The Original tie-fghter game was tremendously succesfull for three reasons ; 1) it allowed one to step into one of the coolest roles in the star wars universe - an anonymous, shiny black armour clad imperial tie fighter pilot, 2) the developers did a wonderfull job - provinding a great looking, realistic feeling space combat flight simulator. 3) the manuals supplited with the game and all the associated strategy guides span a wonderfull back-story about a young pilot battling and intrigueing his way up the ranks of a secret imperial society For anyone born in the early seventies the first reason was reason enough to buy this - on three (if memory serves) high density 3.5" diskettes. This game provided the first opportunity to take part in the epic Imperial / rebellion wars from the bad-guys perspective. And in common with other notable action games of the time, for example Mechwarrior 2, the producers invested significanly on selling the game's image. Through the box design , documentation and the official strategy guides they tried hard to immerse the player in the role of a tiny cog in the huge imperial war machine. And they succeeded ; the players character starts off as a trainee from some galactic backwater and proceeds, as the levels advance to higher ranks within both the imperial navy (and by completeing additiona, optional objectives in most levels) a secret imperial society. Not suprsingly as the player advances one wins access to more powerfull, faster and even more horribly be-weaponed variants on imperial craft; the TIE Interceptor, TIE Advanced, TIE bomber (and you know you've always wanted to) and finally the TIE Defender. All in addition to Imperial gunboats / assault ships. Like it's predecessor, X-Wing, TIE figher required the playes to carefully balance a limited amout of power amongst the ships ciritcal systems - engines (which one could throttle), shields and lasers. This requited some carefull managment as many missions featured multiple objectives requiring different capabilities of speed, offensive weaponry and defense. In addition to standard laster weapons, the players arsenal contained ion cannons (for disabling enemies' craft) and various ballistic weapons; missiles and torpedoes. Outside of the core simulation the game featured nice little exrtas like a technical database with overviews of key imperial and rebel craft. the ability to 'play-back' recorded missions, a flight simulator and training courses. Overall the collectors edition CD-ROM improves significantly on the original game in it's graphics but little else. And anyways wasn't getting these things to run in 640 k of conventional memory half the fun?
Other Helpful Reviews for Star Wars TIE Fighter: Collector's CD-ROM
And I mean that. Right NOW, TIE Fighter STILL offers more advanced, more fluid, more fun space combat than any other game. The graphics can still hold their own - while newer Star Wars games can claim boast more deta... Read Full Review
This plays like a *new* game! I've had it for a while but just yesterday I decided to try one more time to get it to work with windows XP. All I did was run it in "compatibility mode" and now it works. After spending 3... Read Full Review
