun :) The graphics are obviously a bit dated, but back in the day they were pretty much state of the art. But, if you, like me, couldn’t play the game on high settings back then, then here’s your chance to give it another go now.
Use the force, Luke!
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I think I’ll leave these games in the past. There’s no way I’d enjoy them now anywhere near as much as I did back then, so I prefer my rose-tinted memories.
Yes I dare not go back to them, sometimes memories cannot be lived up to.
No analog throttle support. You have to push buttons to speed up or slow down and every time you push the button it goes ‘beep’.
So playing these games is basically constantly listening to ‘beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep’.
Christ, it’s annoying.
Other than that…. best games ever made.
Long live Emperor GOG :D (SCNR)
This is great, but really the ones they should release are the slightly more recent versions X-Wing Alliance and X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. Same game-play, lots of nice fixes and updates.
By the way, to everyone saying these games can’t be as good as they remember, I spent a significant amount of time playing them about 6 or 7 years ago. At least back then they were still great. Not as great as IWar, but still great.
Hi fellow imperial pilots. Just one addition: The games are hopefully the versions from the X-Wing Trilogy edition (see http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/star-wars-x-wing-tie-fighter-series ). I am not 100% sure, but it may be the same version as in the “Collector’s series”. Technically the game was updated to the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter Advanced Tactical Missions engine.
But the real goodie is this TIE Fighter version contains the unreleased second add-on which concludes the story arc of TIE Fighter and its released add-on. TIE when covers the whole time span between the battle of Hoth and the battle at Endor :-)
The original X-wing and TIE-Figher were never updated to the XVT engine.
NEVER.
Feel free to correct to the almighty Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_X-Wing_vs._TIE_Fighter#The_Collector_Edition
Btw I own the Trilogy Edition and played all games. It is the XvT engine.
Original X-Wing and TIE-Fighter with analog throttle and texture maps from XVT?
Impossible. Does this Trilogy Edition have analog throttle like XVT? Does it have texture maps on the ships like XVT?
Texture Maps, yes. Analog Throttle, I am not sure. The throttle on my Logitech worked, maybe only with 0,1/2,2/3,full thrust settings. must check that on the weekend.
Why do you say “impossible”?
The ‘windows’ version of X-wing, released in 1998 had some VERY basic texture maps on some ships, replaced the cool original GUI with something kind of ugly, removed the great MIDI music and replaced it with music from the films.
AND DID NOT HAVE ANALOG THROTTLE SUPPORT.
This is not the ‘X-Wing’ you are looking for.
Doesn’t the GOG version come with the DOS and Windows versions? It says:
“Includes STAR WARS™: X-Wing Collector’s CD-ROM and all Tour of Duty expansions: Imperial Pursuit and B-Wing in both – 1994 (DOS) and 1998 (Windows) versions!”
Did the DOS version support analogue throttle? I don’t recall either way.
GOG can go blow themselves. I bought the game to try and see if I could get the joystick working. It says ‘Money Back Guarantee 30 days’ right on the item.
Now they say, ‘Oh, you only get your money back if you don’t download it’.
Really? REALLY? What a bunch of pricks. We’ll see what PAYPAL has to say about that.
I think its a pretty bad decision to upload these games to gog wihtout adding some kind of mouse and keyboard controls. Most people don’t have joysticks these days. And even if they did, I think joysticks are massively overrated in flight games anyways. It’s 10x easier to aim with the mouse than with a joystick.
At least the DOS version had mouse support and I needed it that time as I had only a digital joystick which didn’t allowed precise targeting.
It’s your opinion if you find them overrated, I prefer them over joypads. With a firm stand on the table they are sure much more precise that the tiny analog sticks. And doing a bunch of long and hard turns with a mouse are a pain in the ass… err wrist.
@hakkarin: “I think joysticks are massively overrated in flight games anyways. It’s 10x easier to aim with the mouse than with a joystick.”
Try strafing, turning, accelerating and firing simultaneously with a mouse. A decent joystick can handle that and more.
Who would buy something like this, why would you buy something like this? As others said let it die, it was great back then but has no place in today’s world. I can’t believe some of you people, seriously.
While it does not directly hurt me that anyone would buy it, it does make me shake my head at those that do, just like the first DLC, people bought it so they will continue to make it. Now you can’t even buy a complete game without more money for DLC. The consumer as a whole has gotten pretty stupid, just my view not a fact.
Well, people who always wanted to play this game but couldn’t for whatever reason might buy this.
People whose computers can’t run the latest and greatest games might buy this.
People who want to play their favorite games for nostalgia might buy this.
Also, until recently with the rise of indie games, kickstarters, and small dev studios there were a lot of game types that had pretty much been abandoned. Nobody was making them. If you wanted to play a base building RTS or a space flight sim or an adventure game you had to play older games. GOG gave you a way to get them cheap and DRM free and usually configured to work on modern computers.
I agree about DLC though. 90% of DLC is crap meant to suck money out of obsessive compulsives who have to collect them all.
I have to disagree with you on this one. TIE Fighter was one of the first PC games I ever played along with Magic Carpet and Prince of Persia, still running DOS and Windows 3.1 at the time. Without these re-releases for the digital age, its hassle to get the original versions to run on modern systems. You have to find working discs or you have to pirate it from somewhere. The original TIE Fighter came on 5 floppy disks! And buying this will allow you to play either the original version or the special edition version which was released for Win95 systems with updated graphics. (same is true for X-Wing).
They are great nostalgic games which I think hold up pretty well over time. You know how nostalgic you feel for your old kids cartoons or other things you loved as a kid but when you look upon them as an adult they’re just not quite as awesome as you remember? Not so for me with TIE Fighter. Its a HARD game too, I forgot just how difficult the game can be if you’re intent on doing more than just finishing the primary goals. No counter-measures to avoid missiles!
And as Rick says, many people may not have had the ability to play them or difficulty in getting hold of them, so releasing them for a new age makes sense. I will happily buy Xwing vs TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance as they (hopefully) get released.
I think for younger people these games might be difficult to play given their antiquated look and game mechanics, but for us who grew up with them, they were the golden age of space flight sims.
I wouldn’t waste time thinking about other people’s decisions, it will only lead to stress, anger and unhappiness. :p
It was an excellent game 20 years ago, it was a very good game when the collector’s edition came out and it’s still a fine game I would play not only for nostalgia.
Saw in other forums complains that soon today’s gamer pussies will raise their voices against this old game, calling it too complicated, not intuitive enough, etc.
Just started the game after years, and I still know the controls by heart. My joysticks has ten buttons, and for 90% of the game these are enough. Not much more complicated than games fully utilizing the standard PS2 controller.
Yes, the graphics are outdated, but they still work. Just outdated graphics make not a game bad. If you can get it to work (and GOG releases help a lot) the graphics won’t make you any trouble.
Personally I use VirtualBox for such old games, the scaling mode is nice and fast, so it should also be playable on larger displays.
“Who would buy something like this, why would you buy something like this? As others said let it die, it was great back then but has no place in today’s world. I can’t believe some of you people, seriously.”
Just because a game is old doesn’t stop it from being fun, and many “modern” games just add a higher price tag and more detailed graphics. With less gameplay in many cases.
Being upset over greater choice in the gaming market makes little sense, unless you’re an embittered developer/publisher who can’t cope with the competition.