Maybe you bit off a little more than you can chew there, Red 1
X-Wing is a PC game first launched in 1993, with various expansion packs and collector's editions being released as late as 1997.
The history of the game itself goes back to the early 1990s, when
LucasArts approached game developer Lawrence Holland and his studio,
Totally Games!
, to develop a series of games for the publisher. The first games were actually
World War II flight simulators including
Battlehawks 1942 and perhaps Holland's best known non-franchise game,
Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. These games became instant classics, and in the meantime Holland was working on a 3D rendering engine specifically for flight sims, something that back in 1992 was revolutionary.
This prompted
LucasArts and Holland to develop a flight (or rather space) sim game using both this engine and the
Star Wars license, and
X-Wing was the result.
Initially the game let you fly either an
X-Wing space superiority fighter,
Y-Wing heavy assault fighter or
A-Wing high-speed interceptor. A later expansion pack added the B-Wing, which was a vast improvement over the Y-Wing, as well as extra missions rounding the campaign to 50 total and bringing the game up to just before the Battle of Hoth.
The game's missions were much more complex than simply destroying all enemy ships. Besides capital ships needing to be hit in vulnerable areas
For Massive Damage, the Empire's ships were often scripted to use flanking maneuvers and feints, to the point that some missions revolved more around solving puzzles than
Old-School Dogfighting. As a reward, players were able to participate in the attack on the Death Star during the final missions.
A year after release, a sequel was released that allowed you to play for the
evil Galactic Empire:
TIE Fighter. Players would also have a chance to hold multiplayer competitions with
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. The last game in the series,
X-Wing Alliance, finally allowed players to pilot the legendary Millenium Falcon, and ended with the Battle of Endor from
Return of the Jedi.
Not to be confused with the more recent
Rogue Squadron games, although both are flight sims.
These games provide examples of:
- AFGNCAAP: the player character. Materials from the Star Wars Expanded Universe indicate that his name is "Keyan Farlander", he was flying the surviving Y-Wing at Yavin, and he goes on to be a Jedi.
- Expanded Universe nothing, one of the cutscenes makes specific reference to a "Lieutenant Farlander."
- Achilles Heel: Blow up those shield generator towers on top of the Star Destroyer's bridge and it becomes much easier to kill.
- Collision Damage: Often lethal. You also do Collision Damage to other fighters...and TIEs don't have shields, so colliding with one will certainly take it out.
- Cosmetic Award: You can win a lot of medals and patches for performing well in your missions.
- Escort Mission: Several - one of the worst being the infamous "Redemption run", where you and your three wingmen are charged with flying X-Wings to protect the Nebulon B frigate Redemption while it takes on wounded personnel from some shuttles and a Corellian Corvette. The Imperials send in their own Nebulon B frigate, which will do several microjumps in and out of the system, deploying TIE bombers and then jumping to another location and launching more. Referenced in the book series of the same name where applicants to Rogue Squadron must fly a simulator recreation of the mission, complete with references to the tactics you're supposed to use to complete the mission in the game. The protagonist of the first book barely finishes the mission.
- If you looked at the victory parameters for that mission, only the Corvette needed to complete its docking operation. You could immediately order the three shuttles to RTB as soon as the mission started and save about ten minutes.
- Explosive Instrumentation: Taking a lot of damage often resulted in your instrument panels breaking.
- Fragile Speedster: The A-Wing. TIE Interceptors are even more fragile.
- Gunship Rescue: There is at least one mission where the Mon Calamari Cruiser Cathleen appears at the end to pull your ass out of the fire. TIE Fighter introduced the ability to call for reinforcements in most missions, and in one "protect the space platform from raiders" mission, calling for reinforcements summons a Star Destroyer.
- Hitbox Dissonance: As long as your cockpit doesn't slam into enemy containers, your craft doesn't take Collision Damage (especially with the B-Wing). Lasers and other projectiles work as expected.
- Jack-of-All-Stats: The titular X-Wing is the most well-balanced fighter and is quite suitable for both light bombing and dogfighting.
- Lead The Target: At least your weapon indicators indicate if the laser cannon would hit.
- Mighty Glacier: The Y-Wing, emphasis on "Glacier", and B-Wing, emphasis on "Mighty". The Y-Wing is durable but very slow, and it's pretty much outclassed by the B-Wing, which is also rather slow, but with a larger warhead payload, and three ion & laser cannons where the Y-Wing has only two of each.
- No Fair Cheating: While the in-game options menu lets you turn on infinite shields, infinite missiles/torpedoes, and/or immunity to collision damage, doing this prevents your score and mission progress from being saved.
- Press X to Die: Sort of. You can eject from your fighter at any time by pressing Alt+E. This will either result in your buddies picking you up, or the enemy taking you prisoner and shipping you back to their base for an unpleasant interrogation. Also, your ejection system can become damaged in combat, and if you get shot down you get immolated in the ensuing fireball and become Killed Off for Real*
assuming, of course, you're not playing one of the training simulation missions
. In the latter two cases, after you get back to the sign-in desk you can choose to revive your pilot, albeit at the expense of all his points and awards. - Protection Mission: In one mission, you are the sole pilot left to guard a stationary object (until it is repaired and can escape). A capital ship arrives 25 klicks away to deploy fighters to try to draw you out. About 1 minute later, a corvette arrives to drop off a single bomber to destroy that object.
- This game is also the origin of the infamous "Redemption run" mentioned in the X-Wing novels, where four X-Wings must defend the medical frigate Redemption and some unarmed transports against multiple waves of TIE Bombers launched by the Imperial frigate Warspite. The Warspite microjumps around the system, keeping you flying back and forth trying to stop the bombers while avoiding their TIE\ln escorts.
- Ramming Always Works: The second tour of duty involves a chain of missions based around acquiring "super shield" technology, outfitting a Corvette with said technology (the Corvette being the appropriately named ''Ram's Head''), then having it drop out of hyperspace next to an Imperial repair facility and slamming through the bridges of several Star Destroyers sitting in drydock (and coming out the other side unharmed).
- That One Level: One much hated mission from this game shows up in the X-Wing novels invoked as a hated training scenario, complete with mention of actual strategies that can be used in the mission, see Escort Mission above.
- Zerg Rush: As stated in one of the training missions, the imperials engage with three TIE Fighters for each one of your rebel fighters, and you need to learn how to beat the odds every time.
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