Here's a short review of X-Wing Alliance from NewsPage.

Every Saga Has an End

June 30, 1999

As Star Wars mania grips the nation once again, LucasArts brings the curtain down on one of the most successful and popular gaming series of all time. Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance is the concluding chapter in the X-Wing series, which began in 1993 with the original X-Wing game.

The previous title, Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, was intended strictly as a multiplayer game, but X-Wing Alliance returns to the roots of the series with a strong single-player game built around an intriguing story line. You play Ace Azzameen, budding space pilot and youngest member of a family trying to maintain its profitability and neutrality amid growing tensions between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. Unfortunately, your family is forced to take sides when the rival Viraxo family teams up with the Empire to run your family out of the galaxy.

From that point on you are a fighter pilot for the rebels, though you frequently leave behind the war effort to fly with your family against Viraxo ships and installations. This combination of personal and global conflicts adds a Godfather-like element to the classic X-Wing dogfight formula.

Basic game play boils down to a series of approximately 50 missions, in which you pilot a fighter or small freighter against hostile ships and bases. If you make it through the entire game unscathed, you will get the chance to pilot Han Solo's Millennium Falcon in an attack on the second Death Star in the Battle of Endor.

The 3-D-accelerated graphics, always a strength of the X-Wing games, are simply phenomenal. Sound effects, music, and radio chatter are all top-notch and add to the sense of immersion the game creates.

Multiplayer mode is solid, with good performance over the Internet--as long as you have a good connection and a fast system to host each gaming session. X-Wing Alliance also includes a mission editor that lets you create your own massive space battles, which can involve nearly 100 ships.

Though we hate to see the end of the X-Wing games, Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance is the ultimate send-off for the series. Great graphics, fantastic game play, and a killer multiplayer mode make this the best game of the series by far and a must-have for Star Wars fans eager for one last taste of the original saga.

STAR WARS: X-WING ALLIANCE..... $49.95 list. LucasArts Entertainment Co., 888-532-4263, www.lucasarts.com.