Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II

"Best Star Wars game yet, one of the Cubes true gems!"

Introduction – When Nintendo were to be showing off their powerful new hardware at the 1999 Space world game show, one little technical demo had fans ranting and raving over the net, that being a tech demo showcasing the Gamecubes power to display gun turrets and tie fighters by the hundreds on screen at once, while being playable. Talk grew, and fans starting talking about the tech demo being a true sequel to the Nintendo 64 hit, Rogue Squadron. What was even more impressive than the demo itself though, was that Factor 5, the development studio behind Rogue Squadron and Battle for Naboo, had taken just weeks to get this technical demo up to scratch.

It really showed other developers how easy the Gamecube hardware was compared to the N64 to program for, and if a studio could make such an impressive showing with just weeks of work, the possibilities seemed endless as to what a full cycled development period could do for such a title. Funnily enough, the fans were right, and at the 2000 E3 show, Factor 5 and Nintendo, showed off an amazingly detailed level in the famous star wars locale, Bespin (or cloud city as it’s widely known), and so Rogue Leader, the true sequel to Rogue Squadron, became one of the most widely anticipated launch games for Nintendo’s upcoming Gamecube console.

Story – Rogue Leader really picks up where Rogue Squadron left off, and follows the events of the original 3 Star Wars movies and their events, with a few filler levels to further progress the story as to what went on the years leading up to each particular movies timeline. While Rogue Squadron had bonus levels including the Battle of Hoth and the Trench run from the original Star Wars, neither of these levels really did much justice to the movies events, and were seen more as last minute bonuses more so than anything. Rogue Leader, on the other hand, starts you off taking out the first Death Star, in control of the soon to be Jedi Luke Skywalker, and follows the original Trilogy’s story right up to the famous Battle of Endor, so for anyone knowledgeable in the classic Star Wars films the story follows it practically by the book.

Gameplay – For those who never played Rogue Squadron, the gameplay goes as follows. Rogue Squadron is a group of pilots lead by Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles; you take control of one of these pilots, controlling famous ships in the SW universe such as the X-wing, A-wing-Y-wing and more. The game has never been about accurate physics or handling the ships functions such as the PC x-wing series, but instead, has always offered up plenty of intensive arcade style action, only with a mission structure that has you carrying out orders to progress the level and story along.

Rogue Leader continues this tradition, except Factor 5 has improved upon the original in nearly every way humanly possible. Controls are easy to pick up, and take the good but arcadey controls of the original to the next level. Pressing A will fire your lasers, holding down A will link your lasers together, but the shots will be less powerful. B I used as your secondary weapon button, while holding down B when using certain types of ships such as the Y-wing will allow you to also shoot off your Ion cannon. Pressing X will switch your view between the cockpit and outside ship views, while the C-stick is used as an all around camera button. Moving the C-stick to the right or left will have your pilot look in those directions, which can be a little disorientating at first, but can be vital in some missions later on in the game. If you press the C-stick down the camera will pull away further from your ship, while pressing it up will go as close as possible without going into the cockpit view.

Newly added to Rogue Leader, in the controls department, is the Targeting computer (yes that funny type of thing Luke turned off in Star Wars: A New Hope. Holding down the Y button brings up your targeting computer, in a cockpit viewpoint, and it allows you to distinguish between enemy ships that are attacking your “friendly” ships, and enemy ships in general. Some missions require you to use your targeting computer almost completely throughout, at least until you learn the level layouts inhumanly well, the trade off is that your Targeting computer is now added as a requirement to gain medals for your mission completions, so using it sparingly when trying to get medals is the wise decision.

R and L work as your acceleration and braking buttons, although Factor 5 took the next step with the beautifully designed gamecube controllers. Pressing R gently, for example, accelerates your craft, while clicking the button all the way in will go as fast as your craft allows it. Doing this, in craft such as the X-wing, for example, closes the X-wings s-foils, allowing you to fly much faster but unable to shoot. Pressing the A button, or clicking the L or R button will open your s-foils back into attacking position. Gently pressing L allows you to slow down a bit, while clicking it brakes hard and fast, and if you combine L and R while turning you can turn your fighter extremely quickly, especially helpful when avoiding those annoying ties. The Z-trigger is used to roll your craft, which doesn’t come in as useful as it seems it would on paper.

Finally, the analog control is used to turn the craft, while another new addition in the ability to give your teammates orders through the use of the digital control adds to the gameplay experience in many ways. On screen there is always an indicator, showing the digital control as a cross, and if it says Ties on the right side, pressing your digital control right will have your wingmen attack any tie fighters in the local area. Some missions require you to use your wingmen well to pass, and some missions it becomes easier to tell them to flee, so as you can pick up more kills for yourself. The abilities given include attacking guns, forming up, attacking Ties and walkers, etc, and it really adds to the atmosphere of the game, even if your wingmen are pretty average pilots for the most part.

Rogue Leader, more so than Rogue Squadron, really puts you into the original Trilogies universe and makes you feel like your part of it. Controlling your craft through the Death Star Trench or taking out Imperial Walkers by the Tow cable as Wedge because Luke crashed really does make it seem like your taking a part in the movies. The game moves by at an incredible rate, with the only real slowdown seen in the training level on Tattoine when there is plenty of wamprats running all over the screen and dust is flying all over the place.

Factors 5 have also added in a really nifty day and night setting into the game that works amazingly well. The Tattoine training level for example, requires you to finish it in four different time periods, morning, day, afternoon and night to unlock one of the games many hidden ships. On this specific level, certain “hidden” objects must be found as part of your objectives, finding R2-D2 or C-3PO for instance, and your hidden objects that you require to be found to pass change depending upon your current time on your Gamecubes clock.

Another level, “Imperial Academy Heist”, which finds you stealing the imperial Lambaa class shuttle that is used to land on the moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. Choosing the mission at any time during the day will give you the Y-wing to pilot through it, heading through canyons early on and needing to take out surveillance towers with your Ion cannon. If you fly through the same level at night, you must use the Speeder, flying through thick fog and staying out of the surveillance towers range. It’s this sort of differing level structure that makes the day and night scenario worth playing for. My only complaint with this function is that it’s used sparingly, and more missions could have done with differing level structure due to the time period.

While Rogue Leader isn’t considered to be a flight sim, it isn’t totally an arcade shoot-em-up either. Mission objectives that change throughout the course of the level really heighten the sense of freedom you feel when piloting your ships, as well as making you feel as though your doing more than just shooting basic tie-fighters up. Some missions require you to protect Rebel frigates while others have you taking out guns before taking out an army of ties before finally taking out a Star Destroyer. No level in the game resembles another, in structure or appearance, and while there is only ten regular missions plus the training level, it is plenty enough for almost any Star Wars fan to enjoy. Also brought over from the previous game Battle for Naboo, is the opportunity to change craft throughout the middle of missions, which greatly enhances the freedom most players will feel, as the original ships provided may sometimes be even better to use than the new choices your given.

Enemy AI is marvelous, but at times just damned hard. After playing Rogue Squadron for a few years and figuring myself to be a pretty adept pilot, I took to the games first level, Death Star Attack, and was decimated by ties in the second phase of the level. Playing again had me exiting the level early because not enough ties were killed and we were overrun, and on my Third play through I lost all my damned aircraft in the trench run. This game, for those not used to the Rogue Squadron type of gameplay, may simply be a little hard at times to take in. The tie-fighters of course have patterns and become easier once you learn this, but later on the game throws Tie-Advances at you that become frustratingly difficult at times to destroy or catch. This game is harder than Rogue Squadron in every respect, and will have some players walking away from missions due to the heightened difficulty level. Some mission goals are also hard to understand, and sometimes it may take 5 or 6 attempts before you realize what specific thing you have to do first to get through the level. While this does lead you to trying out your own strategies, some mission goals are just all around too vague for anyone without knowledge of the levels design to understand.

Graphics/Sound – When Rogue Leader debuted for the Gamecubes launch it was heralded as the most amazing launch title at the time, as well as the most amazing looking game ever by many reviewers, even more so than Halo. Even nowadays, around a year later, Rogue Leader is one of the most impressive looking games on the market. Seeing the trench fly by at an amazing speed as you fly through it in your X-wing, or taking a “leisurely” flight through Cloud City for the first time may have your ship turn to debris extremely fast due to the jaw dropping backdrops strung throughout the landscape. Cloud city is an amazingly well crafted piece of architecture, featuring hundreds upon hundreds of buildings at once, all looking amazingly detailed, with ties zooming by overhead, through the city and gun turrets firing away from all angles.

Flying over the Death Star’s surface, both in the first Death Star Run and the second, is truly a sight to behold, as gun turrets by the hundred let loose with lasers from the surface, with the surface really looking as close to the Death Stars as one would expect. Levels such as Hoth, which have stormtroopers running around on foot battling against your own Rebel Troopers, while massively hulking At-At walkers tread the background at the same time will take your breath away time and time again. Of course, the first time you see a Star Destroyer from a distance it will blow you away, but not as much as when you decide to fly up right against it’s hull and see all the detail for yourself, it is quite simply, staggering.

Laser fire looks amazing in this game, which looked a lot like red or green sticks being fired on the original Rogue Squadron, and the game just doesn’t have the re-used and washed out look of the original. What is most impressive though, is the amount of things the gamecube hardware is throwing around at once, with Star Destroyers, Tie-Fighters and your own Rebel Fleet being on screen at once during the Battle of Endor, a truly breathtaking sight to behold, and all running at a silky smooth framerate.

The one thing most SW games do seem to get right, of course, is the music, and Rogue Leader is one of the most impressive sounding titles you’ll come across for any system or personal computer. Laser fire really sounds like it’s taken straight from the movies, and the impressive John Williams score plays throughout, adding intensity to the gameplay that no other musical score I’ve played in a game could invoke. There is some newly scored musical elements of course, none coming quite so close to the original musical brilliance, but is still nonetheless one of the best musical soundtracks for a game out there.

Hearing ties screaming past your ear, or Han Solo telling you “Your all clear kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home!” as you fly down the trench, or Admiral Ackbar telling Lando Calrissian his ships won’t last long against the second death star really pulls you into the game universe and adds the final touch to this titles already brilliant scope.

Lastability – For those used to RL style of gameplay and to those who aren’t, this title will be sitting in your Gamecube for a long time to come. While there are only 10 regular missions in this game, getting simply a bronze medal on each is a hard enough task as it is. You’ll replay some missions a good thirty times before you unlock a gold most of the time, sometimes more, and replaying a mission just to pass can sometimes take a fair while even for the most experienced pilot.

The medal system in the game is integral to the lastability of the title, with a bronze medal giving you 3 points, silver 6 and a gold a massive 10 points per level. There are 5 bonus missions to unlock, one of them putting you in control of the Millenium Falcons gun Turrets which looks and feels exactly as it does in the movies as Han and Luke fight off those pesky tie fighters. These bonus missions cost from 20 to 30 points to unlock, with the latter 2 missions having other requirements to unlock as well as the mentioned 30 points. These missions really do give you a decent incentive to get gold on all the regular missions, and some of the bonuses, such as throwing 99 waves of tie fighters at you in the bonus “Endurance” level, are worth unlocking if only or the novelty factor alone. Bonus ships such as the famous Slave 1 and Millenium Falcon can be unlocked after gaining certain medals in all missions, which also add to the replayability factor.

Finally, Factor 5 has gone ahead and done what few other game development studios have thought of in the past, and included, unlockable bonuses after finishing the game, such as a “Making of” documentary and an “Audio commentary” with programmers and producers talking on in the background while you play through the levels again. These DVD style extras are another fantastic edition to the already complete package, and really goes to show that some developers really do put a lot of effort into making sure players are happy with their final product.

Final Recommendation – For any Star Wars fan, this is a must buy, it puts you into the SW universe better than any other title out there, and is worth every minute of your game time. For general shoot-em-up fanatics, or those used to Rogue Squadrons style of gameplay this is also a must buy, as it’s one of the best shoot-em-ups if not the best, available today. For those who rather Star Fox style arcade shoot-em-ups you’d probably look more for a rental as it may not be quite arcadey enough for your tastes. Overall though, this is truly one of the most engaging and surreal experiences to be had on the gamecube, if not for any system available, and should be in just about everyones Cube library without a doubt.

Gameplay 9/10
Graphics 10/10
Sound 10/10
Lastability 9/10

OVERALL (Not an average) 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/11/03, Updated 03/11/03