X-Wing was one of my first gaming addictions back in the mid 90's when all I had to game on was a Macintosh Power PC (for you younglings, Mac and Macintosh are the same thing). The game played similarly to Microsoft's Flight Simulator or the old FA-18 Hornet series and was at its best with a joystick. It wasn't much for instant gratification, but sold you on the immersion factor, making you feel like you were a real pilot for the rebels on any number of under-the-radar missions. It didn't bog you down with the "look how important you are" leg humping narratives that modern games feel like they have to dote upon modern gamers, instead electing a more simplified approach saying "here's a mission, go do it."
David Esparza Guerrero, a self-described "X-Wing enthusiast and hobbyist game developer," has been hard at work over the last two years making a community mod called XWVM. The mod is an all-new flight engine that reads X-Wing's original resources (the music, graphics, etc.) and uses them to play the game's missions with enhanced visual fidelity. The result (as you can see above) is stellar and exemplifies the kind of passion and dedication that makes modding so great.
It remains to be seen whether the project fully sees the light of day or not for a number of factors, potentially most notably Disney sending a cease and desist which unfortunately is not that uncommon in these circumstances. However, there are reasons for hope, as we are talking about a game that is well over 20 years old in a genre that (excuse the pun) doesn't exactly fly with the more impatient modern audiences. So I'd have to think that the market for a game like X-Wing today wouldn't be as profitable as it might have been 20 years ago.
Source: [Venture Beat via PC Gamer]
