Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's Series

by LucasArts

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00000K51C
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,541 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

A TIE fighter is a single-pilot, Imperial spaceship meant for ship-to-ship combat. As the pilot of various types of these howling fighter craft, your duty will be to gun down as many rebels as possible. See the immortal conflict between the Imperial Navy and the Rebel Alliance through the Empire's eyes.

Product Description

Climb into one of secen Imperial starfighters - TIE Fighter, TIE Bomber, TIE Interceptor, TIE Advanced assault gunboat and others. Prove yourself worthy in the Imperial training simulator and virtual combat chamber. Exclusive secret society of elite pilots lure you with political intrigue. Customize game difficulty from rookie to ace to match your skill level.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aging, Yet Superior in Plot and Structure, August 9, 2001

By 

StarPilot057 (Laramie, WY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's Series (CD-ROM)

TIE Fighter, by Lucas Arts, remains an impressive game many years after its initial release. Allowing you to pilot a variety of craft while serving the Empire, TIE Fighter lets you delve into the Star Wars universe from a perspective difficult to acquire from other games.

Being an older game, TIE Fighter lacks the stunning graphics of modern flight simulators. It uses no 3D acceleration card, but the software rendering is very fast on any modern machine, and you should have no trouble with playability. The combat sequences still look good, as do the animation scenes. The animations were impressive when the game was made, and still hold as much wonder as 2-dimensional animated figures and ships can muster.

In this game, you fly various spacecraft for the evil Galactic Empire, engaging in a variety of missions and campaigns in various sectors of the galaxy. The plot is especially strong for a space combat game; the campaigns all link together into a coherent story and plot developments in one campaign will affect your experience in later missions. Additionally, the view of the inner workings of the Empire's space forces that this game provides is fascinating and different: inner strife, wavering alliances, and the tensions hidden throughout the Imperial Navy's strict military structure all are slowly revealed through the course of the campaigns. If you ever wondered how flying for the Empire would differ from flying for the Alliance, behind the scenes, this game can provide you with an engrossing and unique view.

Learning to control your craft is not a difficult task. The game includes tutorial-type missions in a "flight simulator" that guide you through the basics of movement and ship control. Your ship has enough functions and controls to make the experience realistic, but not so many that you feel that you are always fiddling with the flight controls instead of flying your ship. You learn the basics of ship movement, propulsion, weapons systems, and how to operate the targeting computer quickly, but there are plenty of unnecessary advanced features for the player that prefers complexity and strategy. Before long, you will delight in using your targeting computer to locate individual laser turrets on a large ship and destroy them with concussion missiles before flying in close to finish off the crippled vessel. The completeness and power of the interface is often stunning.

The behavior of your wingmen is much improved over TIE Fighter's predecessor, X-Wing. Now, your companions always understand and acknowledge your commands, and almost always will obey them. Thus, if you really need support in a ferocious dogfight, or you need a particular ship destroyed before it jumps to hyperspace in 45 seconds, you can rely on your ability to call in your wingmen to help you out. Of course, their increased usefulness makes them more valuable, and you will have to protect them and ensure they are not destroyed early in a long battle.

TIE Fighter also features a flight recorder, with which you can record films of particular battles. These films remember the positions and actions of every ship, every missile, even every laser bolt, and you can replay the movies, following the craft of your choice (friend of foe) through the battle. There is even a feature that allows you to enter one of the movies, taking the helm of the player-controlled craft to complete the movie as you will. This allows you to film your most daring attacks and greatest victories, and not only watch them, but attempt them again and again.

The Macintosh version of TIE Fighter is the last of the great space flight simulators by Lucas Arts to be produced for the Macintosh. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance are both PC releases. Note that the game is better with a joystick, but is too old to support input sprockets. While this is only partially relevant for Mac OS X users, Mac OS 9 users with USB joysticks that rely solely on input sprockets will need to use custom USB drivers. If they are not available from your joystick manufacturer (most are not), an excellent shareware Mac USB driver utility is available at http://www.usboverdrive.com .

TIE Fighter is one of the rare games that crosses many boundaries, providing an excellent and exciting flight-sim while simultaneously containing a rich plot and excellent control systems. The powerful flight recorder is an added bonus to an already superior game. Join the Dark Side and fly for the Empire, and you will have an experience you shall never forget.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely awesome gameplay and campaigns, dated graphics, November 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's Series (CD-ROM)

This game won Game of the Year awards from many different organizations, and why? Because it's good! Granted, graphics are dated by today's standards, but that is offset by the low system requirements. If you want more missions and battles than the many included in the game, you can download user-created missions and battles from all over the net, especially from the online club, the Emperor's Hammer. Definately recommended, and you won't be disappointed!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gameplay Makes Up For Graphics, February 13, 2000

By 

Dean Marden (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Wars: TIE Fighter Collector's Series (CD-ROM)

TIE Fighter remains an excellent games, even with all those new Star Wars space sims like X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter. What makes it stand out is its involving story as well as genuinely fun gameplay. Newer games focus on multiplayer capabilities at the expence of extended storylines that make you want to continue play. TIE Fighter has over 13 campaigns to fly, using the various fighters of the galactic empire. Each campaign has up to eight missions, and then there are the training missions on top of those. Even when you've finished the game, there a several freeware mission creators available over the internet. You have 7 fighters at your disposal, each represented crisply, though lacking the finite details of games like X-Wing Vs. TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance. Graphics don't make a classic game: longevity does - and TIE Fighter is far from lacking in this, which is why there are so many net sites still dedicated to it and why I still continue to play it four years later.