Star Wars: X-Wing

The X-wing computer game is the first Lucasarts DOS game set in the Star Wars universe. It attempted to "realistically" simulate the experience of combat in the starfighters of the Rebel Alliance. It owes much to the classic Wing Commander space simulator game, the main improvement being that it features in-flight 3d polygons instead of bitmaps. The game also can be viewed as a sequential step in Totally Games' own prowess as game developers, as it follows their early attempts at World War II flight simulations.

It features hand-drawn (and voiced) cutscenes at crucial points in the storyline. The scenes are usually drawn-over screenshots taken from the movies, but manipulated to create a new narrative. X-wing also features music from the movie trilogy as well as pieces of original scoring, which responds to the player's actions, using the iMUSE system.

Some packages of the game, labelled as 'Limited edition' offer a document titled 'The Farlander Papers' (q.v.), this document is also featured in the strategy guide for the game.

In 1994, X-Wing won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1993.

Plot
The scenario is not as extensive and fork-like as in the Wing Commander. There is no interaction with other characters in the concourse, and the scenario is linear since failure has 2 options: death/capture or retry. Availiable starcraft to fly with are X-Wing, Y-Wing and A-Wing. The expansions offer also B-Wing.

Players assume the role of a Rebel pilot (it is believed, Keyan Farlander), during the spaceflight actions of the Rebellion. The majority of missions are concerned with protection, salvage, intelligence gathering and ambushing imperial star destroyers where feasible. The timespan ranges before, during, and (in the case of the expansions) after the Battle of Yavin.

The player must complete missions ranging from simple dogfights with Imperial starfighters, through escort or capture for freighters or capital ships to attacks on larger opposition ships. Dogfighting is designed to resemble the free-wheeling duels of World War I and World War II, but the game also offers the challenge of managing power resources (lasers, shields and engines), commanding wingmen, and using weapons effectively. One of the game's missions (Where you had to save the Korolev medical transport from Imperial attack) also had a cameo in Stackpole's X-Wing series of books.

The storyline evolves through 3 Tours of Duties of 12 missions each:


 * "A New Ally": describes the finding of new allies for the Rebels and the Imperial campaign against Rebels. The tour ends when Rebels with hidden explosives destroy an Imperial Star Destroyer.


 * "The Great Search": Rebels discover the Death Star I. The campaign ends with protection of Leia's corvette Tantive IV, who ferries the Death Star plans.


 * "The Gathering Storm": describes Rebels' route to the final Battle of Yavin and the Death Star destruction. This Tour has 2 more missions, which occur on the Death Star.

Expansion packs
Two new Tours were availiable separately later:
 * "Imperial Pursuit": The evacuation of Yavin IV and the search for a new secret location for a new base. The Rebels must resist growing Imperial pressure and the new Interdictor Cruiser.
 * "B-Wing": Production of a new craft, the B-Wing, and its delivery to the Rebellion. The tour ends wth the arrival on Hoth and sets the stage for The Empire Strikes Back.

The Collector Editions
A year later (1994) X-Wing was re-released as Collector's CD-ROM, with the expansion packs included. It tweaks various areas of the game by including bugfixes, easy versions of some old missions, improves graphics, rehashes cutscenes, adds bonus missions, as well as voiceovers for the mission briefings and the in-game radio messages. The in-flight engine is improved to the caliber of the later Star Wars: TIE Fighter game, which is an improved version of the original X-Wing game featuring Gouraud shading.

X-Wing had a major retouche for its release along with the collections X-Wing Collector Series (1998) and X-Wing Trilogy (1999). The game was retrofitted with the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter graphics engine, which uses texture mapping instead of Gouraud shading. Concourse graphics and some cutscenes were also retouched, but the remade X-Wing wasn't very favourable by most fans.