Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Like almost every male of my generation, Star Wars had a profound effect on my life. When I was 12 years old my friends and I skipped school to be the first people in line for the first showing of The Empire Strikes Back. After the movie, I stayed in the theater to watch it two more times. You could say I liked it quite a bit.

What I dreamt of everyday from that point on was living a life that was as exciting and fun as the feelings that the movie had inspired in me. I wanted to be an actor in movies as cool as Star Wars. I wanted to be as roguish as Han Solo and as valiant as Luke Skywalker. But most of all, I really wanted to pilot one of those wicked Snowspeeders.

During the years since The Empire Strikes Back, there have been several videogame attempts at recreating the feel of piloting a Snowspeeder but it wasn't until 1996 that anything close to resembling the slick ride in the movie was released. The game in question was of course, Shadows of the Empire. Ultimately, Shadows was a bit of a disappointing title because of its lack of focus. The major complaint/suggestion that permeated the videogame world was that LucasArts should have just decided to make a Snowspeeder game and stuck with that.

Fast forward two years later to Christmas 1998 and LucasArts' spectacular holiday gift, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. To say that the Snowspeeder freak in me is satisfied with this game would be an enormous understatement.

A TREACHEROUS TIME

Set between the activities explored in A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron's story is a series of missions that take our protagonists, Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles and their fellow fighter pilots, on an action-packed voyage through the Star Wars universe. During the game you'll be visiting many different systems. Highlights include the prison planet of Kessel, Han Solo's home world of Corellia, the Jade Moon of Loronar and the gas planet known as Taloraan.

In all of these worlds you'll encounter Imperial forces. Sometimes you'll face many adversaries in a lengthy and extremely dangerous mission, other times you'll have only a few enemies in your path but a very important goal to meet. At all times through the missions of Rogue Squadron you'll be wary of ambush attacks, Imperial traps and other assorted scenarios where you'll wish you had eyes in the back of your head.

Actually, you do have eyes in the back of your head in the game. Your heads-up radar screen will quickly become your best friend. It will keep you pointing towards your next mission objective, warn you of encroaching dangers and in the maze of rocky cliffs on Kile II, your radar will help you find your way off of the planet.

There are five different ships available to you in Rogue Squadron (but in typical LucasArts fashion there are hidden ships and new levels to find). Except for one craft built especially for the game, The V-wing, each of the ships comes with its own set of familiar characteristics.

The X-wing is a fast attack fighter, made distinct by its four-pronged blasters and split-wing shape. The Airspeeder (or Snowspeeder) is an extremely fast hover-strike fighter built without shields and equipped with a very useful harpoon and tow cable device. The Y-wing is the fighter-bomber class of ship in the Rebel fleet. It is slow but tough and packs a mean punch with its bombs. The A-wing is the fastest and most agile ship in the Rebel Alliance. It is a highly maneuverable assault ship that is used in hit and run missions. The custom designed V-wing is a superior version of the Airspeeder and comes equipped with a turbo jet engine that will make this ship move very fast.

Throughout the game, you'll be using specific ships for specific missions but as you advance through the various stages, you'll be allowed to go back and try the missions again with different fighter ships. This adds a tremendous amount of replay value because each of the missions in the game is broken down and scored for you at its completion. Just like the grading feature in Shadows, the better your grades are at the end of the Rogue missions, the more goodies you'll uncover in the game. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

FLY BY

Who would have thought that a straightforward planet skimming, air combat Star Warsgame would have been so enjoyable, so satisfying? After all, we're not talking about flying F-14 jets here; we're talking about hopping into the cockpits of the very best hyperspace-capable ships in the Rebel fleet. Isn't it a bit strange not to be flying these spacecraft past asteroids, Imperial Star Destroyers and other assorted chunks of galactic debris? Well, yes it is frankly but that sense of strangeness only lasts for about 10 seconds into your first mission in Rogue Squadron.

The game is steeped in infectious Star Wars-isms and is so utterly enjoyable it only takes a minute to become addicted to the experience. And from what I've encountered during my play testing, the addiction lasts a lot longer than you'd at first expect.

Rogue Squadron is no throwaway game. It is not, as you may have rightfully believed, just an interim, cash-in kiddie game meant to placate the Nintendo-heads and keep generating hype until the really good Star Wars games start appearing in 1999. Nope. Rogue Squadron is an unqualified success. It makes no apologies for being a straightforward, fast action, combat-flight sim, nor should it make any apologies. I'd say that Rogue Squadron ranks side by side with Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight as the two most satisfying Star Wars games ever released.

It's Rogue Squadron's instant accessibility that makes it so good. There's no real thought or complicated strategy involved in enjoying this game. Just dim the lights, crank up the stereo, sit back on the couch, grab your controller and lose yourself in dogfights for hours and hours. The sensation of "playing the movie" is extraordinary. The game's esthetic clarity and friendly interface ensure that Star Wars fans of all degrees will be entranced from the minute Rogue Squadron is booted up. Just watching the TIE-Fighters and X-wings go at it through the opening LucasArts logo is enough to make most Star Wars maniacs wet their pants. Of course, there's a lot more to see.

EXPAND ME

Rogue Squadron has the enviable distinction of being the first Nintendo 64 game released that supports the system's Memory Expansion Pak. It will only take a moment's glance at the screen of an unenhanced version of the game to realize that every N64 player must get this tasty little device. Although the game looks great with or without the unit, Rogue Squadron in high resolution is not to be missed.

The graphics in Rogue Squadron are spectacular. The game incorporates the very best polygonal models of the Star Wars craft we've ever seen. All of the texturing and detail on the ships is excellent. In chase perspective you can make out the tiny pilots in the Rebel wings. Even better than the terrific modeling that has gone into the game is the superb animation of these craft in motion. TIEs bob, weave and roll in formation while the plane-like X-wings gently glide and bank from side to side. The Snowspeeders move like they did in Shadows but now there are a lot more Imperial enemies to shoot down.

What blew me away was the amount of ground roaming detail that the artists at LucasArts put into the game. Fly close to a building in Mos Eisley and you may see a Landspeeder dart out into the street. In the Kessel prison mission, you'll protect a personnel carrier as it picks up escaping Rebel soldiers. Fly close to the prison entrance and you'll see these Rebels filing out of the facility. Spin your craft around and you'll see a couple of Stormtroopers riding their Speederbikes en route to intercept the escaping prisoners. It's fantastic! And of course, everything's destructible.

There are moments in the game where there is so much combat activity, so many different targets to destroy and innumerable enemy units firing at you, believing you're a part of a real life battle won't take any imagination. The visual flourishes in the game - the explosions, the nets of laser fire, the colored lighting flashes from missed shots - thoroughly back this sensation up.

As expected in a game of this scale, there is some fogging and polygonal pop-in to contend with and there are invisible barriers that restrict you from flying out of the combat arena. But there's no way a Star Wars-loving gamer is going to be disappointed with the graphics in this title.

POP GOES THE TIE-FIGHTER

Keeping pace with Rogue Squadron's excellent graphics is the game's superlative soundtrack. Once again, huge chunks of John Williams' celebrated cinematic score are borrowed to bolster the game playing experience.

LucasArts' developers are very lucky to have this music to draw on. The videogame world so far has nothing that can compete with the familiar and grandiose bombast of the Star Wars theme. Chances are if you were alive in 1977, it is the kind of movie score that sends chills down your spine.

On the Nintendo 64 MIDI-fied cartridge, the power of Williams' music is diminished somewhat but LucasArts probably could have hired someone to stand behind you and play the theme on a digital watch and the music would still be effective. I much prefer the interactive, change on the fly tunes in Rogue Squadron to the sampled bits of orchestral stuff we heard in Shadows of the Empire, even if the overall tonal quality of that game's music was better.

The sound effects collection in Rogue Squadron is in keeping with the Star Wars movie mythos. AT-AT Walkers and AT-STs still move with that overbearing, elephantine cha-chunk that will make your neck hairs spike. TIE-Fighters whoosh past your ship in a perfect sonic pan, making you duck for cover. The squeal of R2-D2 experiencing his own laser fire-inspired variation on the Y2K syndrome might just make you tear up a little (when you "live the movie", you worry as much as C-3PO). If you have your N64 hooked up to a surround sound system, be prepared for screaming death all around you. By all means, turn the sound on this game up!

THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?

I have been utterly and completely absorbed by Rogue Squadron since I first picked it up for review. Despite the glamorous wrappings of the game, the beautiful 3-D modeling and the spectacular sounds, this is one hell of a fulfilling interactive experience that plays and plays and plays. I know there have been better titles released this year. My question is can Rogue Squadron be my favorite game of 1998 even if it isn't the "game of the century?"

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