X-Wing Alliance is the latest game in the series of X-Wing games from LucasArts. It takes X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter and adds an imersive plot line, in the style of X-Wing and Tie Fighter.

In Alliance take on the role of 'Ace' Azzameen, a young pilot going out on his first missions. At the start of the game you have no allegience to either the Rebels or the Empire. Your first few outings are a few (surprisingly tough for newcommers) training missions, these involve carrying out missions for your family, such as inspecting cargo or perfoming deliveries. These missions enable you to get a feel for Alliance and some of the new controls that it offers.

Ah, those controls. Anybody who has played any of the older games will have no difficulty jumping straight into Alliance, newcommers will probably find the number of keys that you are required to remember overwhelming at first, but persevere they will soon be natural enough. Alliance only introduces a few new controls, these mainly exist so that you can use the gun-turrets on the ships, now you can stick the craft on auto-pilot and sit in the gun turret blazing away at your enemies.

After you have passed the prologue missions you join up with the Rebel Alliance and it's hard work from then on in. From this point two storylines develop continously, you involvement with the Rebels and also your family missions. Most missions are for the Alliance but every now and then you are called upon by a member of your family to perform a mission for them, these offer a nice change of mood and give you a chance to pilot different ships. The two storylines mix together nicely, and while it may seem at the start that they have little to do with eachother they soon come together.

The design of the missions has changed due to the introduction of the Navigation Bouy, these enable you to jump from one system to another when you are near enough to them. This can create moments of extreme tension as you race toward to bouy at the end of the mission with Tie's homing down on you. They also allow each mission to take place over several distinct areas, this means that some missions can get very long but it adds to the overall feel of the game.

The graphics in Alliance are good but not excelent, they do the job well but sometimes you are left wishing for something a bit flashier. It's a completely different matter with the music though, as this game uses the newest version of iMUSE, it can dynamicaly change from one moment to the next depending on what is going on around you, all in CD quality sound. However the pilots voices are not up to scratch and at times the impersonations of characters in the film are comically bad, fortunatly this does not detract much from the overall experience.

The main gripe that I have with Alliance is the mission structure. Although there are 50 single-player missions they have to be completed in a completely linear fassion. If you get stuck on one mission you just have to keep trying until you complete it, this can become very annoying when you are facing some of the more difficult missions. In the original X-Wing and Tie Fighter games there were usually several tours of duty that could be undertaken at the same time, this enabled you to take a break from a mission if you were having dificulties and come back to it later. The linear structure presumably was used to preserve the story line, but I don't consider this a good enough excuse.

The other problem with Alliance are the bugs. There aren't many but the ones that do exist annoy you. Most, if not all, of the bugs lie with the mission design, for example on one of the missions I was doing 9 times out of 10 one of the objectives would blow up without reason right at the start of the mission. There are several other mission bugs which are pointed out in the relevant places in the Strategy Guide. The X-Wing series has always been plagued by this problem and you would have thought that they could have sorted it out by now.

The last problem I have with the game is the Battle Of Endor sequence at the end of the game. The battle is split up over four sections with the first three having ten minute time limits, this design doesn't flow particularly well and having a time limit doesn't fit well with all the other missions which don't. LucasArts have presumably done this so that processor power can be spared but I think they should have tried something else. However these problems aside the acutal run through the Death Star is very impressive (even if there is a bug or two), it manages to create a real feeling of pressure as you race your way to the surface.

Despite the fact that I have spent most of this review complaining about the game it is still superb, it is just these few problems that tarnish an otherwise impecable game. If you haven't bought Alliance yet I recomend that you rush down to the shops now and buy it.