Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Playing Evil: TIE Fighter
In 1993, LucasArts released X-Wing for the PC. They followed up with TIE Fighter in ‘94. If you’re familiar with the Star Wars universe you know that in X-Wing you play on the side of the “good” Rebellion; in TIE Fighter it’s the “evil” empire. If you’re not familiar with the Star Wars universe, I just told you, so now you know.
X-Wing never appealed to me. Maybe because it was the first game out and there were kinks in the system. But things just clicked with TIE Fighter. The controls were smooth and the graphics cutting edge. X-Wing was later re-released with the updated engine, but I had already gone over to the Dark Side.
I love Star Wars, but there wasn’t a lot of mystique about the Rebellion. You got what you saw: fashion-plates (and Porkins) and a lame assortment of aliens (over- and under-grown teddy bears, fish people, and muppets like Yoda and whatever Lando Calrissian’s co-pilot was supposed to be). The Empire, however, was a bunch of average-looking guys (at best), Stormtroopers, and Darth Vader. So being average looking (at best) and thinking the trooper uniforms looked cool, I signed up for Imperial Navy (plus they had a dental plan and 401(k) participation).
Gameworld: As I said, I love Star Wars and TIE Fighter got everything right. The ships, the sounds, the explosions, the infinity of space. You were there! The main plot of the game deals with the player defending the Empire as an average pilot, but a subplot emerges where you can run scouting missions or protect Imperial assets on behalf of the high command. In secret. That little addition made running the side missions all the more irresistible.
Moral Choices: Of course, there’s a moral cost to all that. The bonus objectives come with a price, to one’s integrity, perhaps, but also to relationships with other pilots (one mission results in your wingmen mutinying). You keep playing the side missions, of course, to see where they’ll take you (and to earn special Imperial medals), but it gives you a taste of the seductive nature of power.
Fun: Which is not to say the game is anything like a round of Scruples. Blowing up X-Wings and Y-Wings is just plain fun (blowing up A-Wings is a pain, though). But if the spilling of virtual blood gets a bit too intense, TIE Fighter came with a few other components to chill with. One was a spacecraft museum, "holograms" of all the ships in the game with stats and full-3D rotation. Another was a training course with obstacles to navigate and/or destroy. The best, though, was a training simulator where you got to test-fly the spacecraft before going on actual missions. The training sims were just as intense as the actual missions, but you only spilled virtual virtual blood.
Replayability: Unfortunately with Windows XP I can’t get the game to recognize my USB joystick, so I’ve lost the replayability ability. Still, there were countless things to explore and in-jokes to find (like a shuttle from the Disney ride Star Tours in one of the missions).
Someday I’ll crack open my old Win/98 system and see about adding the hard drive to my XP computer and dual-booting the operating systems. I’ll never get any work done if I do that. Still, all that power is tempting.
X-Wing never appealed to me. Maybe because it was the first game out and there were kinks in the system. But things just clicked with TIE Fighter. The controls were smooth and the graphics cutting edge. X-Wing was later re-released with the updated engine, but I had already gone over to the Dark Side.
I love Star Wars, but there wasn’t a lot of mystique about the Rebellion. You got what you saw: fashion-plates (and Porkins) and a lame assortment of aliens (over- and under-grown teddy bears, fish people, and muppets like Yoda and whatever Lando Calrissian’s co-pilot was supposed to be). The Empire, however, was a bunch of average-looking guys (at best), Stormtroopers, and Darth Vader. So being average looking (at best) and thinking the trooper uniforms looked cool, I signed up for Imperial Navy (plus they had a dental plan and 401(k) participation).
Gameworld: As I said, I love Star Wars and TIE Fighter got everything right. The ships, the sounds, the explosions, the infinity of space. You were there! The main plot of the game deals with the player defending the Empire as an average pilot, but a subplot emerges where you can run scouting missions or protect Imperial assets on behalf of the high command. In secret. That little addition made running the side missions all the more irresistible.
Moral Choices: Of course, there’s a moral cost to all that. The bonus objectives come with a price, to one’s integrity, perhaps, but also to relationships with other pilots (one mission results in your wingmen mutinying). You keep playing the side missions, of course, to see where they’ll take you (and to earn special Imperial medals), but it gives you a taste of the seductive nature of power.
Fun: Which is not to say the game is anything like a round of Scruples. Blowing up X-Wings and Y-Wings is just plain fun (blowing up A-Wings is a pain, though). But if the spilling of virtual blood gets a bit too intense, TIE Fighter came with a few other components to chill with. One was a spacecraft museum, "holograms" of all the ships in the game with stats and full-3D rotation. Another was a training course with obstacles to navigate and/or destroy. The best, though, was a training simulator where you got to test-fly the spacecraft before going on actual missions. The training sims were just as intense as the actual missions, but you only spilled virtual virtual blood.
Replayability: Unfortunately with Windows XP I can’t get the game to recognize my USB joystick, so I’ve lost the replayability ability. Still, there were countless things to explore and in-jokes to find (like a shuttle from the Disney ride Star Tours in one of the missions).
Someday I’ll crack open my old Win/98 system and see about adding the hard drive to my XP computer and dual-booting the operating systems. I’ll never get any work done if I do that. Still, all that power is tempting.
Mikesell
