Star Wars: X-Wing - A Retrospective Analysis

[@spacecadetrewind]

Hey just a heads up that someone has been trying to impersonate me in the comments in order to run some kind of scam. I'll do my best to deal with these whenever they appear, but be vigilant in case one slips through the cracks. I will never message you on Telegram or other services like that, and any comments from me on this channel should be specially flagged by KZbin's interface as from the channel owner. Stay safe out there!

[@TakaD20]

That scam is ancient... and what pisses me off most is that KZbin is doing next to nothing about it. But if a content creator has .7 seconds of copyrighted music somewhere, they go nuts.

[@beneficent2557]

Hey man where is my Xbox?

[@PetersonZF]

It's the highest form of flattery! ;)

[@michaelandreipalon359]

You're not the only one, don't worry. Oh, and on a soft spot, if they actually want to impersonate you, that means you've already left a good mark on the algorithm.

[@Hellohallo]

There are people that modded X-win and Tie-fighter for years, look at the total conversion versions.

[@gufu21]

You touched on it, but the immersion factor _really_ sunk its teeth into 9- or 10-year old me. It never occurred to me that reallocating shields or managing power could seem tedious-I was an ace Alliance pilot, dang it, and the more keys I had to tap on the keyboard during a frenzied battle, the more awesome I felt. And those medals and ribbons ... getting those felt amazing. I'm not even kidding, I think the main reason I rejoined the Cub Scouts at that age was so I could chase that feeling I got in X-Wing of getting patches on a uniform.

[@zoraster3749]

💯

[@bobcat9087]

I remember being about eight or nine years old when I first played this with my friend in 1994 or so. It took two of us to handle all of the keyboard controls. We took turns where one of us was the pilot, handling steering and weapons, while the other was the astromech droid, handling shields, power, and targeting.

[@jackasslawyer]

I'm so old school I played wing commander split controls with my friend. "Push A dude!" LOL

[@Vandecker]

That sounds like some amazing memories to have with your friend :-)

[@jedipathworking]

I got similar memories, it was incredibly fun.

[@MrZombiefrank]

Your friend was role-playing a R2 unit

[@DSzaks]

Me an my brother use to do this as well. He would pilot and fire and I would be on the keyboard selecting targets and managing the shields and power ratios. It was like having an actual pilot and co-pilot sim. Good times.

[@superfahd]

A couple of things from an old XWing veteran: 1. You didn't mention speed management which was a critical part of dogfighting and might have also helped you avoid all those collisions. You see, you're most maneuverable at 2/3 speed so the standard tactic while engaging fighters was to close in to gun range at full, and then hit the 2/3 speed key to drop to that speed, set your laser charge to 75% or 100% and start blasting away. Similarly, there was a key to match speed with target, useful for engaging slower crafts so that you can maintain a safe distance from them and avoid any collision damage that way 2. Concussion missiles are indeed faster and track targets better than proton torpedoes. It's been a while bit in my experience, firing a torpedo at a fighter was a waste. A missile, on the other hand was more reliable choice for hitting fighters, especially in a head on approach where they could close the distance faster and thus hit farther out 3. One way to deal with the laser spread of the XWing (at least in my opinion) was to dual or quad link your lasers. It slows down your rate of fire but gives you a better chance of at least one of them hitting. Dual link was my preferred choice, if for no other reason then that Wedge Antilles does it in A New Hope! (that's as far as I've gotten in your video. I'll see if there are more things I can add)

[@lebensraummetal]

There's more Ion cannon stuff in TIE Fighter so he'll definitely need to learn to mash the 'match speed' key when he closes on a target. Alternately he can just turn off collisions in the menu and save himself the trouble.

[@Raistlen007]

The lower speed maneuverability was a feature in tie fighter. Not xwing.

[@613aristocrat]

All stuff that's in the manual. Playing this game was such a blast because of how in control you were. It felt like actually flying a starfighter.

[@jasony8480]

Torpedoes can be used effectively against fighters if you lock and fire at them before you get into cannon range, then dive a direction, but keep going roughly at the craft shooting at you (so they keep going at the torp), so the cannons do not hit the warhead. Not many targets for them, since it isn't worth the overkill against most imperial fighters. Works well against tie advanced or interceptors with shields (not sure it X-wing has those, I didn't get very far into it but played the heck out of Tie Fighter and later)

[@mpcox]

Speed management wasn't actually introduced until the XvT engine. The original DOS versions of TIE Fighter did not have it - you were as maneuverable at 100% as you were at 33. In XvT, you were most maneuverable at 1/3rd throttle, and they carried that mechanic over to XWA.

[@samtheweebo]

It makes you feel like you are actually flying the ships. Making adjustments to systems all the time. Was a great game series. I miss it.

[@pqsnet]

If you still play games, you should look up XWAU (X-wing alliance upgrade) There has been a lot modding by old developers to keep the old games skeleton but putting on a new skinn. As of now, X-wing 95, Tie Fighter and X-wing alliance looks up to paar with EA Battlefront.

[@Strideo1]

I remember thinking the power management system was so cool when I played these games. I wasn't expecting so much bellyaching over it in the video.

[@afterburner94]

Pinnacle was really XWA. The modding community on that last game is probably the best there is with revamped models, textures, VR compatibility and Total conversions of Tie Fighter exist. Absolute banger.

[@dano8902]

Wing Commander was the casual experience, X-Wing was for us psychos who loved the complicated sims. Honestly, I did love both...but the X-Wing series still takes up the vast majority of my 90's Space Sim headspace and holds a special place in what remains of my cold, black heart. But if you liked Wing Commander more, well that's cool too. More power to ya! It was an amazing time for PC gaming, and these titles were massively influential in their own ways. Edit: One more thing about X-Wing...it was absolutely necessary to use a flightstick-type joystick...it allowed total control of flying the ship in one hand so the other could seamlessly be used for power management and other functions. Muscle memory took control after a surprisingly small amount of practice. Even using a gamepad today is kinda clunky and imprecise in comparison.

[@Stefonius]

X-Wing Alliance (a sequel) is still my favorite space flight sim. I bought an MS Sidewinder flight stick just for that game. To this day, I can't game with a mouse and keyboard.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

For me, TIE Fighter and X-Wing have aged more well, kinda like how LucasArts' Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle surpassed King's Quest, Quest for Glory, and Space Quest.

[@DurkMcGerk]

And then TIE Fighter came out which allowed you to press Enter to match your target's speed. That was a life-changer. It was hard to go back to X-Wing after that.

[@xenxander]

This game series made real use of the joysticks of the time. The proper joystick makes flying the ships very intuitive without having to really use the keyboard much if at all during flight and combat.

[@greyshadow9498]

I actually came to complain about him using an Xbox controller 🤣 Thrustmaster MKII FTW!

[@unclerukmer]

I bought a Sidewinder just to play these games. Once I had all the buttons perfectly configured the game controls were very intuitive.

[@1BrknHrtdRomeo]

Hah...Remember when the joystick connected via VGA? LOL Oh yeah that was me hah...and I brought second hand joysticks that were like 5-10 bucks xD

[@theblackgoatofthewoods]

Tie Fighter was fantastic when I got a joystick with forcefeedback

[@lordbreadington9889]

​@1BrknHrtdRomeo ahhhhh, the old "game port" joysticks. Usb was such a breakthrough.

[@ByteSizeTech]

Regarding 26:00 - Power Management The solution is a HOTAS that you can configure with repeated button presses. When I used to play, I used a throttle with a middle button that was setup to press the S key 3 times, rebalancing shields automatically. This is why using a modern gamepad is a poor choice for this game.

[@korndogz69]

Power management is 100% necessary to be successful in this game. It's part of the "basics". There are power configurations that are optimal for max speed so you're not heading at near light speed towards enemies like you were doing on the first training mission. There's many scenarios where you need to know what power config to use for that situation. For example, when the mission briefing says you're going out on a rescue mission, as soon as you come out of hyperspace, you need to immediately dump all power to engines and drain your weapons and shields to get max speed (150). Once you get close enough, then you start charging weapons and shields as you close in. If you don't do that, more often than not, you won't get to the objective in time. Then you just have to target the enemy that is targeting your objective and tap it once so it disengages the objective, and turns its attention to you instead. When your shields get hit, you have to instantly re-balance them. You just get used to it. Get hit, re-balance shields. X-Wing is a very challenging game. If you can play this game at an expert level, you have accomplished something. I got to the point where I was taking on star destroyers solo after telling my wingmen to go home. To take out a star destroyer, you have to first take out all 52 fighters in its hangar. Then you do runs on its shield generators while doing the "Wotan Weave" to dodge the turrets. This is a "git gud" kind of game that won't hold your hand in any way. *Edit* Oh yeah! One mistake you made was not realizing you can link all 4 X-Wing lasers to fire at the same time. This gives you more vectors to intercept your target. At least 35 minutes into the video. Just don't go spray-N-pray with it, or your laser energy will be depleted quickly. Deliberate, calculated linked shots is the way to go. Also, you CAN take on cap ships in an A-Wing. You can take on cap ships with anything. A-Wing, B-Wing, X-Wing, Y-Wing, any Alphabet-Wing.

[@flowinsounds]

you certainly can take on capital ships with an A wing. so much fun

[@bunkerhousing]

Yeah valid comment, I remember doing the death star run and setting all shields back. There was a training mission in an A-wing that thaught you above, you set all power to engine and zipped around and scanned everything.

[@tirirana]

power management is especially important, because shields recharge super slowly, but lasers recharge faster, so it's more efficient to recharge your lasers and directly transfer that energy to the shields instead of charging them slowly.

[@stephenkolostyak4087]

No power management = failure. No shield rebalancing = failure. No dumping laser capacitor into shield bank = failure. And sure you can take out all of the tie fighters inside of a Star Destroyer, but is it really even living if you give them a chance to break formation after they launch? As for linked fire on cannons? Against capital ships, sure - and since the fully-charged cannons fire around 1.15 km (or around there) you can start firing before the targeting reticle lights up and dodge away before incoming fire has a chance to reach you with Y-Wing and B-Wing having the greatest advantage because of having both laser and ion cannons which could be fire-cycled by holding weapon selection down (it worked best after all torpedoes were fired off 6 shotting corvettes or blapping shield generators). 100% fire accuracy was a real pain in the ass to get, but completely doable if you didn't mind reloading a save file.

[@korndogz69]

@@stephenkolostyak4087 Yep! There's a lot of tactics in X-Wing! The linked shots comment was specifically for that part when he was talking about how much trouble he was having hitting that tie fighter he kept missing. Mine fields are best cleared with single weak shots at high speed. Another great way to use your concussion missiles is for those pesky rescue missions where if you don't get there in time, you fail. I would usually lock-on to the ship(s) targeting my objective at long range and fire one missile at it. That's enough to get them to break off their attack, and you'll have plenty of time to close in to protect your objective.

[@danielmcdonagh1693]

Hearing that description of the mission with the infinitely respawning gunboats activated a long buried memory of disabling fighters to prevent their replacements spawning in so I was really happy when you covered that as a valid tactic. Child me felt so fucking clever.

[@barongorn]

I remember that at least regular ties couldn't be ion-ed. They still blew up when you got them disabled

[@monstarosadeliciosa]

Your channel is routinely featured in those “how to start a youtube channel” videos as the rare unlikely video with exceptional quality that will break the algorithm with 3hr longform video of all gameplay footage getting over 100k views for the first video featuring a game over 30 years old! Keep it up, man!

[@FoxyPercival714]

I'm hoping to get that kind of title.

[@docweidner]

First mission of TD2. Stars' End was a prison that first showed up in the Brian Daley novel Han Solo at Stars' End. The first of a trilogy of books that gave more backstory on Han Solo. Daley had to make it a prequel and could not involve the Empire, so he created the Corporate Sector Authority as the new villian. Andor used a similair concept in the early episodes. Daley also created the Z95 Headhunter that you will see later in TIE Fighter. These games embraced the Expanded Universe. Sometimes in little ways like this or in bigger ways by bringing Thrawn into TIE Fighter.

[@DIEGhostfish]

It's weird though because Stars' end is way out of the way, in a tributary state with "Theoretical independence" of the empire. And also kinda long blown up by the start of this game.

[@docweidner]

@DIEGhostfish Good points. One thing I always enjoyed about the EU, in general, was it tended to make the galaxy feel bigger in a way the movies never did. I guess we could potentially explain it away as either the CSA rebuilt it, or the Empire liked the idea enough to nationalize it. Much like what happened in Andor, the Empire decided the CSA was dropping the ball, so they took over. Of course, the real reason was it was a bit of fan service.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@docweidner Impst just stole the name. Because it sounded cool. All the missions are also focused on a couple of sectors pretty far from CSA space though the galaxy hadn't been mapped at the time.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

It's extra lore like that made me feel disappointed with Squadrons. That game felt way too safe, even compared with the Jedi games by Respawn.

[@DIEGhostfish]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Big issue is only having like three things to pin lore onto for Squadrons. And one of those things being Disastermath.

[@wayner396]

Loved this game and tie fighter. I wore out 2 of my mom's mice playing this so for Christmas she bought me a flight stick so I'd stop breaking her mice.

[@Superschokokeks]

Man, took me a second to get that you're not talking about animals.

[@Dr-Weird]

Man your poor cat. Breaking all those mice like that. (Lol I loved tie fighter, I played it b4 I got xwing)

[@kendoyle]

I broke a joystick playing it. Don't have any idea how I'd play it with a joypad. Think some mice also took a battering here too.

[@mitcheldurnell267]

... how did you break the mice? lol

[@wayner396]

@@mitcheldurnell267 the tracker ball in thr bottom wore out from me having to move the mouse so fast, often, and hard.

[@centauri0]

X-wing was the first PC game I had ever purchased. Still have the same box and floppies today :) I understand the annoying collisions, that's why there is an option to turn it off. I would say most of your negative comments are simply because your not playing the game with a keyboard and joystick. Power management and speed control is so much easier when one hand is always on the keyboard. Totally agree with you on the mission designs. Most of the issues were fixed in Tie Fighter.

[@jackasslawyer]

Flight stick is the ONLY way to play x wing What's even the point otherwise. I rigged mine between my legs top gun style

[@alexrose1ukv2]

That is why Tie Fighter is often considered one of the greatest PC games of all times. All of the awesome intact, more awesome added, most of the not-awesome dealt with. The original dynamic music is still awesome.

[@gordoncrutchfield3453]

Tie fighter is where I started.

[@hardyakka888]

Tie fighter CD, once you played that, you never go back to x wing. Advancements like goals menu, enemy shield rating, dockig with transports, being able to actually shoot down missiles. Long live the empire.

[@MisterTwo-40SX]

Yeah, for sure. I very much wish there had been an updated X-Wing using the TIE Fighter improvements.

[@cameron398]

I remember the first version of the game was on 3.5 disks. No voices until years later with the collectors CD version. So much fun.

[@kristiandomke]

Yes, I played both of them as well. Great that they fixed some of the extremly hard bordering to impossible missions in the CD-Version as well...

[@Cloud3623423423]

I'm glad youtube recommended this video to me. I would have never believed that I too would be a person who unironically watches a 3-hour analysis of an old video game, until now. Thanks for the videos you have been doing- it's been nice to see a modern in-depth analysis on games that I played when I was very young. I hope you will consider doing Privateer at some point.

[@frost8077]

As a 90s kid who liked sci-fi games, this channel was made for me. Many modern games feel like they don't care much for world building and mechanical design, but more like a copy of a copy of a copy. Space sims and mecha used to involve designs where every part of a ship had purpose and function. Now I see so many designs that look like nonsense. I had Wing Commander on the SNES and didn't have the luxury to play every PC space sim, so it's nice to see a channel covering these sorts of games, especially for the younger crowd coming in.

[@Idazmi7]

Exactly. I had this game, and _Starfleet Academy_ when I was a kid, and I absolutely loved them. Nothing nowadays gives me that true "simulation" feeling.

[@ricashbringer9866]

I was in college when I played this game. I loved it. The problems you highlight, I learned to manage. It was part of the realism for me. You didn't see X-wings withstand damage well in the films.

[@google-is-the-worst]

It's interesting because from the modern vantage point there are so many valid critiques of this game from the design and mechanics perspective. That being said at the time playing it I had never experienced anything like it. I loved messing with all the controls and things like long travel distances and annoying scanning missions were absolutely part of the immersion experience. Incredibly fond memories of getting totally lost in playing these games. Thanks you!

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

You need to cut your shield power - the X-Wing is very comfortable at 100% laser, 0% shield, and transferring to shields whenever your lasers are at least half supercharged. Also, cutting throttle to 1/3rd when turning. You get the best turn rate when your engines have 50% power (the blue bar on the ELS is halfway) and throttle is at 33%.

[@RoamingAdhocrat]

The AI (I am 98% sure) aims simple deflection shots. So, if you change speed or course, that's enough to make them miss - fighters and turrets both. But if you're too close/slow/large, they'll still hit your ship. At 2:15:00 you have a Y-Wing with 100% laser, 100% shield, moving at grumpy-toddler pace - any shot aimed at you is gonna hit no matter how extravagently you evade. If folk are shooting at you in a Y-Wing, try 75% or 100% laser, 50% shield. Or 0% laser, 100% shield for a bit. IIRC I spend a bit of Y-Wing time with 50% laser, 50% shield, using extra speed to avoid hits and using the shields as a battery

[@AK-xn6ds]

Great series! Keep it up

[@Aelendris]

Being captured in X-wing (or rescued) is determined at the ejection of your pilot from the ship. What determines your fate is "which craft was closest to you?" Enemy => straight to jail, Friend => straight to your homely friendly Nebulon-B-Frigate-hospital ship That's why you get captured a lot more often than not, because your enemy's usually in very close proximity to you when you die.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Either way, the lack of proper save states is a huge disadvantage for this game, and thank the Force the sequels did a 180 on that.

[@Jiub_SN]

@@michaelandreipalon359not at all imo, but an option to toggle would be nice for those who don't like it

[@ZonamaPrime]

@23:10 That's what i'd always imagine the astromech could be doing mid-fight for the pilot. "Hey Whistler, maintain the shield integrity for me, I got some squint's to snipe"

[@jameslewis2635]

Unlike the Rogue Squadron games, the X-Wing / Tie Fighter series were made by a team of people who specialised in combat flight simulators rather than arcade games. As such these games were designed to simulate as many features of the craft involved as possible based on the movies and made up elements that would flesh out the experience like the scanning mechanic. People back then were used to this as combat flight simulators were quite common back then. It was an age where everyone was expected to RTFM for anything more complicated than an arcade game (including many racing games).

[@linuslau888]

Being huge into flight sims with my first experience shooting the Sopwith Camel in Flight Sim (1984 ver), I couldn't agree more the X-Wing Tie Fighter series were simulators for sure. This series would eventually lead to future hits like the Descent series.

[@AOClaus]

I'm still mad about the lack of support for Squadrons...

[@digitolwonder]

My friend in the 6th grade allowed me to borrow the floppy disks to install and play this game at home. I still can remember vividly to this day playing this game, learning each of the crafts strengths and weaknesses, cutting my throttle to 1/3rd to make tight quick turns and literally memorizing EVERY single keyboard shortcut by heart (I did not own a joystick) and loving every minute of it. It really felt like learning a real craft. Now a days with all the quality of life changes to a game such as Squadrons, really makes me reflect that my 12 year old self was a true combat ace♥ Great video sir!

[@Darthborg]

When I talk about this game or Tie Fighter, zoomers think I’m always talking about Rogue Squadron. FML but so glad to be a teen when these games came out to experience how awesome these games were in the 90s. ❤

[@themarchinggoblin8294]

Both were great! X wing was a ball ache to get working

[@Darthborg]

@@themarchinggoblin8294 no it’s not. Maybe if you are a zoomer used to consoles where you drop a disc in, but basic setup was and is easy for anyone with an IQ above a garden snail.

[@planescaped]

I remember old people would always talk about how great these games were on GameFaqs Rogue Squadron or Jedi Outcast message boards back in the day, lol.

[@silkwesir1444]

@@themarchinggoblin8294 Yes, both were great. But this confusion shows a certain level of ignorance with regards to the distinction between different video game genres.

[@anjetto1]

Yeah, it's really rude of people to be born after us and have different experiences

[@mt0068]

Tie Fighter was almost a perfect sequel improving on X-Wing in every way. Its hard to think looking back now at how rough the graphics were - I remember playing this and being blown away

[@EriolBraveheart]

Awesome to see you back!

[@anthonyshannon7559]

Good review. I am def the type of guy who the S-foils button was added for- and all the bells and whsitles of the pwer mgt system. I'd add that if you set deflectors rear, they would only charge or drain from rear, leaving the forward shields as they were. Once you got double shields front and back, if you "directed shields to the rear" you could fly around with full front shields and all power to engines without them degrading. In the trench mission you can skim and dip in and out of the trench to keep your speed high enough to escape the ties without having to deal with dodging all that junk. Any mission where you had a Ywing I would be disabling cap ships if possible as it was significantly easier than dealing with them active. I can't remember the missions too accurately as it all gets conflated with XVT and XWA. What a glorious run of space sims.

[@Furluge]

Another great video. Thanks for taking the time to put it together. I'm really looking forward to that Wing Commander 2 video though. :D Back in the day I was definitely more into Wing Commander than the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. That said, when I heard people talk about these games they were always most interested in the TIE Fighter game in particular so it will be curious to see how you feel about it. I do have these games on a CD someplace but I can't say I've played them very extensively.

[@jerglow]

Didn't know I've been waiting for this for 3 decades.... but here we are

[@HeavyArms0404]

I'm looking forward to the tie fighter review. This was a really great watch. Thanks for including the wing commander context. Oh, if you do tie fighter check out the new total conversion. The remastered music is amazing and the greater amount of original music in tie fighter compared to xwing makes me think it was a budget issue for the xwing project.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

'Course, before one should try that still ongoing fan remake, the Collector's CD-ROM Edition is the better starting point.

[@MsOpportunity68]

Excellent retrospective. One of the things that annoyed me about the final version of X-Wing, the one that used the X-Wing vs TIE Fighter engine was that whoever did the Imperial shuttle got the angle of the wings wrong compared to the original games. They were much to shallow. It might sound nit picky, but to the Star Wars geek that I still am, it was important. Thankfully when X-Wing Alliance was released the Imperial Shuttle wings were back to their correct angle. Back in the day having some sort of joystick was important and in days before USB a 15 pin game/midi port was included with the Soundblaster cards, and if you were going to play games like the Microprose Simulators or X-Wing you owed it to yourself to buy a Joystick. Indeed trying to play X-Wing without one had you using the mouse to control the X and Y axis, but you had to be constantly moving the mouse to turn. As soon as you stopped moving the mouse you stopped turning, and this often led you to having to move the mouse till you ran out of space and quickly pick it up to move it to the other side of the desk so you could continue steering. TIE Fighter required you to use a Joystick from the outset in comparison. Even today I would argue that it is still best to play this type of game with a Joystick rather than a gamepad because the extra length of the former provides much finer control.

[@DarkVaati13]

The bit about meta knowledge reminds me of this mission from TIE Fighter where Admiral Harkov betrays you and tries to get you killed when clearing out some mines. It was very hard and after a point your two wing mates will turn hostile and attack. Almost every guide I see says to begin the mission by shooting them down and because they are hostile and told to do nothing you wont get penalized.

[@docweidner]

I remember that mission. TIE Interceptor to clear Mines before your wingmen turn on you. One of the few times, iirc, that I used the call for help option, or maybe that was scripted. The Rebels show up as well, and you get a bonus scan a shuttle mission. I think Harkov sent TIE Advanced. That one was one of the hardest, if not the hardest of that game.

[@muddlewait8844]

I remember there was one TIE Fighter mission where you were sent to intercept some Correllian freighters in a Defender, but they jumped to hyperspace very close to mission start and you started very far away, the idea being they’d jump before you could get there, setting the stage for an ambush. Except that if you took advanced torpedoes, pumped all your shield and laser energy into the engines, barreled toward the freighters at full speed, and emptied your tubes the moment you got in range, you could juuuust barely blow up the freighters before they jumped, which soft-locked the mission. Flying a Defender was just sick.

[@bunkerhousing]

You are a real smartass pilot?

[@isyoulame]

There's Missile Boat mission where you make many Bothans die. I think you wind up killing about 60ish fighters in that mission alone. And you spend it zipping back and forth with SLAMS. I am not sure if the fact it's Bothan space is supposed to be meta with what Mon Mothma says in ROTJ or not lol. But indeed many Bothans died.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

A super hard mission, B5M1, but by the Force, it's still more rewarding and replayable than almost every Squadrons level and even 95% of the X-Wing levels.

[@Cajun7907]

You've done it again! (Caused me to stay up way later than I should have). Awesome video, and storytelling. Another blast of nostalgia!

[@dasparado]

I was in the middle of high school when this came out and first saw a girlfriends of mine little brother playing it at her house. I thought the whole game was just going through those training rings and still thought it was epic. Imagine my surprise when I bought it that there was an entire military campaign as well. Tie Fighter came out soon after I got X-wing and to say those were amazing games would be an understatement. PG Gamer at the time declared Tie Fighter the ideal game to have on a Deserted Island if you only could have a single game. Good memories.

[@DougieDollasX]

It still is

[@EstonMelton]

I played the floppy version, barely, on my parents' 386 (my own 286 only had a 5.25 drive). Had to stick with the lowest detail and there was no sound card. When I finally got a 486SX, this was one of the first things I installed. Love this game, and I really enjoyed your retrospective. Probably others have commented that many of the qualms you raise -- e.g. target key options, figuring out who's attacking mission-critical craft, docking time and mission design, general wait time, being told specific mission objectives ahead of time -- are squarely addressed in TIE Fighter. I hope it makes it into your queue.

[@thiagoadv]

About the AI, I recall that, back then, people shared .plt files (particularly Enforcer.plt, but there were others). You could copy the file to a specific folder and choose him as a wingman before launchng the mission. These were improved pilots with better performance, but I have no idea of their origin.

[@razvanmazilu6284]

As someone who only very briefly experienced this game to the point I barely remember it as it was a bit before my time, but spent a lot of time as a kid playing X-Wing Alliance, it's interesting to see how much of that game's structure and mechanics already existed here. As a side note, I really hope this video does well and the channel takes off. Your original video really came out of nowhere, with its high quality and its success despite its subject being on a very niche subject. I'm not normally too fond of very long videos on games and find I prefer them to be within the 30 to 60 minutes margin, but somehow your videos flow so easily that I didn't even realise when I was the 1hr mark. I'd definitely love to see more such videos on this genre and, perhaps, even some let's say genre adjacent games like Rogue Squadron or some of the more open world space games that feature a lot of combat in addition to other mechanics like trading. Thinking of stuff in the vein of the X series.

[@cburger4life144]

Same here! Was a little too young for Tie Fighter/X-Wing, though somehow I had and managed to beat Rebel Assault so I guess I should just say I didn’t have access to it. But X-Wing Alliance was an early “hype” game for me. It’s one of the first games I remember reading early previews for and getting excited about, not just seeing a cool box at the store and begging my parents for.

[@afishynado6812]

Was a huge fan of Tie Fighter more than X-Wing. When XWA came out at first I was like "OMG wtf is this family stuff? I was expecting the alliance bit!" Until I realised how much depth there was in the story and family elements.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

In short, we will be watching him with great interest.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

​@@cburger4life144Ugh, would never recommend the Rebel Assault to both Star Wars veterans and newbies anytime.

[@wllmhlmn]

I literally watched your first video yesterday! Keep it up man you’re killing it!

[@mikedrop4421]

Nobody would believe this is your second video, you are absolutely killing it. Obviously you might have other channels on which you've honed your craft but either way I'm absolutely loving the content. It's taking me a few days to finish the video because I don't want to miss anything since it feels like the closest I'll get to playing these games.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Third video, if you count the channel update one.

[@Acrosurge]

I loved this game. As a kid, it introduced me to many facets of the Star Wars lore and fed my fantasy/scifi ship geekdom. I loved the B-Wing. Still do.

[@pqsnet]

If you still play games, you should look up XWAU (X-wing alliance upgrade) There has been a lot modding by old developers to keep the old games skeleton but putting on a new skinn. As of now, X-wing 95, Tie Fighter and X-wing alliance looks up to paar with EA Battlefront.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

The X-Wing Alliance B-Wing has the better laser link though. Heck, you can even fire both your lasers and ions there altogether.

[@fansofER]

The B-Wing is my favorite. Armored space tank heavy fighter! 💪

[@adfaklsdjf]

I somehow missed this video when it first came out, even though I've subscribed and rung the bell. It just came up in the related/recommended sidebar. Thank you for your excellent work.

[@docweidner]

Another challenge with these games, especially Wing Commander was you sometimes needed to boot the computer with its own configuration to properly allocate the memory. I'm not sure if X-wing didn't have this issue as much or if I had just gotten used to it with WC, but I learned a lot about how PCs worked from getting these games to run properly. I think that is why the complexity in the game itself wasn't as much of an issue.

[@mitchellforney6109]

I think when I was a kid, I spent more time tweaking my config.sys and autoexec.bat files to coax my computer into running games than I did playing the games themselves.

[@junglespinner]

shout out to MEMMAKER

[@walterteply-schnabl6379]

@@junglespinner For games like this it was nice to know you could always squeeze out a few more bytes by not loading the German keyboard drivers, because the controls were mapped for US/UK keyboard layouts anyway (and rebinding controls was not a thing back then, at least not for sims).

[@korndogz69]

@@junglespinner This comment just brought some flashbacks of editing autoexec.bat, and config.sys to run certain games with optimal memory! Like using the "LOADHIGH" command to make more conventional memory available, and tweaking how other things were/were not loaded.

[@docweidner]

@korndogz69 Yeah, I haven't thought of EMS and XMS in years. As I think about it more, I recall having different boot disks for different games since they didn't always agree on how to use system resources.

[@Journeyman107]

As a teen I asked for TIE Fighter for my birthday in the late 00s. Nearly had a mental breakdown getting it to work with sound that evening but when I did I found the best Star Wars game I’ve played to this day and probably my favorite game I played that year and this was during a PS3 and 360 gaming renaissance

[@orbaitv5991]

Wow a 3 hour video analysis on X-wing? I just started playing it a month ago and have only a few missions left in tour 5. Can't wait to watch the video.

[@UstraMage]

I only played X-Wing a little as a kid, the first game like this I got was TIE Fighter. I do remember this game and enjoying it a lot. Great video dude.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Sequel's so good, the first game nowadays feels like a tad bit skippable demo.

[@udirt]

can confirm that the opening text scroller was incredibly exciting in 1993/1994. there was neither bad pre- or sequel movies so this was triggering only the best memories.

[@BaronGrackle]

Similar when playing Dark Forces or Jedi Knight.

[@SECONDQUEST]

They're all sorta bad, some just less bad, since they were made for your age demographic

[@michaelandreipalon359]

​@@SECONDQUEST...What do you mean?

[@daveb1930]

X-Wing was one of the "Big Three" that convinced me to move on from my Amiga and get a decent 486 back in 1994, the other two being Doom and X-Com.

[@captnwinkle]

I hated the giant self destruction discs.... "your base is under attack". One time the Aliens attacked my base, with zero weapons cuz my team was gonne, my remaining guys only had harsh language, but one of them charged a gray and the gray threw a grenade at him and killed himself as well, so another Xcom guys picked the alien's gun and I ended up defending the base...such a great game!

[@michaelandreipalon359]

At least Doom as is aged far better. X-Wing got easily surpassed by TIE Fighter onwards, while XCOM has those Firaxis remakes.

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@michaelandreipalon359 X-Com also has the Xenonaughts 1 and 2 spiritual remakes (much closer in design to the original X-Com).

[@davidspencer7254]

X wing was surpassed by the Atari arcade games. 😂 ... that's came out before it.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@davidspencer7254 Hmm, how so? Even so, those will also be eclipsed by TIE Fighter.

[@jasonbenson036]

Hey, just wanted to say that your videos have been really good so far. While I'm definitely in the "Elite Was First!" camp, I'm also a true fan of both the Wing Commander and X-Wing games. Your deep dive into the mechanics and game play are well thought out, and your chill attitude is so much better than all the videos that start with "Hey KZbin! Ya Boi Floofy Here!" or some other over the top nonsense. Keep being chill my dude.

[@Peremptor]

Excellent. Good to see you're back man. Have a great one!

[@markusroth8770]

Pro tip that I learned from none other than my mom (I guess in the 90s she was the pro gamer of the family): "Pilots" are actually save files that you can copy and avoid the points and your rank.

[@docweidner]

Yep, .plt files. In the original DOS game, you could pick your wingmen. And you could either copy yourself or the Top ACE pilot if you wanted better wingmen. Later versions, you couldn't do that, but you could, as your Mom did, save yourself.

[@hardyakka888]

The dark side is a path to many abilities some consider unnatural....... yeah i did the same back in the 90's

[@nickhamblin8179]

I loved X-Wing at the time, though most of the frustrations I had are the same ones you picked up on. Tie Fighter progressed the series but it was X-Wing Alliance in particular I thought was really excellent. There's still quite the modding community improving its visuals - I highly recommend playing it.

[@tristikov]

Great to see another great video from you! I only remember seeing X-Wing at a friend's house and playing the training mission, so it was cool to see how it compared to Wing Commander--Since I have played games in that series throughout the years since my childhood. Looking forward to WCII and beyond. Keep up the awesome work!

[@LungMing23]

Woah!! Before I watch this lemme just say thank you and welcome back! You and me seem to love the same old big box pc games.

[@MrHarbot]

X-wing, like Star Wars itself, space battles are inspired by WW2 air combat. Speed, turn fighting, avoiding crashing, keeping your six clear, etc. I really loved it when I was 12 and still love it. :D

[@TheGregoryodd]

Think you found the perfect niche for YT retro(spective) gaming content. Keep up the good work!

[@rashkavar]

In defense of the vaguaries of mission communication: fog of war is a real phenomenon. It's entirely plausible for your side to simply not know that the other side is going to try something. This works better in TIE Fighter, which gives you mission logs that you can look through while paused, an itemized objective list, a menu that lets you see what a target is doing in real time, (like, "Attacking alpha 1: Time to target: 1:00"), more advanced targeting (Nearest enemy fighter, nearest enemy attacking you, nearest objective critical target, closest ship attacking currently targeted ship, 3 slots to save targets to (useful for using the last targeting shortcut). (It also lets you skip to 2x and 4x speed by using Alt+T, which vastly reduces the waiting game.) One particularly memorable mission in TIE Fighter gives you a completely BS objective list and leaves you to figure out what you're doing based on a few vague bits of foreshadowing and scrambled improv during the mission itself, and it works brilliantly.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Was it B5M1 - Mineclearing or B7M2 - Destroy the Akaga?

[@rashkavar]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Battle 5 Mission 1. "oh yes, just get into this super fragile tie interceptor despite the fact we've had you in tie advanced for ages, and show these two guys how to clear a minefield! It'll be fine, totally!"

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@rashkavar Granted, it was a deliberate trap by the traitor Harkov, and one who appears to have killed your player character's father figure Adm. Mordon in The Stele Chronicles.

[@rashkavar]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Not familiar with the Stele Chronicles, just the game itself. And was trying to avoid spoilers, because honestly, if this guy is going to experience TIE Fighter blind....I remember the surprise from 5-1 from when I was 7 years old or so, watching my brother play this.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@rashkavar To be fair, the game spoils it shockingly early in the first Battle, while the aforementioned feelies hinted at it way too well.

[@leafyjawa]

*insert angry comment about the majesty of power management and IMUSE here* Great video! These in depth reviews really brings me back to my childhood. I look forward to the next one!

[@michaelhurley3363]

I remember playing these games when I was a kid and I think the video game culture of the time was a lot different than it is now. Having a joystick was mandatory for playing games on a PC. Flight simulators were some of the most popular games around. So a game that brought all those fiddly flight sim mechanics into the Star Wars universe was mind-blowing for us. I know now the idea of looking at a game manual to learn how to play seems crazy, but in the 90s you typically shared a PC with the whole family. Reading and rereading the manual was something you could do when you weren't allowed to play the game. I probably spent more time imagining what it was like playing X-Wing in my bedroom than actually playing it. Probably the reason it's so hard to get a good physical copy of these game manuals nowadays is we would drag them with us everywhere we went. Most of them were kept to together by tape and grime by the time we were finished with them. I think we were also a lot more used to games being front-loaded with unfair skill challenges. It was fairly common for developers to make a first level of console games super difficult to prevent people from just renting it. A game that didn't take months to master was seen as poor value for money and would absolutely be a financial failure.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Granted, the mouse+keyboard niche still works well for some games and gamers. Look at X-Wing gaming veteran LPhoenix, for example. Not only that, the manuals also have brilliant story bits in them. One sure hasn't experienced the entire game if they don't know the mostly offscreen backstory from said books.

[@andrewm3210]

At the very beginning of the video when you said 'docking simulator' it brought me right back to the endless waiting for the "docking operation complete" notification.

[@folcotook3049]

While Wing Commander might not have been dependent on the manual, my experience from back then (yes, I'm old and started computer gaming on a C-64 in the '80s) was that most flight sim type games did assume you actually read through the manual. The concussion missiles are faster and more maneuverable than torpedoes and are indeed for targeting smaller ships. Not sure what happened to the special edition in the Steam version, but the original special edition (from the actual CD) cutscenes were fine. That's what I had.

[@randlebrowne2048]

Most games back then tended to have pretty in-depth manuals (including strategy games).

[@Chris_Blanchette]

I still remember playing the multi-disk version of this. I 100% used the strategy in the y-wing of disabling tie fighters and bombers to shoot them down like fish in a barrel. I could never get all the way through the campaign legitimately because of the steep difficulty curve. Still had fun playing it with invulnerability turned on. So glad to see someone cover this game so extensively. 👌

[@Cascadian_Ranger]

"Chances are its been multiple days since you saw that part". Ha, nah this was a full sitting from start to finish. Never been exposed to this game much beyond knowing it exists and Jontron making a couple jokes about it during the old "Starcade" videos. Definitely looks really interesting, and I think you contrasted it well with Wing Commander despite existing in the same realm. Great presentation on the game, looking forward to a follow-up about the expansions (lord know why they thought that much was necessary).

[@michaelandreipalon359]

How insulting of casual and inane YTuber commentarists like him to belittle great games like this. I swear, every time they sing hossanahs for Battlefront 2 2017 and Squadrons... they make me puke. Tie up some loose ends between Episodes IV and V, I guess. Star Wars Legends is nicely full of those extra explanatory backstory moments.

[@kaios26k90]

Woo! Your alive! Keep living and making good stuff!

[@TimPiatek]

I'm going to watch this over the course of a few days - lovely content! I REALLY hope a Descent: Freespace video is incoming!

[@michaelandreipalon359]

It'll come, but that shall be a reality at least a few years later, what with the other Wing Commander and X-Wing installments.

[@Dynamous7812]

I still flinch when I see starships flying to close in your footage for fear of a deadly collision.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

"Quick, shunt your speed energy to weapons and shields!" Yah, I know the feeling.

[@ericsimard5889]

I was lucky when I started this game to notice right away that you could transfer gun energy to shields. At the start of every mission I would immediately transfer ALL gun energy to shield to have double protection. It made the missions so much easier.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

That's actually the standard mission start procedure shown in the manuals, so you were on point.

[@roguenine9LU]

2:12:42 In X-Wing: Alliance and TIE Fighter they add a several more target aquisition options, in TF you get E for the nearest enemy targeting you, U for the newest craft to arrive/be launched, and A for the closest craft attacking your current target. E is useful for checking to see if anything is targeting you while you're focused on something else like defending an objective from bombers. U is helpful in quickly locating new arrivals like reload/repair craft and craft you need to escort, inspect, destroy, etc. A is useful for quickly finding craft threatening ships you're escorting and protecting your wingmen. It also adds the capability to target and destroy individual components of craft like laser turrets and missle launchers. XWA keeps these and adds in the O key to target the nearest objective, the I key to target the nearest incoming missile, the N key to cycle through nav bouys, and F1, F2, and F3 to cycle through friendly, neutral, and enemy craft (hold shift to cycle in reverse). You can also now damage the engines of capital ships (one is usually invincible though) to slow them down making it easier for you to destroy them before they can reach a jump point. Star Destroyers can move a lot faster when they want to in XWA, they can even run away from a star fighter with a lot of power going to shield and weapon recharging, and being able to damage their engines can make a minute to finish off a damaged capital ship into several to do so. Also I believe you can go to the map in XW (know it works in TF) to cycle through targets while the game is paused. You can do the same in XWA, but it isn't safe to do so near enemies because the game no longer pauses in map mode and the AI defaults to flying in a straight line with power balanced or slow charging depleted shields and weapons if either isn't at full power so you can easily take damage or be destroyed. Edit: When I was digging out my X-Wing Trilogy booklet to confirm that I was remembering some of the keys correctly, I came across my original X-Wing game on 3.5" floppy disks that I had stored in the X-Wing Trilogy box. Also had the booklet for TIE Fighter with the Steele Chronicles, some notes I had printed/written out for XWA and Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, and a printout of the keyboard reference for Wing Commander.

[@Crocogator]

You have earned a sub. If you plan on doing something similar for TIE Fighter and Alliance, I'm soooo here for it. These games formulated my childhood. One of my first memories is sitting in my dad's lap and him letting me pretend I was the one playing X-Wing. OG DOS version baby. ETA now that I'm further in: I love the power management in these games. It's just four buttons (five if you include beam in TF/Alliance) but it makes you feel like a frantic pilot. Combine that with the 1/3 and 2/3 speed being super important... Mm. Also if you want to get REALLY spicy, cover Star Crusader. I have everything you need to play that if you're interested.

[@spacecadetrewind]

I wish I had known about Star Crusader a little earlier, or I'd have put it in my Patreon poll. Oh well. All worlds will be conquered assuming I make it that far.

[@Crocogator]

@@spacecadetrewind Heck yeah. The story is absolutely bonkers, and it's like Wing Commander in that 'failing' a lot of missions just branches the story - and gets you a dressing down. One of the coolest things is that you can disable enemy ships, and one of the three ships you start with has a tractor beam. If you disable a ship, complete the mission, then tractor beam that ship while you warp home... You get to keep that ship and use it.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

If only that game wasn't abandonware. By the way, feel free to check out Tachyon: The Fringe and, though not exactly about space warfare, the first Archimedean Dynasty.

[@Crocogator]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Yeah :( The planned expansion advertised IN GAME and in the manual never came out.

[@TheSpudHunter]

Used to play this a lot as a kid, cheers for the vid

[@jediguy634]

These space sims were my bread and butter in the 90s. Great to look back and see all the different versions. I really hope you play you X-wing alliance as it’s by far the most “playable” by today’s standards.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Granted, that game still feels like an obvious beta at times, especially with experience with XWAU and fellow players like LPhoenix trying to remedy this by making a lot of fan fixes on certain missions. TIE Fighter is different though. Still the peak of the series.

[@rashkavar]

The odd thing about the "huge nuclear warhead" story bit is just how casually Star Wars actually handles nukes, or at least implicit nuclear weapons. Two key examples: "Proton Torpedo" - so it's a torpedo that's related to protons. A lone proton is also known as a hydrogen nucleus, and while there's a bunch of ways to make hydrogen burn, there's really not that many ways to make it explode - like properly explode - it'll make a big pop if you burn it in small quantities, but if you look at scaled up examples like the Hindenburg footage, that's clearly still burning, not exploding. The only way I can think of to make hydrogen properly explode is by wrapping a bunch of plutonium around a core of hydrogen and then imploding the plutonium to make it undergo fission and use that energy to compress the hydrogen to create fusion. The device that's designed to do this is either called a hydrogen bomb or a thermonuclear warhead. Either way, it's the big daddy of cold war apocalypse nightmare bombs. But in Star Wars, it's just standard ordinance used by a resistance movement, nbd! "Thermal Detonator" - this is a handheld explosive device and is often interpreted as a simple grenade in most games. But when Leia pulls one out in Return of the Jedi, the enitrety of Jabba's court freaks the fuck out. That's not a reaction to a grenade, that's a reaction to "this person just revealed they have a bomb that will kill us all." Oh, and if we read Shadows of the Empire, the book set between ESB and RotJ that explains a lot of what happened between those films, one thermal detonator brings down a major skyscraper on Coruscant by basically deleting a couple of lower floors from existence when it goes off. "Thermal" in weaponry normally means an incendiary, with handheld ones often being intended to be loaded into the breach of temporarily captured artillery, where it can melt all the bits that make it a working gun together and make it a nice statue of an artillery piece instead. But given the scale of destruction that a fist sized bomb can deliver, it seems reasonable to take the "thermal" here as with the proton torpedoes - thermal as in thermonuclear. (Seriously, find me a grenade that can flatten a skyscraper that relies on conventional explosives....you're gonna be searching a *while*) Yes I know extended universe reference books have come up with technobabble explanations for why these terms mean something other than nuclear weapons, but...I'm willing to bet that back in the 70s and 80s when George Lucas was coming up with these terms, that he was not thinking of reference book technobabble, that he was at the very least subconsciously pulling on the terminology used for the most devastating weapons of our time and the idea that their use would become commonplace in society where technology had progressed so much further.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Either way, nukes sure feel justifiably primitive when you already have superlasers that can blow up planets, all while the idea of Base Delta Zeroes are a cleaner yet still as destructive concept.

[@rashkavar]

@@michaelandreipalon359 I hadn't heard of the BDZ until now (honestly it makes the Death Star feel like way less of an escalation, as it sounds like it's functionally the same just with the added benefit of making a nice mineable asteroid field rather than a Mustafarian hellscape.) So, I'm not sure how it's portrayed in the fiction, but if they're really delivering enough firepower to partially melt the crust, they're sending that planet back several billion years in terms of its habitability. IRL, Earth was once in a state that could be described that way, which coincides not coincidentally with the enormous impact believed to have thrown enough material into orbit for it to eventually coalesce into the moon. Honestly, not sure that really qualifies as cleaner than nukes. Even our worst nukes will only deny habitability for a few tens of millions of years. That's kinda peanuts in comparison. (Yes, the gamma radiation is probably harder to deal with than the heat, but...as far as being a normal habitable world, yeah, that's not happening anytime soon. (Of course, Star Wars doesn't exactly rate highly on its ability to conform to real world physics, it's very possible the writers didn't think through the long term consequences of depositing that much energy on an object (the planet) that exists in a vacuum and thus is not very good at releasing energy and thus cooling off again.) But yeah, any society that has Star Wars's options for weaponry, I would not be surprised if nukes aren't just standard fare. (And they're probably more advanced ones than what we have, for that matter - you can clean up a good chunk of the long term radiation issue by making a fusion bomb that doesn't require a plutonium nuke to cause the runaway fusion reaction. As far as I know, we've never managed that. But for a society that's capable of using a beam of light to destroy a planet in a matter of moments...that's probably pretty basic.)

[@heralds]

Power management is honestly one of my fav features, Elite Dangerous still uses it as well.

[@heralds]

also, TIEs were based of the Japanese Zero. In the Chinese theater of WW2, the preferred strategy was the Boom and Zoom, where you'd zoom in, shoot the shit out of them, and fly off, because you were bigger and faster, but they'd out maneuver you.

[@Jiub_SN]

Most space sims do today, though I don't think any are as good as some of the earlier stuff

[@davidspencer7254]

Funny how all knowledge of exactly which WW2 action films led to the basis of the scenes in Star Wars. Hint: it wasn't the Pacific theatre.

[@R2C2_]

This was a great use of 3 hours. Also, during your Patreon section you mentioned Pre-Freespace Descent... it absolutely counts. Descent 2 was a masterpiece. Like a few commenters, X-Wing was one of my earliest game experiences and nostalgia probably plays a huge part in why I love it so much. I have great memories of playing with a buddy, with each of us taking turns to see who could beat the next mission. We bought all the versions as they released (well, except Mac because who games on a Mac?), but I still remember looking at a little grey untextured pixelated block on my screen and being 100% convinced it was a TIE fighter. Looking forward to seeing more of these, especially TIE Fighter and Freespace. For whatever reason, I could never get into Wing Commander - probably because I played the superior X-Wing first.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Is, not was, which implies it being unfortunate abandonware nowadays. Can relate. Wing Commander sure has lost its awesome feel in my eyes when I've been spoiled by TIE Fighter, FreeSpace 2, and Tachyon: The Fringe far too long.

[@cull510ender]

Thanks for this trip down memory lane! I remember playing both this and wing commander back in the day (to completion), although I had forgotten much. Looking forward to your next videos.

[@ZonamaPrime]

@53:41 THIS is the Redemption Scenario referenced in and flown by the Pilots of Rogue Squadron in the X-Wing Books!

[@random007nadir]

I played the hell out of this as a teenager. Never noticed any problems with speed or collisions.

[@Andrew-qu7lq]

My most annoying collisions were hitting the Death Star surface. A whole game of open space, then the missions switch to flat ground underneath and I"d constantly lose track and turn into it unexpectedly.

[@Logan5Greye]

I'll never forget the mission you mention at 53:52. Docking simulator 93' 😂😂😂. It blew my mind when that nebulon B frigate did a mini hyperspace jump behind you after launching fighters in front of you.

[@gungriffen]

Energy Management in a Space Sim is like driving a manual car, you're always shifting gears. Space Sim is Simulation. It's why we still play them 30 years later.

[@mattmurphy7030]

I got this working with a VKB joystick and had an absolute blast from the past. Great review thanks for sharing

[@dudujencarelli]

1:11:10 - Not only I took out all the Transports, but I also wiped out both Frigates. A lot of patience, shield management and dodging required.

[@oelfeinself]

I loved those games. Your videos hit a special place in my heart, so niche but so spot on. Thank you.

[@Furluge]

2:09:56 - I don't know if I agree that the two radar screens really tell you much more that is useful over what you see in Wing Commander's radar. In Wing Commander the outer ring of the radar is what's in the rear behind your ship. The center ring is what's in front of you. And the four square panels are above, below, left and right. So if you are seeing red dots in the outer ring that means they're behind you which is exactly the same as your example. You don't get as much info about where those targets are in relation to each other if they're behind you but you do have a very clear idea where they are in relation to you and which way you'll need to turn to face them.

[@douglasbaker9663]

- Gotta get a flight stick. It is ALL the difference in game interaction for the XWing series. I started with mouse and keyboard, but the best way to play was joystick & keyboard. It made piloting mastery easier, including speed matching. - The X-Wings guns being so far spread out was really the only way to balance out the ship's power. It's OP superior, until the T/A, IF you can manage swinging the ship appropriately for each cannon while targeting... which I found fairly easy with a joystick. - The amount of dead time between mission steps and criteria: there are plenty of times that the game reflects reality too closely. Time was different back in the early 90s. We rush from one thing to another these days. But back then, the time gaps in missions weren't time wasted, they were relaxing. I'd have my Zahn Thrawn books handy for the gaps. - Same for the mission notifications and criteria, intentionally muddied to reflect more real-life mission fog. I think you got there later in the script, the challenge of the game is in missions criteria. - ⁠I guess I can forgive the game designers for some aspects. They fit the whole DOS version of this game on five 1.44 floppies. These days that's the size of one PDF. - Speaking of DOS version - it was pretty noticeable when Ace or TopAce were wingmen. They made those insane missions more possible. You really missed them when they died (especially if you didn't have a backup of the .plt file) - Heh, Bothans found evidence and plans for the second Death Star, not the first. - Use of the Tie Fighter credits music in the background was a nostalgia blessing. Somehow I also remember there being much more mission music than what you showed. NEVER heard that mission debrief sound bug though - yikes. - As for the story... the X-Wing: The Official Strategy Guide by Rusel DeMaria has a surprising amount of story as well as mission tips. A whole novella's narrative, IIRC.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

- Granted, players like LPhoenix can manage with mouse and keyboard surprisingly well. - Hope the Zahn (and possibly the occasional titles by Michael J. Stackpole, Aaron Allston, James Luceno, Matthew Stover, Steve Perry and Michael Reaves, and a few from Karen Traviss and Troy Denning) books didn't distract you too well, hehe. - The use of TF music sure says a lot on how that game had the better soundtrack out of all the X-Wing games. - Never ever ignore the feelies, gamers unaccustomed to the oldies.

[@mikefraley748]

Thanks for this exhaustive review of one of my favorites from back in the day. I have to say that even your criticisms and final evaluation is fundamentally fair. I'd love to see your review of the expansions.

[@alarmedresponse]

Great video! Glad to hear you created a patreon, you deserve the money!

[@Sarissae]

Great to see this review come through, have been waiting since your first video. Very comprehensive, please keep it up and looking forward to your next video.

[@vibaek78]

I liked this game a lot, but I loved Tie Fighter even more - For some reason the dark side was even more compelling. Great video

[@korndogz69]

Yeah! Being a pilot for the Empire was more challenging! You had to work your way getting promoted to fly each ship, and the first 3-4 TIE variants have no shields since the Empire sees its pilots as expendable resources.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Same goes for Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Jedi Academy, Battlefront II 2005, and Empire at War+Forces of Corruption. Makes me disappointed with Battlefront 2 2017 extremely high.

[@williamdufort176]

I literally popped over to your channel to see if this xwing video dropped yet. Really looking forward to this and the rest of the retrospectives over the next couple years. Your wing commander vid is aces for a 90s nerd like me.

[@fatfreddyscoat7564]

Played this soooo many times, and the extensions. Then Tie Tighter came along and it was perfect!

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Truly an even better and bigger sequel, that.

[@thomascarpenter8177]

Tie fighter and xwing alliance

[@ChikkenPhat100]

Great video, looking forward to TIE Fighter & X-Wing: Alliance.

[@ArbitraryConstant]

I remember taking out a star destroyer with a Y-Wing using protons to take out the shield towers, then disabling it with ion cannons. It starts launching unlimited TIE's but you can mostly avoid those.

[@mitcheldurnell267]

Yes, during the missions that have you slowly wearing down the Star Destroyer in order to destroy it, I recall blowing it up in each mission for fun even though it returned in each mission by cheesing it in this way. They probably should not have allowed little fighter ion cannons to disable anything much larger than ships of similar size haha

[@michaelandreipalon359]

The grind does give you enough points to gain more stuff for your Kalidor Crescent. Sure breaks the lore, unfortunately. If it were me, I would nerf the number of replacement waves, whilst giving the STDs/ISDs that'll have to reappear in future missions (or perhaps even future storylines; look up the Immortal in Wookieepedia, and be surprised) due invincibility.

[@Remedey49]

I just watched all 5 hours of your content while building Lego, both X-wing and Wing Commander where some of my fave dos era games. Excellent content, I can’t wait to see what’s next. Thanks!

[@arrrgee]

This was one of the first PC games I played, and I played it again and again and again, it was awesome!

[@taquito-sama4346]

This will definitely blow up, nice video, man!

[@CompleteAnimation]

The later games in the series make the power management much better. X-Wing vs TIE Fighter takes so many of the issues you have, and improves them to the point that you won't complain about them anymore.

[@planescaped]

FTL is the only game I've played where I enjoyed power management.

[@Paldasan]

Having played WC, WC2 & WC3 as well as SWotL, X-Wing & TIE Fighter as a kid the sim games left a far more lasting impression. I never got to play Privateer or Elite as much as they intrigued me at the time and perhaps that would have changed my perception, but maybe it was also because I was very immersed in SW culture at the time reading all of the extended universe books (where you can find out what happened with the Bothans) and playing the CCG. I feel I preferred the greater emphasis on flight at the time with WC feeling a lot more like it was 'on rails'.

[@RyanEX2000]

My first memory of this game was going to my cousin's house and seeing him playing it and thinking how cool it looked. But he only griped and said he got a bugged copy because it never let him do any new missions. It was only after I went to school a couple days later and talked to some friends in the computer lab that I found out why. When I told them about his problem they just laughed and said he had to turn off the invincibility option or the game wouldn't let him progress.

[@fantomx11]

This game has a special place in my heart. It was really my first introduction to Star Wars. I was 13 when this game came out, and didn't really know much about Star Wars. I had seen the movies, but only as a young child and didn't really understand what was going on. The immersiveness that you mentioned regarding the power management was very much why I became interested in Star Wars. I probably would have become interested anyway, but THIS (and TIE Fighter, also Dark Forces) was what Star Wars was to me at first.