Star Wars: Starfighter

[Organic Jerk]

Awhile back, I posted on the forum looking for a Starfox "clone" of sorts for mame...  The results were ok, but far from satisfying... 

I went through the same search on the PC, and that was also a very dry search... lots of space flight games, but they all seemed to be packed with lots of complicated keyboard/mouse based controls, not to mention some mouse based UI's .... obviously horrible for cabs...(Freespace 2, Freelancer, Wing Commander Series...)

And then I found Starfighter. 



I actually owned the game for years from a video card purchase, but never bothered to play it.  It seems like the closest thing I'll get to a Starfox-like experience, but obviously with the theme it's got it's own great thing going.

Gamespot Review
IGN Review


Startup
-----------------------------------------
Although from the start menu shortcut the game starts with an annoying window with options, you can bypass this by linking directly to the game exe found within the program folder (Sigh of relief). From the beginning, it's all very straghtforward, and VERY READABLE, meaning that it doesnt seem like playing on a TV ( or Arcade monitor I assume) would be a problem.  One annoyance I have is the question to load a profile at the beginning of the game.  I'd like to be able to set an auto load, but I can deal.

I should note that no matter what resolution you set the game to, the menu system seems to run at 640*480, so res switching will occur if you run at other resolutions.  Running everything at 640 makes for a much more streamline game startup in general here.


Graphics
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Top notch graphics for 2002... so it looks great for an arcade (to me at least).  It looks and feels like a 2nd-3rd gen 3d arcade game from every point of it's presentation.  Large Text, Filtered textures, colorful surroundings... a very fun game to look at..
Lighting seems basic, with some basic shaders at play, but it all fits. 

I should also note that due to it's age, older cards will play this game just fine.  I'm currently running it on a 1.7ghz machine with a Geforce 3 and everything looks great.




Sound
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All your standard Star Wars fare is here, including a very powerful (but at this point somewhat cliched) score of orchestrated music.  The Voice Acting is OK for the game... nothing special but thankfully not too bad.  All the language is kid friendly (so far).


Gameplay
-----------------------------------------
I originally stated that this was the closest thing I've found to a simple starfox like game for PC, and that's basically what we have.  It plays very smooth and everything is very responsive.  Stable and solid.  As you will read in the reviews linked above, it's a basic but solid arcade-style flight shooter.  EXACTLY what I was looking for.  Before missions you can choose a difficulty level, and this seems to determine how many enemies there are on screen and how ruthless they attack you. 

What's also nice about Starfighter is that you can pilot different types of ships depending on the mission.  So far I've piloted two, and they weren't just clones of each other.  They felt and played very differently and were both enjoyable in their own right.

As you can see from the mappable key below, you can change your view from a cockpit-like view to a third person view at will(as with most games of this kind).



Controls
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Breath a sigh of relief that you didnt waste your time reading this: No Mouse is needed for UI.  Everything besides the "Enter" and "Esc"  functions are mappable.  I have buttons for Ent and Esc in my setup so that works for me.  Others may not, so that should be taken into consideration.   You will also need a hefty amount of buttons for comfortable play, but if you have 8 buttons with an extra for select or start (like I coincidentally do) you should be fine, as I don't really map everything, but only choice buttons I feel would allow me to play comfortably.  The ones I have mapped below are marked with an  asterisk (*).

The full controls list is:
Fire Lasers*
Fire Secondary*
Boost*
Brake*
Pitch Up*
Pitch Down*
Turn Left*
Turn Right*
Roll Left
Roll Right
Roll Modifier*
Zoom*
Cover Me
Report In
Auto Target*
Manual Target
Defend target
Attack Target
Change View*
Pause*

Overall
-----------------------------------------
The game is a solid 3d arcade flight shooter with fun gameplay, good graphics&sound, and one of the strongest sci-fi themes behind it...  I'm not a Star Wars Fanboy or anything so if this review sounds gushing its only because of it's relation to the "Starfox" gameplay, not the franchise.. 

All in all, I'd say a 4 out of 5

[vidmouse]

Try also:

Rogue Squadron 3d
Star Wars Episode I Racer

Both top notch, my opinion.

Also, Starfighter and the above mentioned games run fine even under my wimpy PII 300 cab at 640x480 on a TV screen.

X-Wing Alliance is another maybe ... I don't know, it didn't feel like an arcade game to me unlike the others.

[DarkBubble]

If you have a PS2 or Xbox, you might want to check out the sequel, Jedi Starfighter.

[melarky]

I wonder if this would work well with an arcade star wars yoke.  I am going to build a star wars cabinet soon (hopefully) and was wondering what other games might work well with the yoke, would be an added bonus if the game was also star wars

[Dazz]

hmmm, looks interesting.... Never played this.  Just gotta find it somewhere now.  Thank you.

[Generic Eric]

Looks fun.

[paigeoliver]

I have found that Episode 1 Racer is pretty unstable on newer operating systems. Or maybe it is just my 2 computers?

Using Win 98 though it is my favorite PC game to put on a cabinet.

[Bloinkxp]

Paige,
Have you tried setting the compatibility mode in WinXP/2k for PodRacer?  Just right-click on the shortcut and click compatibility.  Then play around with the drop-down.  I find that Win98 / WinMe works...

[paigeoliver]

Yeah, I have to do that just to get it to run, it works, but will get stuck in mid race and lock up the whole system.

Paige,
Have you tried setting the compatibility mode in WinXP/2k for PodRacer?  Just right-click on the shortcut and click compatibility.  Then play around with the drop-down.  I find that Win98 / WinMe works...

[druid318]

Looks like a fun one.  Hard to find PC games that don't make use of the mouse.