History VideoGame / TIEFighter

* NamesTheSame: The TIE Advanced in this game shares its name with the distinctly different ship that Darth Vader flies. To avoid confusion, the former is frequently referred to as the TIE Avenger, and the latter as the TIE Advanced X1.

* ArbitraryMaximumRange: And a laughably short one at that (2.5 km for warheads, 5 km for turbolasers and other capital ship weapons, and roughly 1 km for lasers).

* ClassicVideoGameScrewYous: TIE Fighters have two laser cannons, no other weapons, no shields, no hyperdrive, and essentially two hit points. Enemy TIE Fighters in the expansion have shields. Justified in that Zaarin was heavily involved in improving the TIE series and was looking for ways to keep his depleted forces alive.

* ArrowCam

* DeflectorShields: The main advantage the Rebel fighters have over the Imperial basic ones —the only spacecrafts that lack a shield— until Gunboats and Tie Advanceds/Defenders appear. RegeneratingShieldStaticHealth variety and an important element of the energy management gameplay once you are given shielded crafts.

** While doing a bombing run, Luke Skywalker style, is super sexy, and promoted in-game; NOTHING beats 10-15 hits with an ion cannon after the shields are down. This leaves the Gun Boat and the TIE Defender as your two best anti-capital ship fighters, pretty much the whole campaign.

The market life of this game was extended numerous times through various expansions and "collector's editions." This was particularly annoying as [=LucasArts=] and Totally Games! clearly anticipated expansion packs from the beginning, ''since they left the campaign story of the original release of the game blatantly incomplete.'' The first expansion, "Defender of the Empire" added the TIE Defender and its associated campaign missions - by the way, even after installing Defender of the Empire, many players were annoyed when it was found that ''they '''still''' left the campaign story incomplete because those money grubbing bastards were going to force yet more expansion packs!'' The ''final'' "expansion pack" was abandoned in favor of releasing the "Collector's CD" edition in 1995 which not only ('''finally''') included a '''finished''' campaign story, but upped the in-game resolution to 640x480 (though no changes were made to the graphics engine itself) as well as updated speech and voice acting. Of course, understandably, original purchasers of the first game were ''very'' annoyed since in order to actually complete the campaign, they had to buy the game all over again. And then they had the nerve to rerelease it ''again'' in the X-Wing Collector Series, this time stripping it of the [=iMuse=] music technology in favour of the Williams scores. Fortunately all was forgiven because in the end, ''TIE Fighter'' turned out to be just that damn good.

* DevelopersForesight: Averted with players who rely extensively on ion cannons. Especially druing the defections. You’d think the Empire would be giddy at the idea of recommissioning disabled Star Destroyers stolen by defectors, and iterrogating their surviving crew, but the mission objectives for destroying capital ships generally don’t change if they’re disabled and there are no other enemies in the area.

* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Enforced in one mission in the expansion packs. The player is tasked with escorting a transport to recover cargo from a disabled ship. However, you find out after the mission is complete that the transport you escorted was an imposter sent by a pirate group. Should you use this newfound knowledge to retry the mission and disable/destroy the imposter vessel, you'll fail the mission (and the real transport will never show up).

** The total conversion mod for ''VideoGame/XWingAlliance'' adds additional touches, such as renaming a number of ships to match those found in other sources. Darth Vader, for example, now uses the ''Devastator''[[note]]the same ship he uses in ''A New Hope''[[/note]] as his personal Star Destroyer when not commanding the Imperial fleet, and continues to fly his TIE Advanced X1 rather than use a TIE Defender.
** The same mod also introduces email from various characters, including a few from Pargo, Stele's childhood friend who joined the Stormtrooper Corps in ''The Stele Chronicles''.

This prompted [=LucasArts=] and Holland to develop a flight (or rather space) sim game using both this engine and the ''StarWars'' license, and ''VideoGame/XWing'' was the result. A year later, Holland got working on a sequel. Rather than being a direct sequel chronicling the Rebel Alliance and their starfighter squadrons after the Battle of Hoth (which is where ''X-Wing'' left off), the game would put the pilot in the ranks of the Rebel's greatest enemies, the Galactic Empire, by putting them in the seat of one of the Empire's greatest symbols of military might, the TIE Fighter.

* UnfinishedUntestedUsedAnyway: The ''Vorknkx'', a Corellian Corvette carrying an experimental cloaking device noted for being extremely unstable when used in conjunction with a hyperspace engine. [[spoiler: That doesn't stop Zaarin from attempting to use it as a getaway ship. It eventually blows up with him onboard.]]

* UnwinnableByMistake: The early version would sometimes carry over ship conditions from previous missions. If you managed to destroy a win condition ship from a previous battle, it would become impossible to finish the game. The ''Collector's CD'' fixed this in most cases (except the [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Falaricae Falaricae]], which was only a bonus goal later).

** Before either of these rear their heads, the TIE Advance is the king of the hill, though not quite game-breaker material. It has decent shields, 4 laser cannons, its own hyperdrive, a set of missiles, and just enough speed to beat an A-Wing in a race. ''This is the ship that was based on Darth Vader's personal prototype.'' Of course, a short time later the Defender and Missile Boat show up, making everyone forget about the poor Advance.

* VillainProtagonist: Subverted. ''Tie Fighter'' was the first game ever were you are on the side of the Galactic Empire,so this was expected by default and played up in the artwork and marketing. However, the Empire is portrayed as a force for peace and order, while the Rebel Alliance is portrayed as a cause of anarchy and chaos.

** Warships and space stations have a tendency to launch missiles of their own when attacked, making destroying their warhead launchers a top priority for the player.

* HelloInsertNameHere

* CopyAndPasteEnvironments: Understandable, since one part of outer space has a tendency to look like every other part of outer space.

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Mon Motha is the only major female character of the game and she only shows up in a cutscene.

* TheSiege: The first half of Tour of Duty 7 is pretty much as close to this as you can get in space. An Interdictor manages to catch [[spoiler: Harkov's]] Star Destroyer, only for it to be swiftly reinforced by a Rebel Mon Calamari Cruiser and a traitorous Imperial Nebulon Frigate. Note that the Interdictor against any one of those would be a challenge. The player has to lead a breakout to destroy some of the ships and fighters, including the Frigate, while waiting for help to arrive.