X-Wing was so delightfully challenging, and yet extremely addictive, and with great AI, because it always felt like no single mission ever went exactly the same way twice.
Yep.
While the first Wing Commander was enjoyable enough, I never was interested in it enough to continue on with the rest of the series, let alone finish WC1. It just felt like attacking a series of scaled bitmaps* -- and trying to "land" at the front of the Tiger's Claw was more than a little off putting when there was only four views of the carrier: Front-above, 2 Sides & Rear, iirc.
But when X-Wing came out, their use of low-res polygonal shapes really felt like you were moving in 3-dimenional space and around "solid" objects -- fluid and simply phenomenal.
* While the same could be said about Wolfenstien, Doom and all of the early bitmap FPSs, at least you could move around within 3-D environments in those games; the black backdrop of "space" in WC added very little to the immersive experience.