Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Summary

Genre: Shooter
Number of players: 1
Rumble Pak: Yes
Controller Pak: No
Expansion Pak: Optional

Review

The second Star Wars game on the Nintendo 64, Rogue Squadron takes a totally different approach to Shadows of the Empire, the first title, by focusing on a single type of gameplay. You play as everybody's favourite Jedi, Luke Skywalker, and control one of many different Star Wars craft through 16 levels, facing off against an army of enemy ships and ground vehicles in your quest for glory!


Gameplay: The gameplay is most enjoyable. What's more, it's not just a case of flying a ship and destroying everything that moves. No, your mission objectives can range from protecting a building, to guarding a convoy, to eliminating several shield generators, to destroying a single powerful enemy craft, and much more. Being able to choose from up to eight different craft is great, and each vehicle has its own unique style, from the fast and heavily-armed V-Wing, to the versatile X-wing, and even the super-strong Millennium Falcon. With most of the craft, you are given total freedom of movement, and can perform somersaults, spins, and just about any trick you can think of. All the craft are easy to control, and equally fun to use.

The combat system is very nice too. As is usual in a flying shooter, you can only fire straight ahead, but a targeting cursor is always visible so it's no problem aiming where you need to. As mentioned, you usually have full freedom of movement, and dogfighting with TIE fighters is a frequent and enjoyable occurrence. But there are all sorts of other action in the game; air-to-ground strafes, locking and launching homing torpedoes, bombing, and even toppling Walkers with the Speeder's tow cable. The variety is large, and yet everything flows naturally and flawlessly. It's really engaging stuff, and is highly addictive.


Challenge: There are 16 main missions in the game, and, while these are no cinch to complete, there is a secondary challenge available too. If you complete a mission having achieved a set number of kills, a set number of friendly saves, with a set accuracy, within a set time and with having found and collected any bonus powerups in the mission, you are awarded a special medal, either Bronze, Silver or Gold. Get Bronze medals on every single level, and a bonus mission is unlocked; get Silver on each level and a second bonus mission is available; and get all Golds to unlock a third bonus mission. This formidable task is made a little easier by the unlocking of other craft to be used in already-completed missions, and often the only way to achieve the difficult target scores is to use a craft more powerful, fast or agile than the default craft which you have to use the first time.

All in all, the game is pretty challenging, and it'll take a while before you see everything Rogue Squadron has to offer.


Graphics: The graphics are a mixed bag. Detail on the various ships and buildings is high, and definitely closely resembles the 'real' thing; the levels themselves, particularly in high-resolution mode, also look great. However, the level of fogging in the game, where things more than a certain distance away disappear in a mysterious fog, is severe. Often, you just can't see very far ahead at all, and enemies or obstacles can materialise too quickly for you to take evasive action. It's a bit annoying, but not so much so that the gameplay is much affected. However, it does let the otherwise-solid graphics down a bit.


Sounds: The game's music is very much a Star Wars experience; most of the signature melodies from the films feature in the game, and the new music still ties in well with the familiar tunes. It's of good quality, too, and adds to the fun. Sound effects are fine, too, with laser blasts, explosions and clanking AT-ST footsteps all thrown into the mix, to good effect. In addition, there is a lot of speech in the game, and the voice actors manage to sound pretty convincingly like the famous voices they portray. Sometimes, due to the necessary compression of the sounds because of limited cartridge space, the words can be a tad hard to make out, but there is a full subtitles option which removes any problem. The only gripe with the speech is that some lines from earlier levels are often reused in later levels, no doubt to save space, but unfortunately they never seem to quite 'fit' properly when they are reused. It's a very small gripe, but it does take away a little from the overall quality of the sounds.


Summing up: A very nice flying shooter, with plenty of levels, several craft, and plenty of Star Wars atmosphere. Pity about the lack of multiplayer and the heavy fogging, but overall a solid game, and a highly worthwhile purchase.


Gamesmark: 86%


Reviewer: Maverik