In the comments about Dan’s Top 20 game list, Matt said “The best Star Wars game level ever is was the Battle Of Endor in [Rogue Squadron 2: Rebel Leader].” He was partly correct: he got the right level but the wrong game.

X-Wing Alliance was the final part (to date) of the X-Wing series of games - the original 1993 game X-Wing being the game that incentivised me to buy a PC (and then learn how to use DOS to manage memory which in turn led me to getting a temporary job with a company which in turn led me to becoming a software developer. That fucking game has a lot to fucking answer for!) X-Wing wasn’t just a shooter like the Star Wars arcade game was previously or that Rogue Squadron and it’s spawn that followed would subsequently be, it was a space combat sim that stuck you in the cockpit of an X-Wing Fighter flying against the forces of the Empire. 1994 saw the release of TIE Fighter, the obvious successor to X-Wing which stuck you in the cockpit of, unsurprisingly, a TIE Fighter flying against the inferior pilots of the Rebel scum. TIE Fighter makes it into many top games lists and is a classic in it’s own right. After the slight misfire of the multiplayer game, X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter, X-Wing Alliance was released in 1999. But enough of the history! Let’s get on with me telling you how good this game is.

While XWA followed the mission based structure of its forebears, you didn’t start off flying for the rebels but instead, a trading family known as the Azzameen’s. The story behind the first few missions centres on you protecting your family’s business interests against an unscrupulous rival but slowly you get drawn into the Rebel Alliance’s struggle against the Empire, particularly after changing your goals during one mission to defend a rebel base. Once you’ve made an enemy of the Empire, you have no choice but to side with the Alliance and start fighting the good fight.

Gameplay was virtually identical to the first couple of games - why change a winning formula - but there was the additional capability of being able to direct your wingmen against targets as well. This was something I didn’t find out until half way through the mission as I never bothered to read the manual but it was very useful and some missions required good use of wingmen or else you’d never complete it. But the significant improvement of the game was that you got fly freighters. I don’t mean that you spent a lot of time hauling cargo - I mean you got to fly ships like the Millennium Falcon and could, if so desired, man the turrets while the game AI flew the ship. This was a huge step up from the previous games where you simply go to fly fighters. Plus there were so many more ships in the game in terms of both design and numbers.

As the game was set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, much of the game involves helping the Rebel Fleet gather at Sullust in preparation for the final assault on the second Death Star. Every mission got more and more impressive as each time you launched from your parent ship, there were more and more ships in the convoy. That’s what really stands out for me in this game and why I chose it over the first two. It really gave you a sense of scale by introducing a larger number of capital ships and fighters. They also updated the graphics engine too so that it was capable of rendering big fucking areas and big fucking ships. I was stunned the first time I saw a Super Star Destroyer in the game. The mission I was on required me to fly into an asteroid field (itself an impressive area) for some reason or another. After doing what needed to be done, I had to fly out but discovered that sure enough, Darth Vader’s flagship had hyperspaced into the region. It was huge! You’d been able to against regular Star Destroyers in every game but this was something else. It felt like it took nearly five minutes just to fly past the damn thing.

The last campaign rounded off the series wonderfully though - The Battle Of Endor. It starts with the fleet hyperspacing away from Sullust so you get to do the whole flying around capital ships with a squad of fighters listening to Admiral Ackbar give last minute instructions before jumping to Endor and right into the thick of it. Is it a trap? It very well might be. The second mission of the final battle sees you having to make your way past the fighter screens and take out the shield on the Super Star Destroyer (remember when the pilot rams the bridge and it crashes? Well, it’s all there, baby, oh yes!)

But it’s the last level of the game which really blew my mind - the infamous Death Star run. Fly into the superstructure of the Empire’s planet-busting weapon, destroy the reactor and high-tail it out of there. This is quite similar to the last level of Rogue Squadron 2 with a couple of differences - the main one being that you’re piloting the Millennium Falcon and not an X-Wing. Oh yeah, that’s right! It might break with the canonicity of the films but you’re Lando’s co-pilot throughout the entire battle - every mission up to and including the Death Star run.

The preceding missions are exhilirating in their own right. Because of the gameplay style of X-Wing and the ability to look around your cockpit, you feel totally immersed in the game. You’re tasked with trying to take out the forces that are attacking, for example, the medical frigate while desperately ordering your wingmen to protect your back and avoid any incoming ships. You constantly have to juggle the power to your engine, your shields and your lasers - or diverting power from the back shield to the front shield in an assault on a heavily defended Star Destroyer with your allies exploding into space dust all around you and TIE Fighters swarming you like a particularly pissed-off hive of bees.

But the final run ups the ante because you’ve got to contend not only with the Imp eyeballs (that’s pilot slang for TIE fighter doncha know!) harassing you but there are gun emplacements to deal with, obstacles to navigate and not a lot of space to manoeuvre in. Going in isn’t so bad because you can regulate your speed and take a reasonable amount of time to avoid the barriers and make the turns as required. Getting out? Well that’s an entirely different story. Once you’ve taken out the main reactor you have absolutely no choice but divert as much power to your engines as you concievably can and fly out as fast as the ship will go. You absolutely cannot make any mistakes whatsoever. Nor break. Nor stop to shoot stuff. You just fly.

The reason I prefer this to Rogue Squadron on the Gamecube is because of this sim style management of the ship. It’s not just a case of using the afterburner to get a bit of extra speed, it’s actually sacrificing shields and weapons to get everything out of the engine you can and if you’re daring (or foolhardy) enough to look around the cockpit at all (or even risk looking out of the rear view camera thing) you can actually see the flames licking at your ship. It is one of the most intense gaming moments I’ve ever experienced and when I finally succeeded - after more tries than I care to remember - it was a glorious moment indeed.

And that is why this game makes my Top 20 - for sheer quality of stunning moments contained in one single game. Brilliant. The only mystery that remains is where the hell my copy of the game is.