All-Time Classic
This may be my favorite game of all time. I came upon it sometime in the middle of high school, and I must have played it religiously for two or three years, wearing out multiple flight sticks (a must-have to play) in the process. I'm sure the graphics haven't held up at all over time, considering everything looks very polygonal. But when this was released, it was a revolution.
At the time, games were very black and white and hero-centric. I realize this dates me terribly, but we didn't have games like KOTOR, Mass Effect or Dragon Age that let you play as more or less a bad guy. So when this came out, and I was able to fly for the Empire, I was incredibly excited. And while you end up shooting down a lot of Imperial ships on some missions, you really are fighting for the guy that George Lucas has presented as more or less evil incarnate. So I have to hand it to the developers for that.
Tie Fighter also included a huge amount of content, with dozens of missions, plus training simulations for each ship. In addition, in every mission there were primary objectives necessary to finish the level, but there were also secondary missions listed in your objectives screen. And if you were particularly resourceful, you could find secret objectives in most levels as well. As you develop your character and complete missions over time, the game allowed you to advance in the secret order of the Empire, rising finally to the position of the Emperor's Hand.
For the time, the combat was really well done. Dogfights were consistently entertaining, and the variety of enemies presented allowed for very different tactics in different situations. The developers gave a tremendous amount of control to the player. Commands utilized a huge chunk of the keyboard, with controls for different types of weapons, shifting shields around as needed, switching energy over to speed, different targeting schemes, as well as requesting assistance from base and issuing wingman commands. So each level could be tackled in a variety of ways, providing a great deal of replayability. I must have played certain missions 20 or 30 times, and I can't recall ever getting bored.
Clearly I'm gushing here. But this game was, for me, the perfect game at the perfect time. In high school, my friends and I referred to our computers as our "square-headed girlfriends", which should show you what kind of person is writing this. And this game (along with Doom 2) was a big part of that.
