X-Wing !

Sorry for not posting in a few days, I've had some things to do (translation = I was lazy).

Highlights of the last two days :

Hmm. Some lady called from our local department store this morning and told us that the carpet we ordered has come in and we should go get it.

We bought a new lamp for the living room.

Arsenal destroyed Newcastle United.

My tiny little nipples went to France.

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Since nothing of note has happened in the last few days, I shall delve into history and tell you about one of my early golden nerd days. I have told the story of how I got my nickname str33n, and so divulged some information about Ultima Online. Today I shall talk of another game that I did not mention.

I am a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge Star Wars fan. Some of you know this, and those of you who don't, I am watching Empire Strikes Back as I am writing this.

So being a Star Wars fan, and a computer gamer, I like Star Wars games. I've pretty much played em all but there is one game series in particular that was one of the highlights of my youth. The X-Wing series, and for me the game titles Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance in particular.

This series of games is about flying in space with your star wars space ships. The title of the X-Wing games comes from the fact that X-Wings are those rebel fighers in the old star wars movies. Anyway, playing these games was awesome, and in X-Wing Alliance, you could play on the internet against other pilots. I fell in love with it immediatly. It was quite cool flying against other pilots and winning duels. Turn those into clan battles and it was awesome.

So at the age of 13 and in the year 1999 I had to found my own XWA clan. I had never founded anything, so thinking of a name was quite hard. It turned out to be called Intergalactic Pilots Clan, and I have to admit, that wasn't one of the best names I've seen. Anyway, I actually managed to recruit some pilots into our squadron and we attempted to win fame and fortune with our brilliant rebel craft. What was odd, was that alot of clans used Imperial ships, which in the game engine were pretty much worse than the rebel ones. I didn't mind, I just shot em to bits.

This XWA phase of mine lasted a few years, it was a fun game, but so few people played it, that it didn't have the addictiveness rating of more modern clan games, especially something like Counter Strike.

What I'm sad about though, is the fact that Lucasarts stopped making X-Wing games after X-Wing Alliance, and to be honest, I find that a little bit weird, since they were some of the best selling titles Lucasarts ever had. I know that the games were developed by a small team called Totally Games and that Lucasarts only produced it and that there was some trouble between TG and Lucasarts at some point.

Regardless of that, I feel that Lucasarts has stripped gamers of some potentially awesome gaming experiences by not concentrating on games for the old movies. That's sad because the old Star Wars movies are better than the prequels, and therefore games made about that timeframe would probablt sell better.

Go to http://www.xwaupgrade.com/ for screenshots of X-wing Alliance. And to me, that game still looks awesome. It's from 1999 and the graphics are really good!


Tommorrow I'll talk about something more relevant.