Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

"Aren't rogues generally loners? So isn't a squadron of them an oxymoron?"

It’s Star Wars time. You’ll be seeing it everywhere- on the news, on advertisements, on your food (well, at least the packaging), hearing about it from your friends, and, depending on how lucky and/or geeky you are, seeing it in the theatre. And so I’m just doing my part to make Star Wars haters’ day even more miserable by adding the franchise to the GameFAQs What’s New section. Rogue Squadron is, according to my (completely unreliable) sources, the best selling console Star Wars game (which may or may not be true, but I’m not sure where I’d look it up. At the very least, it’s one of the biggest). Coincidentally, it’s also one of the best.

After A New Hope and before Empire Strikes Back, Luke was the leader of the Rebels’ top pilots, Rogue Squadron. After a few routine missions, they get caught up into what amounts to the storyline of the game. After foiling yet another imperial plot, one of the TIE pilots, Crix Madine, decides to defect to our heroes’ side of the war. This results in giving the Rogues plenty more missions and imperial targets and ends up with a showdown against Moff Seerdon. No, the plot isn’t an integral part of the game. You’ll be hearing a lot from Crix throughout the game after she joins your side, and Moff Seerdon will show up at the end, but that’s about it. But, in all actuality, that makes perfect sense. This is a team of fighter pilots; they aren’t out on any specific quest besides kill the Emperor, so it makes sense that only a loose storyline would take place. Besides, there is some continuity between missions, which I think is more important. For instance, one mission has you rescuing Wedge after his ship crashes at the end of the last one. These sorts of things help the game flow quite smoothly and help to eliminate some of the seeming randomness behind the missions.

But of course, you won’t be caring about the storyline when a squadron of TIEs is coming your way. That’s because this is one fast moving game, with plenty of action to go around. Numerous targets exist, including laser and missile turrets, TIEs, troopers, AT-STs and AT-ATs, and droids. Your wingmen will shoot down some, but naturally most of the work is up to you. A handy set of crosshairs help you out, along with a reasonably descriptive radar. Besides your lasers, you also get a secondary weapon, depending on your vehicle. The maps are generally expansive with multiple events happening in different places, giving you a wide variety of landscapes often inspired, if not taken from, the movies. Missions vary considerably, from the simple blow up everything in sight to protect your poor helpless Rebel friends to taking a joyride through Beggar’s Canyon. So yes, there’s plenty to do, and you’ve got a lot more to worry about than getting to Degobah to start your Jedi training.

But don’t let that get to you. It’s not like the game is too challenging. You will likely blow through the first few missions without any problems, and the next 10 or so can easily be conquered with a little practice and a bit of strategy. Sure, there are a few frustrating levels at the end (try saving 3 slow moving and incredibly weak AT-PTs from a couple massive AT-ATs and a squad of hair-trigger TIE bombers, not to mention loads of gun turrets), but they too will eventually fall to your might.

So is this game too easy? Not at all. Factor 5, using the well honored philosophy of make it easy to beat but hard to do everything, in this case through a little something called medals. In order to get a gold, silver, or bronze medal, you must finish the level meeting numerous requirements, such as speed, accuracy, number of kills, (minimum) number of allied losses, and picking up bonuses. And getting gold is not a walk in the park. Despite playing this game for months on end, I never did make it on that bloody AT-PT level. It requires a complete knowledge of the levels, a workable strategy for being in three places at the same time, and naturally being quite adept at flying around and knocking TIEs out of the sky. If you don’t care about getting spiffy medals or just aren’t good enough to get them, then you can at least finish the game to completion. But the real fun comes in returning to the missions and truly testing your skills.

You shouldn’t have to worry about the lifespan of this game. Despite having only sixteen normal levels (plus three hidden levels, plus one super secret level), it stays around for quite a while. Part of this comes from the excellent interface. The game is mission based and you can backtrack whenever you want. Stuck trying to save your Bacta stores? Can’t seem to wipe out the Imperial factory? Why not take a break and fly through Tatooine for a while? The ability to play previous missions whenever you want keeps the frustration value down and the play time up. Even after getting a gold, you can just go through the levels for fun, even shooting down your incompetent wingmates if you’d like. And if you’re still stuck on that one level, there’s always the codes. Factor 5 was kind enough to provide tons of secrets into the game, and the numerous codes will keep you busy for quite some time. Tired of the boring X-Wing or A-Wing? Just put in a code and you’ll be playing in the piece of junk itself, the magnificent Millenium Falcon. If that’s too slow and clunky for you, why not try the ultra fast TIE Interceptor that you have stashed away back there, or even the Naboo Starfighter from The Phantom Menace? Or heck, you can even turn one of your vehicles into a flying car (sadly, it’s not a DeLorean. That would make it even cooler). Codes can only enhance an action game, and this game does much more than the simple invincibility/full ammo/whatever. It makes it more fun.

And yes, Star Wars has always been known for its flashiness, for its visual appeal, and for serving up a wealth of eye candy. This game does not deviate from that tradition. To be perfectly honest, when I first saw the commercials for this game, I thought “that looks just like the movies!” Obviously, that’s not really the case, but that just goes to show how beautiful this game is that you can forget or ignore its shortcomings. And it is relatively high-polygon, well textured for the N64. What’s important, though, is that every polygon was used to make this game look more like the Star Wars universe. The TIEs looked like real TIEs (well, or as real as a fictional intergalactic space fighter can be), snow speeders looked like real snow speeders, and oddly shaped massive Jawa crawlers looked like real oddly shaped massive Jawa crawlers. It felt like you were in the Star Wars universe, so who cares that it didn’t push 863 million polygons? If there was one problem, it was some annoying pop-up, but it’s really quite minor. Sound wise, you had sound. Nothing wrong with it; it was technically excellent after all. But how can you be excited about derivative laser blasts, typical explosions, and subdued music? At least the voice acting was decent, even if they couldn’t get the same voices for Luke and Wedge and the like. Still, it’s not like it detracts from the full Star Wars experience, so don’t complain.

But, when it all comes down to it, this game is fun. Just load the game up, go to the Battle of Taloraan, and roam around the Bespin-like planet shooting down TIEs to see what I mean. Dodge the numerous lasers being flung your way while homing in and blasting away at the Imperial storage tanks. As you fly through the smoking wreckage, look around for some more TIEs. Nobody around? Follow your radar to the next station, with even more baddies and evil Imperial canisters of, uh, evil stuff, or something. Fire off a few proton torpedoes at those pesky laser turrets, and then zoom off yet again. Don’t blink, because dozens of TIEs are screaming by, so dodge like crazy and aim carefully. Then swoop down through the floating city to pick up a much needed bonus, carefully avoiding smashing your expensive A-Wing into the apartments of some random person who probably has a massive backstory in the books somewhere, not to mention his own action figure. Blast the final few canisters and TIEs and then sit back and relax. That is, until your results screen come up and you realize you were two kills away from a gold. Oh well, at least now you have an excuse to go back and see that wall of TIEs again....

Because that’s what it’s all about. Rogue Squadron is an action game set in the Star Wars universe, and it performs magically. Smashing the Empire may eventually get boring after a while, but the “a while” is the key. This is guaranteed to have a long shelf life if you are willing to get everything and go for the gold. And it’s guaranteed to be enjoyable the entire time, as each level is completely different and offers a wide variety of objectives. Rogue Squadron was quite a hit, and well worth the few bucks it costs these days. You’re already on a Star Wars high from this movie, so why not?

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/17/02, Updated 05/17/02