Star Wars: TIE Fighter: Difference between revisions

The history of the game itself goes back to the early 1990s, when [[Lucas Arts]] approached game developer Lawrence Holland and his studio, Totally Games!, to develop a series of games for the publisher. The first games were actually WWII 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.

 

 

The main protagonist of TIE Fighter was Maarek Steele (though he was never named as such in the game; his name comes from the [[All There in the Manual|supplemental guidebook]] that came with first run editions of the game) who started out as an anonymous pilot but would rise through the ranks with distinction over the course of the game's events. What separated TIE Fighter from X-Wing in particular was its rather involving story and campaign, which not only pitted the player against the Rebels (and certain traitorous Imperials) but also explained the motivations behind the actions of the Empire and its enemies and gave significant insight into many key characters of the Star Wars universe, including Thrawn (a major story thread of the game is how Thrawn was promoted from Vice Admiral to Grand Admiral). The game also presented optional "secondary" mission goals which, when completed, would earn the player additional rank.

** 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 Darth Vader's personal TIE is based on.'' Of course, a short time later the Defender and Missile Boat show up, making everyone forget about the poor Advance.

* [[Cutscene]]

* [[Death of a Thousand Cuts]]: In this game, you now have the option to take out turrets on capital ships, rendering them defenseless. Likewise, you can use Ion cannons to quickly disable large capital ships. The result in either case allows you to destroy the largest of ships using lasers.

* [[Deconstruction]]: Everything you learned about the "proper order" of the galaxy in ''Star Wars'' is subverted, since after all you are fighting for the Empire this time.

* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: In the collector's version, you can destroy the nose warhead launcher of a Star Destroyer. This reveals a hole that you can fly into and attack the capital ship from the inside without worry about being attacked. Some laser batteries from the Star Destroyer may still be able to hit you, but other enemy craft can't hit you.

* [[Hello, Insert Name Here]]

* [[High Altitude Battle]]: it doesn't get much higher than [[In Space|OUTER SPACE]].

* [[Hold the Line]]

* [[Nitro Boost]]: The Missile Boat's "SLAM" drive, which makes it ''temporarily'' the fastest ship in the game... at the expense of your laser cannon's ammunition. As the Missile Boat has only a single laser cannon and usually carries 100+ missiles, this isn't really a problem. The TIE Defender on the other hand is the fastest without such.

** You can adjust which systems get how much power in any ship. If you redirect all power to the engines, you can make ''anything'' go ridiculously fast... though you won't have lasers, shields, or tractor beams.

* [[No Fair Cheating]]: As this game was much harder than the predecessor, there was a simple toggle in the in-flight menu to give you [[Character Shield|invulnerability]] and [[Bottomless Magazines|unlimited ammunition]]. However, this reduced your score by 90% if used at any point in the mission, making advancements and promotions difficult at best.

* [["No Warping" Zone]]: Interdictors prevent ships from using the [[Hyperspace Escape]], while having other ships destroy the intended targets. An allied interdictor is used across multiple missions to prevent enemy capital ships from escaping, while a few missions later, another interdictor prevents you from escaping.

* [[Old School Dogfighting]]

* [[One-Man Army]]: For the most part accidental just because your wingmen (and reinforcements, which you can call in in almost any mission) are pretty much useless, but there ''are'' true One Man Army missions as well. For example, {{spoiler|when you've been using the TIE Advanced (fast, hyperdrive, shields, and concussion missiles) only to be assigned to show two wingmen how to clear a minefield... in an unshielded TIE Interceptor, with them watching from behind you...}} Gee, [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?|what's the worst that could happen]]?

** Hint: {{spoiler|Destroying your wing men will not result in your commander complaining about friendly fire}}.