Greetings everyone!
Man has it been a minute since I last took the time to write an article here! That said, it has been great to see so many new writers joining this site and putting out fun articles themselves! I hope to see more of you writing here in the future!
That said, I do find myself a tad disappointed. There is one area of the Expanded Universe that is surprisingly being left alone! Perhaps I am alone here, but where are all the articles on the Star Wars Video games?
What’s that? I run a non-profit focused on reading and literacy. Yeah, and? Little did you know I started my EU journey with a video game! Reading is what enhanced those gaming experiences further! My point still stands. Where are all of you Expanded Universe gaming fans?!
All joking aside, today I wanted to hit on a topic sparked by my coming across a fun video on YouTube of someone playing Star Wars: Tie Fighter...only it wasn’t the Tie Fighter I remember from the mid-90s, but a fan made modification to, of all things, a different game entirely, X-Wing Alliance.
For those unaware, LucasArts was a company that used to make some of the greatest in Star Wars storytelling in the form of video games. Among those games was the X-Wing series of games, released throughout the 1990’s. These games were flight simulators that placed you into the cockpit of many different craft from the Star Wars Universe. Everything from the standard X-Wing and Tie Fighter to more obscure craft like a Skipray Blastboat or even the fearsome Tie Defender.
The technology of the day was often pushed quite a bit in these games, but, to today’s gamers, they look almost archaic, if not vintage. But if you look beyond the coat of paint, there was always solid gameplay challenges with varying mission objectives and gruesome dogfighting around nearly every mission throughout the series.
I maintain good games are comprised of more than just graphics!
One of my favorite games was one of my earliest, the Tie Fighter entry into the X-Wing series where you were put in a position rarely seen before that point, that of fighting for the Empire! Admittedly my early teen self was not the most capable pilot in the Empire, but I eventually fought my way through the campaign and found myself almost immediately looking for more.
A later entry in the series, the aforementioned X-Wing Alliance, improved on what Tie Fighter and its other predecessors had done and wove in even more of a story focus as well as bringing in more up to date (for the time) graphics. I loved that game and consider it one of my top 25 video games to this day.
But even then, that was over two decades ago. Computers are now far more powerful and games are expected to do far more to keep their audiences captive.
What would you say if I told you that there is an active ongoing fan effort to not only slap on a new coat of paint onto the amazing games from the Expanded Universe, but also bring in updated sound and even new missions?
Enter the Tie Fighter Total Conversion mod and Tie Fighter Total Conversion Reimagined mod.
Check out this trailer put together for the mod’s release almost two years ago.
I just love seeing that graphics jump! So good! And how about that remastered soundtrack?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvFv6j2H7fg
Heck yes. Music from the Expanded Universe!
As mentioned, this mod was released almost two years ago but those behind it were not content to just leave it be as it was at release. They have been hard at work not only keeping this mod up to date but also doing a separate mod, the Tie Fighter Total Conversion Reimagined mod.
The latter mod is still actively being developed, but having seen some of the gameplay footage from the Reimagined mod, I was tempted to drop everything and get it installed on my PC immediately! It looks like so much fun!
For those interested, you can find the modification in the following link. Please note that you do need a copy of Star Wars X-Wing Alliance first in order for this mod to do anything. (My understanding is that Steam, GoG and even the disc version of the game all work with this mod!)
https://www.moddb.com/mods/tie-fighter-total-conversion-tftc
There is also a step by step guide to installing the modification to be found on YouTube. I highly recommend following this guide (or any updated versions of it that may be released In the future) as it will keep the modding experience as painless as possible for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qui9X4gjVtc
So, what do you think fellow Expanded Universe fans? Does seeing that trailer give you an itch for that old piloting joystick? What games do you like to see modifications for and do you find this type of article to be enjoyable?
Let us know in the comments below!
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