"Where did all the space games go? Where was a modern follow-up to, say, X-Wing vs Tie-Fighter? I fondly remembered my kidhood pals pulling out tacky beige joysticks with chunky red buttons and having a blast pretending we were ace pilots."
The follow up to X vs T was X-Wing Alliance... and it's still going strong thanks to the work of the people at the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade Project which has been going for some 15yrs now. They have updated all of the graphics and it looks beautiful these days.
I still occasionally fire it up and you can get the original games working fine under modern versions of windows. I do on occasion even miss my force feedback flight stick I used to have... that thing was a beast (Black & Red not beige) with about 20 or more buttons in total including hihat switch and the ability to program macro's.
But it required it's own power supply and 2 USB 2 connections to have it working fully.
I think I threw it out when I moved... but to be fair I wasn't thinking straight... I'd just lost my brother and partner and wanted to 'clean house' so to speak... so much great stuff thrown in the bin without a second thought that I now regret.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
