This article originally appeared in Pyramid #11

Pyramid Pick

TIE FIGHTER

Published by LucasArts
Designed by Lawrence Holland and Edward Kilham
Retail Price: $63.95

First, for those of you who like reviews that tell you what to do — go buy Tie Fighter. Of course, before you go, look hard at your computer. If it isn't a 486+, you might want to reconsider.

Tie Fighter is LucasArts' latest entry in their Star Wars line of "spaceflight simulations" started by the highly-acclaimed X-Wing, and features the most stunning graphics that I've ever seen.

The Components

Tie Fighter is installed from 5 disks, and takes approximately 15 megs of hard disk space. Included in the box are a quick reference card, a Starfighter Pilot Manual covering the technical aspects of the game and The Stele Chronicles, a mediocre piece of fiction that is supposed to walk the player through pilot training and a few missions.

The Pilot Manual also serves as the game's copy protection. At startup, you are asked to provide the word found on a certain manual page. It's unclear to me why LucasArts even bothered with this pathetic attempt at protection — with only 29 possible answers, anyone interested in pirating the game can type the words into a textfile in less than 60 seconds.

The Game

You begin by registering your pilot — creating a new one or picking your saved character. After this task, you report to the main concourse of the station, the nerve center of the game. From here, there are a number of possible destinations.

The Tech Room contains schematics . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: January 1, 1995

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