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Engaging storyline, great graphics, can be very taxing!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 40 / 41
Date: November 14, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you thought X-Wing vs. TIE was good, you'll love this. You play the role of the son of a family caught up in the Rebellion. You start by flying missions for your family business. Eventually you can join the Rebellion and fly X-wings, A-wings, B-wings, and you even get the chance to fly the Millennium Falcon! The range of missions is great, and you can practise your skills in the simulator, or the pilot proving grounds. My only criticism is that some of the early missions are very tricky, and the difficulty does not always seem to increase in logical order.

The Most Excellent Star Wars Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: November 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was a fan of the first X-Wing game, and, immediately purchased this game upon its release in 1999. The inclusion of the Battle of Endor at the end was the selling point. Ever since, I have not needed another computer game! The other reviews have pretty much spoken for the game's plot and basic features, so I won't comment on those. This game, despite its age, is simply one of the best flight simulator type game out there!

If there is one way to describe this game, its detail! From the complicated story, of which you feel a part of, to the 3-D ships, to all the stuff that happens in the missions it is simply incredible! In the heat of a difficult mission, I have often lost myself in the game, only to shudder when returning to reality!

There are over 50 different family business and Rebel Alliance missions. In these you fly YT-1300 (Milinium Falcon type) freighters, Z-95s, X-wings, A-Wings, B-Wings and Y-wings. Compared with all past games, there is alot of function. You can dock with capital ships, carry containers, operate gun turrets on the freighters and fly through space stations. Space battles are replicated down to the smallest details - sunglare, blast shockwave, large debris, even ejected pilots! You have the ability to communicate with the pilots in your squadron, and there is a variety of "comm chatter" that you get from them!

I have beaten the game twice (it takes a long, long time). The final treat is that you get to fly the Milinium Falcon in the Battle of Endor (the big space battle in Return of the Jedi), complete with a VERY challenging run through the Death Star's interior! Strap on your flight helmets...

In addition to the missions, there is a "flight simulator" section where you can review past tour of duty missions as well as create your own missions! Here you can fly most of the starfighters (Rebel, Imperial, Pirate, Civilian, etc.) see elsewhere in the game. There is a third "Pilot Proving Grounds" section where you can fly Rebel starfighters through a series of mazes and obstacles while competing for the best time. In between Tours, there are some excellent cut scenes. You also earn awards in the Rebel missions and gather various "souviners" during your family missions.

This review has gotten way too long and no one is going to read it anyways, however, X-Wing Alliance is a supurb effort put out by Lucas Arts Entertainment and is well worth the purchase!

Finally!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: July 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Don't get me wrong by the title....I loved X-wing to death, and TIE Fighter was just fabulous too (we'll forget about Xwing V. Tie Fighter), but WOW!!! LucasArts finally got to an age when they had the computing muscle and graphical abilities to really give their X-wing series the beauty and power it deserves. These missions are really challenging and thrilling; when you fly into a cloud of TIE fighters and pick em off as they screeeeam by(with good surround sound speakers), you'll really feel like you're in the climactic battle of Return of the Jedi.

Which brings me to the "Finally!" of my subject line: you finally get to fly inside the Death Star!!!! That is, if you can make it to the final mission...some of these missions are very, very tough, even on "easy". I beat all of the missions up to the mission RIGHT before the Death star one. It was just too hard!! Fortuatenly, LucasArts implemented a "skip" feature if you just cannot beat a mission. This will come as a highly welcome relief to those of us who played certain X-wing missions 40 or 50 times before beating them...

I gave up on the game after losing the death star mission a few times, but I WILL get back to it once the school year starts again.

One note: I played the first half of this game without a 3D accelerator, then got a Voodoo III, and holy COW! The difference makes it almost an entirely new game. Don't play this game without an acceleartor, or you're missing out in a big way.

Though it didn't grip me quite as much as the original X-wing, this is still a fantastic game. Buy it if you're into the star wars thing!

Space Combat a Worthy Sucessor To the X-Wing Series

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: February 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

My friends and I bought the original X-Wing a little bit after it came out. We played ti to death, and after many months of faithful playing that classic, addictive game, we beat it. The smae went for the follow-up TIE-Fighter. And after the wait after X-wing vs. TIE Fighter, we were hungry for something new. And now, Alliance!With its improved graphics, great online play and much more immersing story than any previous X-Wing game, X-Wing Alliance is a worthy follow-up to such great games.

Nice Flying, Ace!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: March 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Sweet! I've been around since the original X-Wing, and I'm glad to see the advances! Remember the original floppy-disk X-Wing for MS-DOS? The ships were nothing more than a few single-colored polygons, and the HUD only showed a picture of the ship, not the actual moving ship. Plus, you had 3 ships, well, okay, 4 ships (after the B-wing expansion pack) to pick from. The dumb racing track took over ten minutes to go through one lap, and the missions were close to impossible! But we didn't mind because that was the best a computer could offer back then. Well, not we've got extremely detailed ships (with moving gun turrents...wow! :) ) with 3D accelerated graphics, over 15 ships (you use about 8 of them in the real game, many more in multiplayer) you can fly, and new-fangled light sources! Plus, you go into the Death Star on this one! It isn't like that two-colored gray surface from X-Wing! Now it's got 16 million colors! Unfortunately, some of the difficulty from X-Wing moved over to X-Wing Alliance. It's just a WEE bit hard. Some missions will have you laughing at the enemy, while others will make you slam your computer desk. Fortunately, you can put it on easy mode (can't do that in X-Wing!). Plus, some of the mission objects may seem a bit too much to handle. But I think this is only a minor problem. A few missions stand out...like one where you jump out of hyperspace directly in front of a Super Star Destroyer! (for the uninformed, a SSD is a BIG mutha ship that you shouldn't go NEAR...heck, it's so bad that you'll only see one in the whole game!) Overall, you'll find a great space combat game in this package. Go on...buy it!

Classic Star Wars space-combat to last forever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: February 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I just got my copy of X-Wing Alliance yesterday, after deciding that I liked the Star Wars space combat best out of all other space games. I wasn't gonna get it just because I wanted to break routine and try something new (I've only been playing the X-Wing and the TIE-Fighter wars up till now). So I bought Descent:Freespace...and it IS a GREAT game...but when it came down to it, I missed the Star Wars space combat, so the next day I bought this and it felt great! Updated for today's standards both graphically and mission-wise, this game is a heck of alot of fun. The feel is better than any previous X-Wing type game. The action is better. And the included game editors, skirmishes, melees, and fan-support sites will keep the gaming value at endless proportions! For the small price of the software, you have endless lasting benefits. Definately for anyone who loves space-combat, whether they are Star Wars fans or not...you will all find The Force...and love it! Frantically recommended!

Really captures the spirit of Star Wars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: December 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard about X-wing Alliance, I thought it was just going to be a cheap attempt to drag out the X-wing franchise. But this is an awesome game. Unlike TIE fighter, the gameplay experience has really been increased from the original X-wing in this game. Flying freighter-craft truly is different from flying starfighters - if you try to fly it like an X-wing, you're as good as dead. Also, comapred to pirate starfighters, I could understand why TIE fighters were considered so deadly, a distinction I didn't really get in the original X-wing.

Most importantly, though, when playing this game I truely felt I was in the SW universe. For example, in one early mission during a bacta transfer between the Azzameens and a shady group of pirates I really felt like I was in one of Timothy Zahn's novels. Also, the shuddering of the ships and the multiple explosive and cha-cha-chas of the TIE fighter's laser cannons went a long way towards enhancing the flying experience. The same goes for the planets images during combat, as well as the immensity of some of the space stations.

A couple minor criticisms: the cutscenes don't seem very relevent/ Also, the "big finale" against the Death Star seems to just have been thrown in, and was somewhat of a disappointment. Finally, most of the levels were a little easy - I beat most of them on one try with the setting on hard. I was hoping for a bigger progression in difficulty as the game increased. The Battle of Endor in particular I was hoping would be more fierce.

Overall, however, this is a great game, with an awesome multiplayer platform. The real forte, however, is the single player - this game has great replayability. I would recommend it to anyone. I even enjoyed it more than Rogue Squadron or Rebel Assault and maybe even Jedi Knight.

You Got it Man!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: July 28, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I must concur totally with the previous reviewers on the outstanding quality of this game. I played it begining to end in the space of 3 weeks, and then played it again. The gameplay is pure enjoyment. Flight sims are generally good, but this is awesome. There is nothing better than flying a ship, having an enemy all around, listening to great music scores, having your crew or wingmen chattering over the com link, and having to make mission oriented decisions. This element is great, on all of the missions there is constant action once the action kicks off. You get to fly into stations, the Death Star and sidle up to SSD's, et al. I loved it. Although X -Wing v Tie Fighter and Balance of Power were good, they pale by comparison to X-Wing Alliance. Everything about it is good, from the cut-scenes to the gameplay, any small negative issues are to be expected(such as difficult missions, etc) but are far outnumbered by the positives. I can't say enough. Very Well done Lucas Arts, you have a loyal customer here. I highly recomend this game to anyone.

Impressive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: June 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Besides being the latest (and likely last?) of the X-wing games, "Alliance" is also the best - bringing the series back from the hole it sat in after "X-wing v. Tie Fighter" to the epic trail blazed by the original "Tie Fighter". The real question though is whether its improvements make it worth getting to players who bought the older games. In "Alliance", you play the youngest son of family that owns an intergalactic shipping business. Moving stuff from system to system, you pilot freighters through lawless tracts of space. In a time of civil war, your family tries to stay neutral, even as it's split along pro-rebel and imperial-loyalist sides (guess which side you're on.) Despite its seemingly civilian trappings, the family business is all about combat - your ships come armed with turbo-lasers and ion-cannon and equipped with deflectors. Though you won't face imperials immediately, combat will come quickly - forcing you to fend off the Viraxo, your family's hostile rivals. As the war progresses, the Viraxo leap to the Empire's quarter, essentially forcing you to side with the rebellion, and making you trade your Corellian transport in for an X-wing fighter. Until then, the game offers a series of missions that modestly test skills you may have amassed if you've played the older SW Fighter's games, but are more likely intended as a tutorial. (On an interesting note, sci-fi fans may note a resemblance between the Viraxo fighters and the Angel fighters from "Captain Scarlet".) The game climaxes with the epic battle of Endor, in which you take on the 2nd Death Star from the inside (in a mission I like to refer to as "Operation watch-that-overpass!") As in older games, you fly alongside and against AI pilots, though they're more chatty than before (including a motor-mouthed droid named M-Kay who makes C3PO sound positively mute) making the dialog sound more natural than it should.

"Alliance" is a bit of a disappointment - its ties to the original "X-Wing" of 1994 are painfully clear in terms of graphics and gameplay - this is still about flying canned missions in linear order in which you must complete by fulfilling a set of specific goals (i.e., no matter how many Tie Fighters you swat down, all Lambda Shuttles must dock with the medical frigate; all of the Correlian cruisers must survive; you must inspect every container; etc...). Some of the mission-critical goals seem counterintuitive - resulting from pre-scripted twists in a given mission. For example, when a friendly ship becomes disabled, its crew is forced to abandon it, and you to destroy it - you only figure out that second part after numerous post-mission-failure messages. Even so, once you've figured out what to do and begun blasting the abandoned friendly to space-dust, your wingmen warn you that you're firing on a friendly, and that mission critical craft are under attack. Because a lot of in-game dialog is pre-scripted, which means that it's the same no-matter how you're doing, it's harder to tell whether you're doing well or not.

Graphics and sound are improved, though I guess we expected that. The big news is that you can now pad-lock those enemies or mission-critical craft - which is great not only for improving your situational awareness, but also because you can view the insides of your ship's flight-deck (this is a huge leap over previous games which essentially gave you 2-D renderings of the same flight panels we've seen since 1994). While shading and lensing effects are also added, I usually get to focused on the enemy to really appreciate them. I'm also not enough of an audiophile to comment on the sound, though the sound effects and John Williams score remain as expectedly faithful to the films as we've come to expect. The mission areas seem larger, and you now seem to have even larger numbers of enemies to fight against (clouds of fighters instead of just swarms). Also, you may now have to zoom into different areas (via hyperspace buoy) in a single mission - although I just find that increases the chances of running into bugs that make missions unwinnable.

The game's most revolutionary improvement isn't technical at all - relying on a story that (at first) makes you more than just another faceless rebel flyboy. (Looks like somebody at "Totally Games" fired up a copy of the orginal "Tie Fighter", and was reminded why that game was so much more popular then "X-Wing".) Instead your fight is for survival against greedy competitors, soon to become a personal vendetta against the empire. Characters you meet between missions, including M-Kay and other vengeful relatives, advance the plot and keep it focused throughout successive missions. If anything, the story could have kept you out of the rebellion a bit longer, or at least made the transition a tad smoother - the story loses something once you become a rebel pilot, though manages to hold onto you anyway.

With the passage of time, most PC's should run this game without problems. I played it on my P4, having no WinXP compatibility problems. The game probably supports OpenGL graphics acceleration (if it doesn't, it's doing the greatest impression of hardware acceleration I've ever seen). In short, an X-Wing battle-sim that's guaranteed to please, though obviously pleasing most those who've never tried one before.

One of the best from Lucas Arts!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 01, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I am very impressed with this game! The storyline takes place after the battle of Hoth. After you join the rebel alliance in this game, you can fly all kinds of ships including the X-Wing. You go up against star destroyers, tie fighters, Interdictors and much, much more. At the end, you fly in the Mellineum Falcon at the battle of Endor and blow up the second Deathstar! The first couple of levels are a little boring but it gets much more exiting after that. With the tech library you can read all about all of the ships in the star wars universe! And, with the combat simulator you can create your own battle sequences using whatever ships you want! This is a heaven for Star Wars fans like myself. I would highly recomend this game for anyone.

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