15 Things You Never Knew About LucasArts' X-WING!

[@garethoneill5676]

I loved the power management: you had to peel off from attacks and recharge your lasers and shields. Sometimes you had to divert all power to your rear shields while you were doing it.

[@jeremylee6352]

i thought squadrons would hav kept the substance of it ... but only the form :(

[@fourmula4812]

yup just like tie fighter the 1998 version wuz the best version

[@ryanjourney9607]

I remember staying up all night playing either X-Wing or Tie Fighter back in the early 90s. Such great games.

[@rustykoenig3566]

I didn't have X-Wing, but I had Tie Fighter then got Tie Fighter/X-Wing where you could fly both sides. The multiplayer was awesome on Xwing/tiefighter..... I remember this Russian guy I played with...... he always flew a bomber, and "fly" isn't the word for it..... he pretty much sat in one stationary spot and no matter WHAT you did.... he was facing you unloading his shit at you..... it was crazy shit lol

[@francischambless5919]

@@rustykoenig3566 I couldn't stand X-wing vs Tie multiplayer. I jump in, launch all missiles and kill them. They jump in shoot all missiles at me, I die. Then back to me jumping in and doing the same. If you didn't do this, they would and you lose. It was just too poorly executed but a nice thought.

[@TheLambdaTeam]

"Number One! Mission critical craft under attack!"

[@rustykoenig3566]

@@francischambless5919 I didn't have much of a problem with it.... There was this one Russian guy that I never could beat... and he used a tie bomber and literally just sat stationary or a VERY slow speed and basically used his bomber as a missile turret. Its the only "strategy" I never beat and he was the only one I seen ever do that particular strategy. Other than that, I took down missile boats all the time :)

[@dinkmartini3236]

I used to be late to work because of this game.

[@mosierdp]

While you didn't mention Top Ace I did see him pop up in your video. Refresher for the youngins: the game allowed you to assign other pilots from your roster to any allied fighters in the mission. So I could take my brother's pilot from his own campaign, and include him as a wingman in my own. I think it was the first expansion Imperial Pursuit that added Top Ace, a supposedly superior AI squadron mate that performed better. Now, your wingmen could get shot down in a mission and possibly die. If so, they would be unavailable from then on. This included Top Ace. So the instructions described how you could resurrect Top Ace if he happened to die. I'm not kidding, it actually required that you exit the game and go to the DOS prompt and reload the Top Ace file manually by copying the Top Ace master file from one folder and pasting it into the folder containing the roster of pilots. So one time I went to reload Top Ace and I accidentally misspelled it Toip Ace when I pasted it. I loaded up the game and find Top Ace is still dead but now I have a new pilot named Toip Ace. That's when I realized you could have an infinite number of Top Aces as long as you renamed the file as you pasted it. So I immediately made an entire squadron of them. I have no idea if they were any better or not, but at the age of 15 I felt like an elite hacker for discovering this.

[@Raistlen007]

Last playthrough I did I duplicated top ace about ten times and when one died I resurrected them manually. There's a byte to alter in the file that says if they're dead or captured

[@terryforsdyke306]

my family did not have a windows/DOS based computer until 1996, so I got X-Wing a few years late, then a few weeks later, long before I had completed it I found the excelent novel Star Wars: X-Wing: Rogue Squadron (despite not being canon any more the X-Wing series is still well worth a read, I've had to purchase second coppies of them because I wore out the origionals), so I duplicated my topace save 12 times, and renamed it as the entire roster from the books, I had Rogue Squadron covering me, albeit a post Endor Rogue Squadron in a pre Yavin campaign.

[@rcschmidt668]

Oh, the memories! DOS command... copy *.bak *.plt.

[@Raistlen007]

@@rcschmidt668 bat files are your friend

[@ottovonbismarck2443]

You had to go into DOS mode and copy the top ace file to any pilot. Thus you cloned him and he never died. And you had all wingmen being top aces ... Cheesy, but it worked.

[@TokyoXtreme]

No, my father didn't fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a grain freighter.

[@white-dragon4424]

*Spice freighter.

[@TokyoXtreme]

@@white-dragon4424 watch the video, moon-jockey

[@white-dragon4424]

@@TokyoXtreme It doesn't matter, that's what he said in the film.

[@theretroreload4121]

@@white-dragon4424 no need to be pedantic - the point is that it's not exactly an honourable duty. Or is it...

[@TheOmegaSquadHD]

@@white-dragon4424 he was quoting the video dick head

[@jimb8601]

iMuse made Xwing, Tie Fighter and Dark Forces great. When the first 2 re-released with looping, non-interactive soundtracks the games lost part of their soul. It was also helpful to hear the musical cues when a batch of friendly or enemy starfighters or capital ships arrived. I'd take the reduced midi sound quality over the CD sound quality any day to keep the interactive music.

[@nicolasbertrand3932]

that is so true

[@Kharnellius]

100000000% this.

[@Frontmanfrg]

Agreed. Couldn’t help but grin when the music went all “threat mode” as it was like really playing inside one of the films.

[@KamenRiderGumo]

@@Frontmanfrg I guess I'm the only one that (on the rare occasion that I did play with music on) would prefer the orchestral score. MIDI just sounds so primitive to me and I absolutely cannot stand it. I never needed musical cues to know when something arrived - I mean, the game tells you if a friendly or hostile ship is entering the area via a "New Craft Alert" text cue. How do you need anything else?

[@MrSprattibaggs]

In Tie Fighter, there was no cue more gratifying than when a friendly Star Destroyer came out of hyperspace to your aid.

[@cbcinfla]

I still have my diskettes for XWing and for Tie Fighter. These games drove me to upgrade my 486DX to a Pentium, max out my RAM to something like 32MB, add a Microsoft flight stick, fiddle with SoundBlaster and Adlib cards, and lay down serious cash for a desk-hogging 19 inch CRT. I played them so much that my wife bought me headphones so she didn't have to listen to "incoming missile" every 2 seconds.

[@Raistlen007]

Those were the days...

[@Bastian227]

At the time, I played X-Wing like everyone does, on their computer with dinky computer speakers. I was visiting some friends, and one had the crazy idea of hooking his computer up to his stereo system. He played X-Wing, and I was changed forever by the bass I had never heard.

[@IsKor06]

The iMuse system in XWing and Tie Fighter was SO GOOD. I've always liked this. Thanks for this vid, it brings fond memories :)

[@adrienlaubard]

I ve played it when i was young... And it was damn hard. But also oustanding. You really fell to be a starfighter pilot.

[@adrienlaubard]

@Wisty Boy🤣 this game was hard as fucked... it took me month to finish it

[@zeedub8560]

@@adrienlaubard I had to use the guide book, which was really well-written. I also made batch files to backup and restore my pilot in case of failed missions. I still have "Wedge" on a 3 1/2" floppy somewhere. Tie Fighter was a much more user-friendly game, but getting all the way through X-Wing was more satisfying.

[@KowashiHitori]

One of my favorite things about the original version was that you could create pilots and assign them as your co-pilots during missions. The game kept track of their stats and ranks. It was fun to try to keep them alive and see how many kills they could rack up.

[@Raistlen007]

That feature is going to be in xwvm as well

[@sweetspotastronaut6150]

I got my first PC when I was 10 from my parents. It had only two games, X-Wing and Command & Conquer. Now they are both getting remastered. Couldn’t ask for more 🥰

[@Raistlen007]

Xwing was one of my first games as well. Played it on a quick shot joystick. The other game was star trek 25th

[@TheOmegaSquadHD]

Wrong

[@cmw12]

Wait, who's modernizing what now? I'm more excited about that than Squadrons!

[@petemalysewich6845]

Right? Basically spent my entire childhood flying around Tie Defenders

[@AdamLMajer]

What game is that?

[@c182SkylaneRG]

@@davidvincent380 Holy Shit!!! Yes please!! I'll be figuring out how to install all that on my next day off. :D In the mean time, I hope they fixed the audio glitch that plagues the game on newer systems... All that beautiful John Williams music, and I had to turn the music off because it would only play for a couple of minutes before getting stuck in a loop which you couldn't get out of without restarting the game. :(

[@davidvincent380]

@@c182SkylaneRG Haha the infamous music freeze bug. It was the last bug remaining for years (because apparently and surprisingly it was hard to reproduce). And finally it has been fixed only a few months ago by the talented coders over xwupgrade : www.xwaupgrade.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=12668&p=171028&hilit=music+freeze+hook#p171028 Look at what they have done of a 20 years old game : kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3Old4mDeZKDqLc

[@karlwiggins]

@@davidvincent380 Do you have to have the original XWA game to add these upgrades.

[@monsieurouxx]

It's been a long time since I heard an English speaker say "disquettes" instead of "floppy disks". Delightfully vintage, love it.

[@Raistlen007]

I remember it was spelled "diskettes." That added U smells slightly British

[@Olibe-1]

@@Raistlen007 "disquette" is actually the french spelling. (uh ?! Brits are using french words now ? ;-) )

[@Raistlen007]

@@Olibe-1 as long as they live in mansions and eat pork...

[@Z1gguratVert1go]

The 5.25" disks were floppy disks, because they were literally floppy. The 3.5" disks were sometimes called "diskettes" because they looked so much smaller even though they held more data. Of course they were floppy too, just the floppy parts were contained inside the hard plastic shells. And of course some people even called the 5.25" disks "diskettes" because they were comparing them to the 8" disks that came before that, though all of them are "floppy" on the inside.

[@lordmech]

@@Raistlen007 i preferred Tie Fighter to X-wing i found Tie to be WAY more interesting.

[@tempestfury8324]

Prima Games published the X-wing strategy guide in 1993. Although it wasn't printed in color, it's a pretty good guide for the game although the original didn't include the expansions. What's pretty unique about it is the story and background of Keyan Farlander, who has now become part of Star Wars lore (he was piloting the Y-wing during the segment when the Death Star was about to explode). Even more interesting is the guide is packed with CGI rendered photos, most of which had never been seen until then or since. Great memories, great video....thank you!

[@Raistlen007]

One of the writers of the strategy guide was Wessman, featured in this video. You can tell from the writing that they tried to explain in game behavior and other oddities the testers encountered.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Gotta miss those feelies manuals. Am a sucker for lore, you know.

[@tempestfury8324]

@@michaelandreipalon359 : It was when Star Wars was actually good. And Timothy Zahn books expanded upon it, instead of some Hollyweird virtue-signalling Mary Sue version of it.

[@lucskickweller3032]

This game represented my early childhood, especially the floppy disk version of X-wing. I played it in a old and bold 486 processor pc.... maaaan was it slow xD

[@aresmoriendi9449]

30 years ago now. And the sights and sounds still transport me back to that time, even if I haven't played in decades. To just think what Star Wars could of been.

[@scotthintze5901]

Great video. This brings back memories when I bought my first PC in 1992 and my brother gave me this game for Christmas. I love it very much. It was 8 years later that I got the CD-ROM version of the X-Wing/TIE Fighter/X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter game. I love the flight simulators and combats. It's been years since this game was released. I hope they will re release it again on regular platforms someday.

[@fNX-TOBYTRONIC]

Great compilation, I'm playing this game since 1993 and still found some new facts in this video. Thanks a lot.

[@Somtaw420]

I'm glad I stuck around for the Black & White crossover at the end. Made my night.

[@monkeywrangler5200]

I really wish there was a way to see all the old pilot profile images that were in the original game for every profile you’d make. They were a mix of images of pilots from the films themselves digitized, but also pilots mixed and matched as well, to make new or unique images. Some were aliens as I recall. I remember making as many profiles as I could just to see all the images, and it seemed like quite a few unique pilot images were available for your profiles. Btw the mundane was some of the best aspects of these games... foodstuffs as cargo, grain shipments being sabotaged, etc. I loved the immersion. I was a young teen and this game was my introduction to computers because I bought one just to play it.

[@Raistlen007]

How about this, for a start? puu.sh/GFkPI/6494af35cf.png

[@koopanique]

I was expecting facts I already knew intended for people who had never played the game... I was so wrong Very instructive!!

[@thricegreatart]

What an amazing video! I've been playing this series since I was a 4th grader and never knew so many details. This is like Christmas for me.

[@Raistlen007]

I played it in 4th grade, too! I used to play it on the weekends then sketch the 2d cockpits in my notebooks at school during class when I was bored.

[@rangerstl07]

I spent hundreds of hours playing this game and SWOTL back in the day. What a great time.

[@ultramaximusreviews]

I'd love a modern version of these games

[@bjorntantau194]

That's what XWVM will hopefully bring. In the meantime the TIE Fighter Total Conversion lets you replay that in VR.

[@GeneralFarmer]

Awesome video champ. I never noticed all the non star wars caricatures on the concourse back when i was a kid. You just made me legit LoL twice in that scene when u pointed them out, thankyou!

[@ianfitz9087]

I noticed that in one of the missions there was a freighter called Shantipole, the Shantipole project was one of West End Games adventure modules for the old d6 RPG they did

[@sparrowlt]

it was where the B-Wing was developed.. and amazingly Filoni rescued that in Rebels

[@SlaughterhouseDb]

Loved the Mon Mothma wink at the medals-for-Wookies joke, and of course Ryan is always nice to see. Tight!

[@hosswindu166]

I still have these games in my archives, Original packaging, instructions, the works.

[@BrassicGamer]

Excellent video, as it actually does include stuff most people wouldn't know! X-Wing is easily my all-time favourite DOS game and I now can't wait to set up a period-correct system on which to listen to the MT-32 soundtrack.

[@dmac7128]

This was the game that I dropped a grand on buying a 486 PC back in the day. The X-Wing and TIE fighter series of games are legendary. They are still fun to play even today

[@reidveryan9414]

X-Wing: Alliance was an awesome game! And all the intricate flight controls and squadron commands made it really feel like you're inside the cockpit of a Starfighter.

[@TheGiantRobot]

I love that old pixely cockpit. So nostalgic and painstakingly drawn. I have some trivia that maybe isn't well known - the X-Wing cockpit view doesn't match the models because you wouldn't be able to see much in front of you if it did.

[@douglasbaker9663]

Solid video! I'm glad the Top Ace hack was mentioned in the comments. Lucasarts infuriated me leaving behind the iMUSE system! It was one of my favorite aspects of the 93 & 94 games. Does anyone else remember the books that corresponded to the missions? I've misplaced mine.

[@wanfu5634]

I adored this game. I remember one mission where the solar system you went to was designated "BFG 9000" and another one where you piloted a Y-Wing. If you took down the Star Destroyer that showed up in the mission you got a secret medal.

[@Raistlen007]

The kalidor crescent is awarded if you pass a certain score threshold per mission. Killing a star destroyer definitely qualifies.

[@MDMetal]

I loved these games when I was in my early 20s. Before the Dark Times... before Disney Wars. 😁

[@ydeardorff]

Thats great... lol

[@TheMeJustMe75]

Disney screwed it up pretty badly.

[@EuropeanQoheleth]

Oh goodness can people ever just appreciate old Star Wars without bashing Disney or the prequels (or can people just appreciate any old thing without bashing newer things)?

[@MDMetal]

@@EuropeanQoheleth To be fair, I found things to like about the Prequel Trilogy.

[@sjonnieplayfull5859]

@@MDMetal the end credits?

[@WardenWolf]

I remember what a pain X-Wing CD was to get running. Required EMS memory, and a lot of conventional memory available (592k as I recall). As for Easter Eggs, I remember in TIE Fighter a Strike Cruiser named Lonsigar (Long Cigar). Always found that one funny.

[@bblasphemous]

I remember calling tech support and the guy taught me how to make a boot disk, I was like 12 at the time.

[@TheLambdaTeam]

Meow! Lots of starship names concealed Easter Eggs in the X-wing series. Here are a few: - Freighter names in the first mission: Orcim, Esorp, Arreis, Nigiro, Murtceps. Read them backwards! - A Freighter named "Diputs" in a later mission. - Star Destroyer named "Badi Dea" - Star Destroyer commander "T. Ryagain" for TIE Fighter - Interdictor "Suleu" for a TIE Fighter combat mission is a direct reference to Star Trek - The entire Sepan Civil War saga: "Dimoks" stand for democrats, "Ripoblus" stand for republicans - Corellian Transport "Geddawai" for the mission "Capture Harkov" - The Container named "THX-1138" for the "Load Base Equipment" mission is a direct reference for the George Lucas movie

[@jamesdown1519]

Incredibly well made and phenomenal research thank you the nostalgia is unreal

[@saintuk70]

It's criminal we ended up with Squadrons..... I bought all the series on release and they were just fantastic. The mod scene really does an excellent job of keeping them alive.

[@Zoomer3989]

Definitely do one about TIE Fighter! Would watch repeatedly

[@Raistlen007]

I would definitely make one. Need to gather a lot more inside info on it before that happens and right now all my focus is on xwing and will probably be there for a while yet

[@Donik0420]

@@Raistlen007 I love both x-wing and tie fighter and found this video super interesting. I would absolutely support a tie fighter video. Really great stuff you did here!

[@MrAlv21]

I spent so many hours on these games like on no others. I still have the X-Wing CD, in my bedroom in my hometown. Too bad I don't even have a cd player anywhere anymore. I always wished there was a online thing to play this game with a big community and play a mission with like a hundred spaceships actually driven by human players instead of AI. PS: I've always played with the mouse only :-D

[@Raistlen007]

You can buy it from GoG, and it runs like a dream, even with mouse control. later games in the series, XvT, XwA, technically require a joystick but there are programs that bypass that and let you fly with a mouse with varying results. XWVM will support mouse control through and through.

[@foozbear603]

It’s on steam right now.. not sure on multiplayer.

[@danielzsigmond2518]

Thank you for this. I've spent hundreds of hours with all of them...it was great to see again...also the"secrets" made the whole thing special! Very nice vid. Subscribed!

[@jjulch]

I miss this games! I've told my son for years I wish they'd remaster these games for game consoles. Forget the new games, I want the nostalgia of these games!

[@TheOmegaSquadHD]

REMAKE there is a diff

[@chriss2295]

I had a mt-32! Hearing the Adlib music takes me back. Funny how music takes you back the way it does.

[@TheLambdaTeam]

New discovery: on Death Star surface levels, destroyed buildings and turbo-laser turrets will respawn after a while. I spent about half a day huntin' down stuff to rack up tons of points, and I noticed that the previously destroyed stuff re-appeared around the Nav Bouy. Also, if you take out about 2000+ surface buildings (this includes turrets), during the mission evaluation, it will errorneously state "you did not destroy Laser Towers", but luckily, the mission is still treated as a success. Guess it's caused by some integer overflow or something.

[@Raistlen007]

Gonna look into that, if I find out what exactly is causing it, I'll get back to you!

[@Raistlen007]

Looked into it a bit more. The game tracks 64 tiles at a time, so if you damage a turret in 64 tiles, and then damage one in a 65th tile, the game will forget what happened in the first one, and the turrets will respawn there.

[@1ochotnik]

Great video! Pretty strange to see X-Wing cockpit without the usual two-halves oval shield indicator

[@Raistlen007]

Stranger is to see the targeting display element as a hud

[@1ochotnik]

@@Raistlen007 True, I was so focused on the instrument panel I haven't even noticed that obvious difference :P

[@Womprat522]

Awesome video! What great games. They still bring you into the SW universe so easily. Thanks for your time and effort. And yes, please, TIE fighter!

[@tyroneemail]

This is amazing I spent so many hours enjoying the original floppy release. Loved levelling up pilots for use as my wingmen. It was crushing when I bought the steam version so many years later and was so excited to see if my adult mind would crush this game with my imaginary squadron only to find out this feature was dropped. Thank you so much for reanimating my childhood crush back from the grave.

[@Raistlen007]

The wingmen pilot feature is definitely going to be in the virtual machine version!

[@PDYork]

Wow that was actually worth the near twenty minutes! My vote is for X-Wing Alliance backstory.

[@Sekir80]

Hm, at the end you playback the XWA cutscene and I'm wondering how cool that XWVM has better graphics in gameplay than the XWA cutscene was. What a time to be alive! (Whooopsie! I see you are a man of culture Rasi)

[@Raistlen007]

Fun fact, I spoke to the guy who did those cutscenes, and he told me they used 3d models that ILM used for the production of ANH:SE. Things really have changed over 20 years!

[@Sekir80]

@@Raistlen007 Wow! So the X-Wing models are identical in the XWA cutscene and the ANH Death Star scenes? Very interesting!

[@Raistlen007]

@@Sekir80 Yep!

[@khakiwolf4146]

Would die to see a modern remake of X-WING. I don't care how much it cost. I would buy that shit and play every single mission like I did back in the 90's.

[@Raistlen007]

It's being worked on as we speak. It's not a remake per se but, but it's already amazing

[@ramonalonso3554]

Excellent video. I lost count of how many hours I played this game many years ago. I got all the budgets minus 1. The one for the B wing. I did not use tricks to pass the training phase to get the mark of the fighter on my shoulder. I think the maximun level the game records was between 11 or 12. I can not remember the exact number. I was able to reach higher level but the machine never put higher than 12 (assuming that was the max number for the doors level. By the way, I passed the trench mission to destroy the Death Star at first try. I was extremly happy after that. I think after finishing the game I was shut down 60 times more or less and more than 1000 ships destroyed. Ahhhh, old times......................Good video

[@Raistlen007]

The game lets you enter directly and keep score up to level 8. It increases difficulty up to 11. You can fly after that virtually limitless.

[@jamesrael9557]

Oh, man! Thirteen year old me loooooved this game so much! I had the cd-rom... with optional joystick!

[@xaero76]

I played 93 version and I have not seen anything better to this day.... also played SWOTLW... memories!

[@Johnmorova]

The first Serious game I ever owned. I LOVED this GAME!

[@gehtdichnixan613]

never played x-wing as i devoted my life to the empire in Tie Fighter. Might need to play it now though :D

[@phlaelym]

I know I'm a bit late, but here's an Easter Egg in X-Wing that a lot of people don't know about. If you name your pilot a name out of the movies, like Luke, it will use a picture of that character instead of the generic pilot images.

[@Raistlen007]

Not quite. The game has a database of pilot portraits but the assignment of portrait to pilot is semi randomized but tied to the pilot name. A pilot named Luke for instance, selects a portrait of Biggs. a pilot named Rasi will select an A-Wing pilot.

[@raggeragnar]

Excellent video ! I got into X-Wing late. One of my friends kept telling me about it , and finally I tried it. Mostly to shut him up. I got hooked right away and he just had the biggest grin you ever saw. Played both Tie & VS after that. Never got Alliance though. Now I want it.

[@Raistlen007]

For what it's worth, Alliance is my favorite in the series, but I'm an outlier on that.

[@raggeragnar]

@@Raistlen007 : Also : I never got to play SWOTL ! I played Battlehawks 1942 and Their finest hour on my Amiga 500 , but that one only came on PC. When I finally got me a PC , the game was obsolete and nowhere to be found. Sad but true.

[@Codejoy]

One of the best PC games ever. Nothing like hitting the H key to have your s-foils close and turn you towards the hyperspace jump as you are getting pummeled by laser file just trying to make it back to mark the mission as complete.

[@popsfreshenmeyer7607]

Awesome video. The X-W series (mainly X_Wing and Tie Fighter) are still my favorite games of all time. Unmatched in their gameplay. Still I didn't know most of this stuff. (If you do Tie Fighter there are nice easter eggs for freighter names too..StimsnJ-Kat and Ren Hoek ;D). Those damage sprites look really great, too bad those were cut from the game. Anyhow I can not wait for the XWVM mod, I been following this since years and I am super excited. It looks so great but whats most important for me is that it retains the original mission structure. Thanks for the videos and may the force be with you!

[@Raistlen007]

The mission structure remains completely intact. 😊 Thanks!

[@popsfreshenmeyer7607]

@@Raistlen007 Cool thanks for the reply. XWVM is going to be such a great rerendition of a milestone game!

[@timtheskeptic1147]

I only ever beat the minefield mission (3rd mission IIRC) once. It'd been the bane of my seven year old self and when I finally got that medal I was overjoyed.

[@erickcalmet]

I loved the detail that the pilot profile ramdom choose the pilots who died in the movies, my big brother was the red leader of new hope, my other brother was Biggs And I was the pilot who crash with the star destroyer in return of jedi

[@mrspeigle1]

Talking about a treasured memory of my childhood, only the wing Commander series fire in my eyes.

[@nomangreybeard535]

Back when we had excellent games.

[@Regulus985]

Very cool video. The game was a bit before my time, I was a Rogue Squadron kid, but still good to see where the nucleus came from.

[@_Yep_Yep_]

Possibly the most enjoyment i have gotten out of a game franchise.

[@slrellison]

Always liked Tie Fighter; best combat flight sim I ever played.

[@thepayne7862]

I liked the entire Secret Order of the Emperor in TIE Fighter

[@jimmyvv3925]

SWOTL Was one of my favorite games I would still play it if I could find my disc I still like having the manuals. The first Broderbund 1988 Star Wars game for the Commodore 64 is still fun to play. I don't think I'll ever stop flying star fighters every day.

[@TheLambdaTeam]

Item 12 - Hidden trench: Said trench is exactly 60 kilometres away from the Nav Bouy. Just checked. The turbolaser turrets there are a trillion times stronger. Four hits and you're dogmeat!!!!!!

[@russellmingus2590]

I had the floppy version on my Tandy 1000. I didn't have a joystick or a mouse, so played through all five tours using only the arrow keys and spacebar. When I finally got a joystick and a new computer it felt like cheating. I loved the floppy version for the wingman. I wish they had carried that feature foreward.

[@stitchjones7134]

Loved this game as a kid.

[@medson71]

wow, never realised you could pause and touch the icons on the briefings to get the shps' cards... and the bug/spoiler on that mission with the containers with TIEs is kinda impressive given the briefings and missions used independent files unlike the TIE format used later on.

[@Raistlen007]

This is true. I assume they just didn't notice it and no one cared. It's really easy to hide briefing ship icons.

[@SteveRM1968]

OMG That you for the flash back! I spent many hours in SWOTL and in Monkey Island

[@CarlosRodriguez-dd4sb]

I loved both the Xwing series and SWotL!

[@marty7442]

This title marked golden age of video games I think. The mid-1990s saw everything from Wing Commander, their Privateer spinoffs, Diablo, Starcraft, Half-Life, Homeworld, and Max Payne. It was a great time before the larger corps like EA bought up the smaller studios just to shut them down, ahem Origin Studios...

[@stratman103]

This was one of the best games I've ever played.

[@TheRealVolk]

That was a nice nostalgic trip, thank you. 🐾

[@MLB9000]

X-Wing was the game that made me trade in my Atari STe and buy a PC. I remember that you'd get different character portraits depending on what name you typed in. The portraits were consistent, not dependent on the save file, so 'Kleash' (my friend's character name) would look the same on his computer and on mine.

[@Raistlen007]

What the game did was a sort of checksum, assigning every letter or number a value, and with a formula deriving a number which would be the portrait number.

[@mikeoyler2983]

It will always be lamentable that X-Wing did not feature an interactive campaign like BoB: their Finest Hour and SWOTL though the linear campaigns were fun.

[@Raistlen007]

Did not feature one... Yet. Fotg will offer one. Fate of the galaxy. Worth checking out!

[@zviratko]

Those games were amazing in more ways than can be mentioned. There's also continuity between the missions (and bugs related to that), so doing bonus objectives actually makes sense. In Tie Fighter, I remember shooting down some enemy cruiser I was not supposed to, and in a later mission I was supposed to wait for it... but it no longer existed and the game was deadlocked. That was probably the first time in my life I encountered this type of bug (so how can we be angry at Cyberpunk, right? :-D).

[@Raistlen007]

That shouldn't have happened. What tie fighter does is that if a ship that shows up later is destroyed then next mission it appears it will have another name

[@ravenmoon5111]

Dang, I played X-Wing on my Mac as I recall. I ended up buying a PC just to play Tie Fighter. Tie Fighter was easily the best game I ever played. I went through 2 flight joysticks and a Throttle playing that game. I loved the Tie Defender, even more than the Missile Boat

[@pastoh1]

Man I miss this game. I figured out how to kill any and all ships...except for the Nebulon B. At least until the B-wing expansion came out. I loved taking out a star destroyer with a lone x-wing.

[@New2Kendo]

I loved these games, I had all of them, I wish they were still availible

[@Raistlen007]

They are very much available and playable on gog and steam. Xwa especially has many mods to make it more modern

[@New2Kendo]

@@Raistlen007 I will taje a look, I am not familiar with either platform but I have heard of steam

[@craigf6277]

If always suspected SWOTL was related. Man, I miss playing these games

[@mwd888]

My favorite games growing up!

[@jackstecker5796]

I'll never forget editing the installation batch file. Our computer had a 5.5" floppy, A: drive, 3.5" floppy, B: drive, C: was the OS HDD, and D: was my HDD. The batch file was supposed to install from A: to C:. I had to dig through the .BAT file and change it to B: to D:. I thought I was a genius. But I mean, I was 12, so...what kid doesn't think they're a genius at that age.

[@aperson22222]

I wasn’t very good at it. A lot of maneuvers were too tedious for me and I was obsessed with the idea of going out in a blaze of glory. So I would always fly straight up to this one star destroyer and ram it. I don’t think I ever did any real damage but I liked to imagine I had destroyed it. Of course it would blast the shit out of me as I got close. Occasionally it destroyed me before the collision. Sometimes it did so much damage that I couldn’t eject and a bunch of NPCs held a funeral for me. Other times I ejected, got captured and was personally interrogated by Darth Vader himself. I’d then imagine daring escapes that would turn me into the Rebellion’s greatest hero. I kept doing this over and over.

[@Raistlen007]

It was that immersiveness that made the game so good, that you could imagine all those things playing out

[@WhatPlantsCrave-ur1ht]

Before the "gutted version", there was a version where you can just hang out in the cruiser's hangar, right after a briefing, and watch all these unnamed Rebel fighters fly by. I thought the droids that were added in the '98 version were cool, but I missed the human guards. Nothing gets your attention like a guard pointing a blaster rifle at your head and shouting, "Enter your name, pilot!".

[@Raistlen007]

That's the pilot selection screen

[@WhatPlantsCrave-ur1ht]

@@Raistlen007 Good times! I don't think I ever knew Chewbacca and Yoda were in the game, but I remember finding Marylin Monroe.

[@Tigerman1138]

While not confirmed the final shot of THX 1138 escaping the city and seeing the sun looks a lot like Lucas Arts logo.

[@paulbelci3945]

I played hours of the Mac version back in the 90s. I loved that game. If you got killed on some missions, you got a funeral.

[@hardeej13]

Be young kid me. Box says, Hey kid, go buy a joystick. I say, No, and proceed to make sharp turns and lead enemies with my gooped-up rollerball mouse. It was still the 20th century the last time I played this game and I can still remember almost everything about it - that's how you know a game is good. Remember the diary that came with Tie Fighter? Had it right next to my Thrawn books because it was actually a good story. Mid-90s LucasArts was one of those gaming periods of quality and fun I doubt we'll ever see again.

[@prof_hu]

Would have given a double thumbs up for the unexpected (but welcome) Ryan George cameo, if that would be possible.

[@Raistlen007]

Giving him a cameo was super easy. barely an inconvenience.

[@prof_hu]

@@Raistlen007 No wonder. Ryan cameos are tight!

[@martinvyhnakable]

Nice video. Thank you. I love X-wing games.

[@metalgamerk9549]

Thank you for a superb video about X-Wing!

[@duskomarincic]

Great video! fun to watch! I loved Tie Fighter, never finished it! ...one day I'll do it with the total convertion HD graphics

[@philbax]

Excellent video! I didn't know about Santa, but I do recall the hack for the training mission medals. I'll add one more "you might not know": There is an X-Wing Game Guide. It gave you the usual strategies and tips for completing each mission. But it was unique in that those strategies were written as debriefs from the perspective of the pilot who flew them. What's more, between sets of missions, there were whole chunks of pure story! It was really cool! In fact, they even produced a little mini-book that was beginning of the pilot's story and how he joined the Rebellion. I think that may have been included with some of the CD copies of the game? I'm not sure where I got mine. I believe I still have the intro story book, and I do still have my copy of the full guide. Never seen anything like it before or since. Quite impressive! X-Wing always brings back memories. In those days, I would actually write letters to Lucasarts' "hint department" for help completing specific missions (before I got the guide), and they would send back tips for the mission I was stuck on. Later on, I wrote to them asking for pictures of the TIE Defender I had seen in my friend's copy of TIE Fighter. They printed out a screenshot from the ship browser in the TIE Fighter game. Quality folks! :)

[@Raistlen007]

You're talking about the story written from the perspective of Keyan Farlander. This was in the official strategy guide, and it was written partly by Maxwell, who I mention in the video. What's even more fun is that you can tell by the description of whats going on in the missions that they rationalize in game AI bugs, and that they point out some fun or odd things that can happen during a mission, but in universe. The only downside is that they only wrote it for Tours 1-3, and tours 4 and 5 got a lesser treatment. Strategy for them was less needed as tips were built into the game for those tours.

[@OfficialRedTeamReview]

Great video!

[@BratislavMetulski]

Swotl... the game of my childhood

[@scottsummers819]

So many memories from so long ago. The biggest issue I had back then was getting (I think) my shiny new 486 DX32 (overclocked to 40 Mhz) to even run the game. I reckon I spent about 25 hours over a week tweeking memory settings to get it to run with the 4mb of memory I had. Crazy stuff PC's are so much better these days. That said even with (by today's standards) the poor graphics there was a game play element that just kept you coming back for more, the cut scene rewards were what kept you up all night. I bought the 98 version from a bargain bin years latter but it never played right in a windows environment, somehow the trigger presses seemed to lag.

[@exinfernnus]

The first time I did a trench run my hands were shaking. It was amazing for its time.

[@morelenmir]

If you are interested in trying the version of 'X-Wing' that came with score files you can do so in current versions of Windows through the simple emulator 'DOSBox' and the 'MUNT' driver. To my ears the sound quality is identical to the original hardware, although you will need access to the ROM files from a real MT-32 before it will run.

[@Raistlen007]

That's exactly how I recorded Mt32 music for this video.