This or xwing alliance?

[TheRetroDJ]

I only have a couple extra bucks for ONE so which one should I get based on graphics, musical score (very important), and gameplay?

[SMK]

This.

[Wootbräu]

Personally like TIE better

[seriousthree]

If you haven't bought yet then this actually plays better. Although I like both.

[Ma77i7yahu]

It all depends on what you're looking for really.

In terms of graphics, X-Wing Alliance being a much newer game obviously wins heads-down. It is also capable of solid widescreen with some manipulation. I also won't lie, you might have a bit of difficulty in getting the 3D graphics to work properly in TIE Fighter. I had a bit of difficulty, but everything works perfectly now.

In terms of the music, TIE Fighter has just the one 30 odd minute sound track that plays during the combat mission. X-Wing Alliance has different music depending on whether you are playing as family or Rebels The music also changes depending on the presence of neutrals or different types of enemies (i.e. Viraxo, pirates, Empire), when friendly craft die and friendly/enemy craft arrive.

Gameplay is the subjective one. Obviously the basic controls and functionality are more or less the same. X-Wing Alliance has countermeasures to warheads, the ability to control turrets in certain ships, the Z-axis works better in terms of vertical and horizontal rolling (which you can't do in TIE Fighter), has a skirmish mode, better pilot proving ground (an obsticle course to practice flying and shooting), multiplayer, etc..

BUT, I find that the difficulty balance is better on TIE Fighter than on X-Wing Alliance. On the default medium difficulty in X-Wing Alliance, it's generally too easy and your friendly AI fighters are too effective, thus potentially limiting your kills. On hard, they're too worthless and die too quickly leaving you overwhelmed. TIE Fighter is much better in that regard - your friendly fighters are good at distractions, but they don't gobble up a lot of kills. The hard difficulty is certainly playable and enjoyable.

The stories on both are good. The TIE Fighter campaign is certainly a more interesting one in that it provides a point of view that you don't get with any other games, that is, playing as the Empire and not defecting at some point because they're evil or do some evil deed. It actually shows the Empire in a more or less good light, as preservers of peace and stability.

[s0laris]

There is a top 3 where the top 2-3 doesnt matter. The top 1 is shared between Tie Fighter, Freespace2 and Wing Commander Prohpecy. XW Alliance is way below any of the mentioned ones.

Personally id recommend you get both Tie Fighter and Alliance but if you are very young and you cannot enjoy something that has trash graphix but is a classic, go with Alliance.

[TheRetroDJ]

Originally posted by s0laris:

There is a top 3 where the top 2-3 doesnt matter. The top 1 is shared between Tie Fighter, Freespace2 and Wing Commander Prohpecy. XW Alliance is way below any of the mentioned ones.

Personally id recommend you get both Tie Fighter and Alliance but if you are very young and you cannot enjoy something that has trash graphix but is a classic, go with Alliance.

Played Prophecy, wasn’t that good in my opinion. I absolutely LOVE Freespace 2 though. The fan made mod Blue Planet was arguably better than the main campaign too.

[Bob of Mage]

Personally I enjoyed TIE Fighter more. Oddly it feels like you get more freedom as an Imp then a rebel pilot. Sure in XWA you sometimes get to pick your craft, but most of the time it's pretty much A-Wing or X-Wing. You rarely get to use a bomber, or even missions where a bomber is needed. Many of those few force you into the Y-Wing, and that thing is a damn death trap. You tend to lack covering fighters so you end up dogfighting in hands down the worst craft for the job. In TIE Fighter the missions are far more tailored to your craft. So you'll normally not have to face too much dogfighting as a TIE Bomber, but even when you do it will mostly be while facing even slower craft (like Y-Wings, which as you might guess I feel is worthless in a dogfight), or a small number of faster ships.

In TIE you get to pick what warheads you use in pretty much every mission (the early ones sometimes feature craft with no warheads, but you are in rather fast fighters for those and shouldn't really need them). This allows you to changes things up to better suit your tastes. For example you can swtich from missiles aimed at killing fighters to heavy rockets to quickly kill light starships. In XWA you'll pretty much always have proton torpedoes, and a few times missiles. You don't get the advanced versions of etheir, nor do you really get the chance to use heavier warheads.

It also feels like there is more playtime to TIE Fighter then XWA. It isn't helpped by some of the family missions which have you spending way too much time ferrying cargo. The brief bits of fighting in those missions largely has you fly around as your turret gunner does all the shooting. So it really felt shorter and more bland.

The one thing that I really liked about XWA was the fact you could return to your mothership midmission to rearm. I sorely miss that option in TIE Fighter since you more often have to make use of warheads with their limited ammo. It also feels kind of weird since you often have to hyperjump all the way back to your staging area, which is normally quite far from the action.