New STAR WARS dogfighting game announced

EA has announced a new Star Wars game focused on space combat, to launch this October. The new game is being touted as a spiritual successor to the X-Wing and Rogue Squadron series.

Star Wars: Squadrons is set just after the events of the original Star Wars trilogy and sees the player and up to four friends forming a special elite unit within either the Imperial Navy or the Rebel Alliance.  There is a single-player campaign, playable solo or in coop, as well as multiplayer modes built around the idea of 5v5 team dogfighting.

The X-Wing series consisted of four mainline titles: X-Wing (1993), TIE Fighter (1994), X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (1997) and X-Wing: Alliance (1999). These were predominantly single-player games (apart from the multiplayer-focused X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, although an expansion added a full campaign mode) with robust multiplayer. There is still an active modding and multiplayer scene for X-Wing: Alliance.

Predominantly released for PC, the X-Wing series prioritised a more realistic flight model and strategic player, with players able to shift power from one system to another, deal with combat damage and order AI wingmen to assist them.

The Rogue Squadron series consists of three titles: Rogue Squadron (1998), Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (2001) and Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike (2003). The first game was released on PC and Nintendo 64, the latter two on the Nintendo GameCube. These games featured a much less sophisticated flight model and controls and were more aimed at arcade blasting, but were great fun for what they were. Rebel Strike notably added the ability to control ground units such as AT-STs.

It's unclear if Squadrons is leaning more towards the X-Wing or Rogue Squadron end of the spectrum, but at one point the damaged X-wing shunts power to its engines to evade an enemy, suggesting that mechanic will be present in the new game. The game will also please fans, featuring as it does appearances by fan-favourite characters Wedge Antilles (from the original trilogy movies) and Hera Syndulla (from Star Wars: Rebels).

Star Wars: Squadrons will launch on 2 October on PC, X-Box One and PlayStation 4. The game will not feature microtransactions and will have crossplay enabled, allowing players on all three formats to mingle. The game will also be fully compatible with all PC and PS4 virtual reality headsets.

GoG's journey to the awesome side is (nearly) complete

GoG.com has released an additional six Star Wars games to its library. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, X-Wing Alliance, Galactic Battlegrounds, Dark Forces, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Battlefront II are the new additions.

A non-optimum situation.

All are worthwhile purchases. Battlefront II is a multiplayer-focused shoot 'em up, with somewhat dated visuals but still fun gameplay. Knights of the Old Republic II is the far more conceptually interesting (but also far more broken) sequel to one of the greatest RPGs ever made. Incomplete on release, mods have repaired a lot of the damage and allowed the game to flourish. Dark Forces is Doom with a Star Wars skin, but still awesome. Galactic Battlegrounds is Age of Empires II with a Star Wars skin, but still pretty good.

The two X-Wing games are probably going to be the key draw here. X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter is multiplayer-focused and the multiplayer is a bit flaky on the GoG version of the game at the moment. However, the single-player Balance of Power campaign is included and is very worthwhile. More impressive is X-Wing Alliance, the final game in the series. Released in 1999, the game is the most epic in the series and the largest, featuring a lengthy campaign culminating in the full-scale assault on the second Death Star at the Battle of Endor. It's the most visually impressive of the four games (and also the easiest to update to modern standards through mods), although hardcore fans will argue only the second-best, behind the more morally ambiguous TIE Fighter.

Apparently more Star Wars games are still to come, likely to comprise some or all of the remaining Dark Forces series (Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy), possibly the well-regarded Republic Commando or the more acquired taste of Supremacy (aka Rebellion). We may also get to see the flawed-but-ambitious Force Commander, with Rebel Assault also an outside possibility. Beyond that we are likely to see some more serious scraping of the barrel. It's also possible we will see some of the newer games, like the Empire at War strategy title or the two Force Unleashed titles.

It looks like between these old games, the release of Battlefront III later this year and of course the arrival of Episode VII: The Force Awakens in December, it's a good time to be a Star Wars fan.

X-WING and TIE FIGHTER re-released

GoG have teamed up with LucasArts to re-release the classic space combat sims X-Wing and TIE Fighter. The games will be available from GoG within the next day.

Released in 1993, X-Wing was a blatant attempt by LucasArts to cash in on the success of Chris Roberts's Wing Commander series by deploying the heavy firepower of the Star Wars universe. Employing then-cutting-edge 3D graphics and a finely-tuned power balancing mechanic, X-Wing managed to be better than its rival and was a superb - if extremely tough - game. Released a year later, TIE Fighter was even better, with a gripping storyline casting the player as an ordinary pilot unfortunately employed by the bad guys.

The series continued in 1997 with the multiplayer-focused X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, although it did feature an excellent, story-based expansion called Balance of Power. In 1999 the series concluded with the epic X-Wing Alliance.

At this stage, only the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter are being re-released from the series. Both games have been updated to work with modern PCs and the GoG editions include both the original versions and their 1998 re-releases, which are the same but use the much more advanced graphics engine from X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. X-Wing will include both its expansions (Imperial Pursuit and B-Wing) whilst TIE Fighter will include its Defender of the Empire expansion.

Both games are excellent and I can recommend getting them both. However, they require joysticks (or, at the very least, gamepads) to play properly.

In additional news, LucasArts classics Sam and Max Hit the Road, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Knights of the Old Republic are likewise being re-released tomorrow. Knights of the Old Republic is highly recommended, as the previous PC version required a little bit of tinkering to get working properly (its sequel generally works absolutely fine). This version should work with modern graphics cards and operating systems out of the box.

GoG have said that they will ultimately be releasing thirty LucasArts titles over the coming months, suggesting that the overwhelming bulk of the LucasArts archive will eventually be available.

Rumourville: PS3 turn-based classic Valkyria Chronicles is also, curiously, getting a PC release many years after the original release.