This has to be one of the all-time classic DOS games, and one of the first Lucas Arts games that I played years ago as a Star Wars fanatic. The game itself was pretty simple to play, you enrolled in the Academy as a new pilot and were first sent through a series of training missions to prove that you were up to the take of flying the X-Wing. The training missions were easily passed, with the help of your onboard R2 unit and you built up experience in dealing with 3 dimensional flights, targeting, bombing and deciding where you needed to concentrate your power - whether your guns or shields were more important.
Each mission built on the previous one, so you were never left stranded wondering what to do and the skills gained were rewarded with medals etc. Once you were a competent flyer you were let loose on the galaxy and had to work your way up through a campaign, each time earning more merit for your accomplishments. You had the choice of X-Wing, Y-Wing or bomber, depending on what each mission was, sometimes you were part of a squadron and sometimes you were leading, making the decisions for your wing man or the rest of the group.
The ultimate mission was the attack on the Death Star, fighting off the furious Tie Fighters of the Imperial Army.
Controls were very easy to master, as flying was
the main thrust of the game you mainly had to deal with accelerating, slowing down, targeting the enemy and BLOWING THEM UP! Additional stuff such as communicating with the squadron was all preprogrammed messages that you just have to press 1 key to activate - no time lost there and no need to have multiple hands. Although one feature was playing the game as pilot only and having my brother play R2 and do all the communicating and targeting for me. It worked!
The graphics were excellent for the time, concentrating on the mind bending 3-d of space flight, rather than the minute details of the inside of a cockpit, the rolling twists and turns as you battled to avoid being blown apart by the Tie Fighters were smooth and realistic, sometime stomach wrenchingly so!
The superb sound effects and music that bombarded your ears more than made up for some lack of realism in the inside of an X-Wing fighter. Turn up the sound and sit back and enjoy being immersed in the world of Star Wars, turn out the lights for that added realism and you could be there!
