Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2720 in Video Games
• Released on: 1999-02-15
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Nintendo 64

Editorial Review
It is a time soon after the destruction of the first Death Star. Luke Skywalker has formed a squadron of hot-shot pilots to engage the still-formidable Imperial forces. You, as Luke, must lead this rogue squadron in a series of galaxy-spanning raids and rescues. To complete all your missions, you'll need good flying skills, fast reflexes, a keen eye, and a quick trigger finger.

You get to fly all your favorite ships: The X-wing, Y-wing, snowspeeder--even the Millennium Falcon. There are also some "secret" ships, such as the sleek Naboo Starfighterfrom Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace, a TIE interceptor, and, um, a '78 Buick.

The flight simulation in this game is first-rate. You'll find yourself leaning to the side as you pull a high-G turn in pursuit of Imperial TIE fighters. And the outstanding graphics and sounds are realistic enough to transport you to the Star Wars universe. Every detail is in place, right down to the individual Stormtroopers you can see running around (and trying to shoot you). One of the more impressive sequences lets you bring down Imperial Walkers by using the tow cables on your snowspeeder. Nice touch.

This is a single-player game, but you start each mission with a few wingmen from your squadron, and the well-done spoken dialogue between pilots and commanders really makes you feel like part of a team. The only significant shortcoming is the lack of a cooperative multiplayer option. With its excellent gameplay, varied environments, and interesting missions, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is sure to become a long-time favorite. --Eric Fredrickson

Pros:

• Faithful to lots of Star Wars details
• Satisfying flight action, explosions, sound effects
• Interesting missions and plot
• See--and fight over--the Spice mines of Kessel and other famous Star Wars planets

• For some reason, you can only fly clockwise when bringing down a Walker
• No "easy" setting for those without The Force
• Voices of Luke, Wedge, and Han don't sound like the real thing

GameSpot Review
Remember the first level of Shadows of the Empire? Remember thinking "Gee, if only the rest of the game were like this, this game would actually be good"? LucasArts heard you and developed an entire game based around the concept. Of course, spending an entire game in the snowspeeder, fighting AT-ATs, is something better left to that old Atari 2600 game, so some more modes of transport have been tossed in to spruce things up.

You play as Luke Skywalker (finally, no Dash Rendars or Kyle Katarns in sight) who leads the Rogue Squadron against the Empire. The game has a very movie-like quality to it, mostly thanks to a lot of voice work and in-game cinemas. The game plays like an action-packed Wing Commander game sans all of the crazy controls. Auto-leveling keeps you from crashing and allows you to get a firm grasp on the control quickly and easily. Once you've gotten the hang of flying the craft, you can disable it. Each of the ships has varying armor and weapon strengths. In addition, the ships maneuver differently, making one type more suited for some missions than others. The missions are composed of rescue missions, defense, escorting ships, and striking targets. Some missions require pinpoint accuracy when shooting, while some require that you simply lay waste to everything that you encounter. This mix of levels really keeps the pace of the game fresh and exciting. In each level you can earn one of three medals. Your performance throughout the level decides which, if any, of the three medals you'll receive. If you collect all three medals on every level in the game you will be handsomely rewarded.

The visuals get a great boost from Nintendo's new RAM upgrade accessory. When using the RAM pack, the game plays in a much higher resolution. The textures of the landscapes, the ships, the lighting effects - everything looks so much better. Without the upgrade, the game looks OK but not nearly as nice. Whether you're playing with the upgrade or not, the game does unfortunately suffer from one major visual flaw: The pop-up is horrendous. Every object in the game is drawn in at an incredibly short distance from your view. This at first seems like a really bad thing, but after spending any amount of time with the game you nearly forget all about it since most of the time you are generally focused on what's right in front of you and your radar.

Rogue Squadron has a ton of speech for an N64 game. Each mission has a briefing to listen to before you go into battle. Then during the action there are voice commands indicating what you have to do next. Plus there's a lot of chatter from the rest of your squadron. All of the voices sound fairly decent and really draw you into the game. Once there, the incredible sound effects, like the scream of TIE fighters zooming past you with their guns blazing, really sound terrific. The game also makes good use of stereo effects. The only thing in the audio department that Rogue Squadron lacks is quality music. Sure, its Star Wars stuff, but the actual quality of it doesn't sound very good.

Overall, Rogue Squadron is a good mission-based shooter. Fans of the film will be pleased with the good usage of the Star Wars universe. Being able to fly by Jabba's palace, over Sarlacc, or to see Han Solo's homeworld is really a treat. Any fan of the first level of Shadows of the Empire really should check out Rogue Squadron. --Ryan Mac Donald
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Customer Reviews

The second best N64 game ever created
I think that this game is the second best game on N64 you can get. It has a lot of different levels, and great ships. I think it's a very challenging game, and it's enough fun to keep on playing it. I beat the game twice, and I still love it! I think that it's a definite must have N64 game. The only thing it's missing is a multiplayer mode!

The X-Wing flight sim you've always wanted
First let me say that when this game came out it was everything I wanted it to be. I had played x-wing and tie-fighter on the PC and it was fun but this game has the look and feel like a properly designed flight sim - for each craft you fly has it's own special characteristics. The voices and sounds are fantastic. The levels are varied and imaginitive. However, to be picky, I'd like to see some additions and a Rogue 2 come out. They would include: space combat, with capital ships, the ability to choose which craft you want (some levels simply insist you use the snowspeeder for example), a couple wing-commander-style wingman orders buttons to get another rogue to help kill the tie on your six, and more accurate shots on the complex polygons such as in the cloud city level where sometimes your perfectly aimed shots won't blow up the tabana gas container you want, instead the shots hit the ones behind it, getting you in trouble with the civilian authorities. All in all, though it is one of the best games I've played on the N64 to date and with all the graphics, sound and voice stuffed on a cart instead of a cd, playstation style, I don't have to see a loading...please wait sign. That's worth every penny.

Great, but ultimately limited, Star Wars blaster
The success of Star Wars isn't based on the cheesy dialoge, suspect acting or even those dodgy seventies haircuts. No sir. Its based on the fact that people love to watch lots of spaceships shoot lots of other spaceships in, suprisingly, space. So its no suprise then that some of the best Star Wars games have seen you flying an X-wing through space, shooting down tie fighters and pretending your Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles or if your really sad, some other obscure pilot from the trilogy that no one else apart from you has ever heard of ( you know who you are ). And finally we have a game on the N64 that allows us to capture the excitement of those dramatic space battles, by flying an X-wing, over LAND! Actually, thats a bit harsh as this isn't a bad game. It's just that, for me anyway, Star wars is about dogfights out in the final frontier and not over a desert or a forest but oh well. Once you get over that, this does have a lot to recommend it. There's five craft to fly plus three secret craft, the missions are all varied,challenging and fun and, providing you've got an expansion pak, the graphics are awesome. Combine that with the excellent sound and music that really envokes a sense of the movies and it is impressive. The main problem with this game is that it is limited in the long run. Sure there's 16 missions but you'll get through them without too many problems. I finished the game in just over a week and to quote my flatmate who was with me when I completed it ''Is that it?'' Sure there's the medals to get for the bonus misions and secret craft but re-flying missions you've already done to shave a few more seconds off your time or get that one more elusive kill is hardly riveting stuff, particuly when there's widely known cheats to get them all anyway. In fact, the bonus missions aren't that good, with only the battle of Hoth holding any interest as Beggers Canyon is dull and the Death Star trench actually is nothing like the trench from the film. Good but dissapointing as it could have been so much better.