Missing Link

I’m a gamer. In particular, I’m a PC Gamer. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, when computer gaming was in it’s infantcy, and adolecense. I owned a first generation 3d graphics card, back when it was 3dfx. I went through the process of making and tweaking DOS Boot disks to get games to run, sometimes spending hours trying to find the right combination of bootup settings that would get me the best performance (or, really, any performance sometimes). I played Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Ultimate Doom, Doom II, etc, on a 386. I grew up with games like that. I can distinctly remember my excitement when, while over at a friends house, I was introduced to a beautiful game called X-Wing. It was a space combat simulation with horrible graphics (by todays standards), that let the user fly the X-Wing starfighter (along with the A-Wing , B-Wing and Y-Wing) for the Rebel Alliance (think: Star Wars). The game was difficult, to say the least, but very rewarding when you worked through certain scenarios and won missions. The final mission in the game even lets you play as Luke Skywalker, flying down the trench of the first Death Star, blowing it up to win the game. I loved it.

I was intrigued, to say the least, when I heard there would be a sequal to X-Wing. As many know, sequals are rarely as good as their predecessors. The sequal, called TIE Fighter, would take the same idea as X-Wing, except apply it to the Empire. You found yourself not a rebel starfighter pilot, but rather an imperial pilot. The game progresses through campaigns and storylines that treat the rebels as the bad guys , trying to undermine the peace and stability brought by the Empire. It was beautiful. It was a masterpiece!

I fell in love with the game right away. The gameplay was instantly more accessable and less puzzle like than X-Wing had been (X-Wing missions often revolved around figuring out which ships were the key ships and had to be destroyed, which often meant dashing from one side of the battle to the other, as you couldn’t ever count on other rebel ships to destroy the enemy). You have a sense of being part of something greater than just yourself, and it’s easy to get caught up in the story that is being woven by each mission you fly. The missions often have primary, secondary and secret objectives associated with them. The primary objectives allow you to move to the next mission, the secondary gain you extra awards, and the secret objectives open up a subplot line that takes you into and through a secret imperial society, where often you will talk to envoys of the emperor who give you other objectives than those your flight officer will give you. Completing those objectives allows you to move further into the subplot.

As you progress through the campaigns, you go from being a normal recruit, flying the SFS TIE Fighter to flying some of the most advanced fighters ever conceived. As you move from mission to mission, you’re trusted with the better, faster, and probably more expensive fighters, like the TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber and TIE Advanced (Avenger). This in and of itself gives you a sense of accomplishment.

I can remember in one campaign, I was assigned to a ship under the command of an Admiral. Right before my mission, I had the opportunity to talk with one of the Envoys of the emperor that I mentioned above. The message was cryptic: I was told I was in danger, and that I must be careful. My mission was simple enough: clear a minefield. Normally you’d get a fighter that has sheilds to do that, as minefields are made up of mines that have laser cannons on them that constantly shoot at you. One or two hits from one of those in an unsheilded craft and you’d be toast. I was given a TIE Interceptor, which has no sheilds. After clearing the minefield, which was tough in and of itself, my wingmen targeted me and tried to kill me. It appeared someone on the ship wanted me dead. I was saved by a frigate that jumped in specifically to rescue me from the traitors. It turned out that the Admiral was defecting. Plot twists like that really served to draw me into the game and make me feel like I was part of something bigger.

Sadly, games like TIE Fighter aren’t made anymore. TIE Fighter was followed up by X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, which was mostly based around multiplayer with no real singleplayer gameplay. The graphics were lightyears better, but who really cares if there’s no meaningful gameplay? After XWing vs Tie Fighter came the last game in the series — X-wing: Alliance. It had a very rich story, following a freighter pilot turned rebel pilot in the time frame from just after the battle of Hoth (empire strikes back) through the battle of endor, where the player gets to fly the Millenium Falcon into the second death star. It’s been years since XWA came out, and no more will likely be made.

So, you may be wondering why I bring any of this up. Since I started college, I’ve been unable to play these games. They were DOS based (except XWA, which I could play, though I’ve lost the disks), and didn’t run at all in Windows XP. I remember having tried to get them to run numerous times back when I first started using XP, and failing. That was a sad day for me, realizing I could never again play a game I really loved. That, however, has changed! I found last night a DOS emulator that will allow me to play the games again in all their original glory.

Yes, I’m a geek. But I’m a happy geek!