Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike

"Factor 5 Is Feeling the Force"

Synopsis - Factor 5 has brought us yet another Rogue Squadron game. Again, this game is set in the original trilogy, which is, the best Star Wars time line. period. Forget Old Republic, forget clone wars, Vadar and Luke are the original badasses. This time however they've added more to the game than just your run-of-the-mill Flight based mission. This time you'll be manning turrets, riding speeder bikes, and shooting storm trooper after storm trooper in order to Defeat the Evil Empire.

Gameplay: 8 - ''I'm on those ties Red Leader''. Yep, everything you knew and loved from the previous Squadron game is this one as well. Including the ENTIRE Rogue Leader game, albeit it can only be played in 2 player co-op. Yes, there is multi player now, and I'll get to that in a bit. The games missions now are a lot more varied in terms of game play and mission structure. Sometimes you Start in one vehicle and end in in another, or sometimes, you'll just foot it to the end. The camera system has unfortunately been taken out in this game. So basically you can't zoom in or out as much as you want to like in the last installment. This is really a minor gripe I have with the game but it can be easily overlooked. The Flight missions and the ground vehicle based missions are very smooth and very fun. Luke's campaign will having you going through most of what happened in the movies and usually end up on foot or in/on a ground based vehicle. Wedge will have the majority of the flight missions while he does have a mission or two that's on foot. He also get to pilot one of the coolest vehicles yet. Ever seen attack of the clones? Ever seen the Obi-Wan, Jango chase scene? You will be wowed.

So that just leaves the on foot portions of a mission. Ah yes, the on-foot. Well, I will be totally honest. They are pretty much non challenging and require little more than the tap of the A button to fire your pistol, or if you'd like, the B button to toss a plasma grenade. The camera here is ''strategically placed'' so that you can get the most out of what you're doing, although sometimes you might have an enemy that you can't see because he's not in the camera's field of view. All in all the on foot gameplay is a nice addition to the series and hopefully F5 will decide to make them alot deeper for the next game, otherwise, they would do better to just not include them. I've got to hand it to F5 for at least giving us something different to experience in the Rogue Squadron games.

Next we have the multiplayer levels. WOW. I'm just shocked. really. I would've never thought F5 could've done it but they did. They've included the entire Rogue Leader game in here. Not just some watered down version either. Enemy AI and health have increased to add to the challenge of having co-op. The graphics have also seen a welcomed touch up, and the best part, it DOESN'T lag. They've also included the VS. modes. Here you can either dog fight it out, go on a rampage (dog fight with enemies attacking both of you), play Tag and Defend, race with speeder bikes, and so on and so on. A lot of effort has really gone into multi player and it shows.

Graphics: 10 - The graphics in this game rival and in most cases surpass Rogue Leader's. Ships are just as detailed with appropriate wear and tear type appearances. There are a lot more character models this time around and most of them (not all) are really good. You'll notice this time in the hangar there are people in the background that are actually 3d instead of 2d cut outs like last time. I though that was nice, as it adds more realism to the game. The levels/landscapes (complete with beautiful sunsets) in the game are VIEWTIFUL (heh). I mean, damn. Once you've seen Deception at Dubrillion mission you will be very impressed, I guarantee you. Other places like Endor Forest and Dagobah look fairly impressive as well. The on foot graphics (while inside) are pretty decent as well. Surface reflections, real time lighting, and decent character models make these levels much easier on your sanity to play (haha, just kidding). and did I mention the DVD quality of the original movie clips!? F5 really did their Homework cause I could've swore I was watching a pre-released demo of the DVD Trilogy set. It just looks and sounds so great, The Yoda scenes are my favorite *does that quirky ''Yoda laugh''*

Sound: 10 - EVERYTHING. that's right. This game has every sound, sound effect, and musical score that has been featured in the original trilogy. Even that little Ewok celebration song that plays at the end of ROtJ. There's a lot of speech going on in the game whether it's during cut scenes or mission/craft description. Most of it is solid, except for a couple of very corny lines. Oh and the DVD clips sounds just as good as they look. Oh and for you people who were wondering, yes the uber cool Asteroid Field Escape song is in there too....you know which one I'm talking about. *Does that little quirky ''Yoda laugh'' again*

Replabiliy: 8 - Once you're done with the main missions of the game there will be plenty of bonus missions for you to unlock. They can only be unlocked by traditionally earning the gold, silver and coveted PLATINUM medals. So you'll have to replay a good portion of some missions to get that better medal and open up some more bonuses. The multiplayer also adds a good bit of life to this game. If you don't have any friends to play this with, GET some. Multiplayer is just too fun to pass up, esp. co-op. To top it all off, F5 has thrown in 3 count'em 3 original Star Wars arcade classics, complete with high score saves.

Final Score 9.0

Buy/Rent This is definite Buy. If you played and like/loved the original two games then you should buy this to get the most out of it. This is by far THE BEST Star Wars game.......for the Nintendo Gamecube *Does quirky Yoda laugh once again*

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/03