Just rediscovered X-Wing Alliance!

Safe-Keeper · 07-16-12, 12:32 PM

Just downloaded Mark Egger's XWA installer which allowed me to reinstall this old gem. For those who don't know (if anyone), XWA was the last installment of the wonderful X-Wing series. It introduced flyable light freighters such as the Millenium Falcon, the ability to hyper between different sectors in one mission, and a whole range of new craft, including lots of flyable fighters. It also had some nifty other features like the ability to throw together relatively complex missions on the fly with the "Skirmish" system.

And I had totally forgotten how totally, mindblowingly fun this game is! In my eyes, while the Rogue Squadron games were always too arcade-ish for my taste, the XW series has a near-perfect balance between gameplay and complexity and realism, and though it makes lots and lots of technical errors and is pretty unbalanced (in my eyes, fighters can take way too much damage, while stations and cap ships go down way too easily), it feels far more Star Wars-like than the RS games. It also borrows heavily from EU rather than trying to shoehorn the action of the trilogy into gameplay at every turn, which makes for a decent plot to unravel. The graphics aren't the best, and I can't seem to get hardware rendering or the XWA Upgrade mod to work on my newer machine, but right now I'm just happy I've -finally- gotten it to work

!

So now I'm back in the saddle playing skirmishes, reliving old campaign missions, and building my own missions with AlliED and the multitude of other tools out there. Big. Fun!

Anyone else played this game recently

?

07-16-12, 12:32 PM	#1
Safe-Keeper Ocean Warrior Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Norway Posts: 3,234 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	Just rediscovered X-Wing Alliance! Just downloaded Mark Egger's XWA installer which allowed me to reinstall this old gem. For those who don't know (if anyone), XWA was the last installment of the wonderful X-Wing series. It introduced flyable light freighters such as the Millenium Falcon, the ability to hyper between different sectors in one mission, and a whole range of new craft, including lots of flyable fighters. It also had some nifty other features like the ability to throw together relatively complex missions on the fly with the "Skirmish" system. And I had totally forgotten how totally, mindblowingly fun this game is! In my eyes, while the Rogue Squadron games were always too arcade-ish for my taste, the XW series has a near-perfect balance between gameplay and complexity and realism, and though it makes lots and lots of technical errors and is pretty unbalanced (in my eyes, fighters can take way too much damage, while stations and cap ships go down way too easily), it feels far more Star Wars-like than the RS games. It also borrows heavily from EU rather than trying to shoehorn the action of the trilogy into gameplay at every turn, which makes for a decent plot to unravel. The graphics aren't the best, and I can't seem to get hardware rendering or the XWA Upgrade mod to work on my newer machine, but right now I'm just happy I've -finally- gotten it to work! So now I'm back in the saddle playing skirmishes, reliving old campaign missions, and building my own missions with AlliED and the multitude of other tools out there. Big. Fun! Anyone else played this game recently? __________________ First Strike Mod tester. Hardcore sub skipper.