I like library used-book shops, because you never know what you’ll find in them. Usually they’re little more than a closet full of James Patterson novels selling for $.25 each. But the library shop in my parents’ hometown is a good one where my family has made many an unusual discovery over the years.

That trend continued over the holidays; while visiting my parents, we stopped by the library shop and I picked up these two treasures (still shrinkwrapped) for a buck apiece:

Those are two of the most fondly-remembered space simulators in videogame history: X-Wing and TIE Fighter. They came out during the heyday of LucasFilm’s (now LucasArts) game development, before they decided to stop making interesting games and make only mediocre Star Wars titles.

X-Wing and TIE Fighter were, obviously, Star Wars titles, but they weren’t mediocre. Their roots lie in Lawrence Holland’s World War 2 flight simulators, one of which (Their Finest Hour) absorbed many an evening on my Amiga. (Their Finest Hour even came with a 200-page history of the Battle of Britain that I used as the primary source for a high school paper. Hey, it was better than anything in the school library….)

There are plenty of space simulators out there today, but they seem to have slid into a niche below the radar of most gamers. X-Wing and TIE Fighter hearken back to bygone days when, for a glorious stretch of years starting with Wing Commander and (probably) ending with Freespace 2, space combat simulators were the kings of gaming.

So I hope to relive those halcyon days with these two gems. That is, assuming I can find a computer with a floppy disk drive:

What about you? Were you gaming during the Great Space/Flight Simulator glory days? What ships did you pilot to victory?

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