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Rogue Squadron III - The Sequel You're Looking For?
Thanks to GameSpot for their review of Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike for the GameCube, rating the Factor 5-developed sequel that arrives in stores this week. GameSpot pronounce it a qualified success, saying "the parts of the game that stick to airborne and space combat are quite solid", but "the on-foot missions... [are] where Rebel Strike really falters." With the title including "a cooperative two-player version of Rogue Leader in its entirety", and IGN also being somewhat positive, recommending the "superb two-player cooperative mode" as "an absolute must play", although suggesting "if you were only a casual fan of the last [game in the series]... you [should] rent first", is this what you'd consider a good use of the Star Wars license?
I heard really bad things from EGM and some other print reviews.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
I'll reserve judgement until I play, but my gut reaction has me wondering why we're playing through the same story again.
Now that I see Greedo shooting first, the whole cantina scene suddenly makes sense. Previously, Han Solo was portrayed as some kind of criminal, ruthless and willing to kill over the slightest thing. It didn't mesh with the rest of the series where Han is actually a fun-loving good guy scoundrel (in Leia's words).
But having seen the remake with the corrected Greedo scene added back, Han's personality is truly brought back into alignment. He isn't a ruthless criminal, he's a rogue scoundrel trying his best to just stay under everyone's radar. Greedo forces him into the life or death situation by shooting first.
Having played Rogue Squadron I, I hope that III can live up to the reputation!
I was really looking forward to the on-foot parts of the game. The N64 version of Rouge Squadron had some interesting foot missions, and I was hoping that Factor 5 would bring these to the 'cube and make them even better.
:)
Has anyone played the cooperative version of Rouge Leader 2? I think that this would be a fun waste of an afternoon
In linux libertas
The rest of the demo disk was kind of lame. The original arcade Star Wars was fun for about 15 minutes ( 5 x 3 minute showing it off to friends) but I don't think i'd play it. And the Gladius trailer did nothing for me. I was hoping it would shift me one way or another, but it really only made me suspicious about the combat interface.
What happened to cool pre-order disks like the one that came with Legend of Zelda: the Wind Waker? Something like Shadow of the Empire would be really cool to have on the GC.
What do you mean what happened to that kind of pre-order disk? Surely you don;t expect to get something like that with every big name game. The Wind Waker preorder was the exception, not the rule.
But seeing exactly how successful Wind Waker's demo made the game (by far the most pre-ordered game), one would think Nintendo (and others) would spend the little time necessary to bundle old games with their new ones.
A perfect example is Mario Kart Double Dash. Yeah, the demo disc is a cool bonus, but would it really have taken much time or effort for them to include Mario Kart 64 (or the original one) onto a disc? Since Nintendo doesn't make MK64 any longer, they don't make any profits that EB and GameStop do from selling used copies. Therefore, what would be the harm in adding that game to the new one? It would cause a lot more people to (pre)order the game, and would be a veeeeery cool bonus for the fans.
One would've thought that with Nintendo suffering an image problem in the US (at least among the Joe Six-Pack "gamer" type), they'd do EVERYTHING in their power to make people happy. At least they're catching onto the idea (again) with the new Zelda bundle.
Is this game linear or are you flexible?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Not even close. I can forgive replaying the same old story once per console generation when it's a good upgrade from what has come before (like Rogue Leader, the GC launch title), but it becomes pure whoring when they dip from the same well this often.
Bioware went the right direction by placing us in the familiar Star Wars universe and building a brand new story (not to mention giving us the first single-player Star Wars RPG). Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic not only had that fresh story but solid and engaging gameplay - so good that people have managed to play the game through multiple times despite some truly awful bugs.
If Factor 5 is going to continue doing games about Rogue Squadron, what's wrong with taking the series to the post-trilogy galaxy of The New Republic? There have been several books about Rogue Squadron which, though just average science fiction fare in terms of writing quality (the Star Wars equivalent of those straight-to-paperback military books in the grocery store), include some excellent mission scenarios and over-arching plotlines which would make good fodder for video games.
In short, I think playing a linear video game like this can be fun to a point, but it loses something fundamental when I already know the ending.
It's like they've combined Rogue Squadron II with Rebel Assault II... Why tamper with success and go GTA style (pedestrian as well as vehicle)... :(
A computer without a Microsoft Operating System is like a dog without bricks tied to its head
As a Star Wars fan, and a fan of the games, I've always disliked the RS series, since after playing X-Wing, then Tie Fighter, and finally Dark Forces, Rogue Squadron always struck me as the easier/arcade little kid brother of Tie Fighter and X-Wing, who really thinks his older brothers are cool but just can't quite emulate them quite right. Admittably, Tie Fighter is on another level from RS, since its a 'real' simulator. So, if you've liked RS, but have never played Tie Fighter or X-Wing, I highly recommend it; maybe like me you'll even enjoy them a lot more as well.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Other than the recent Knights of the Old Republic, what other -recent- Star Wars game has been released?
World Devastators were used in the Rogue Squadron games.... I could be wrong. Those were not in the movies but in the books I believe.
When I first saw RS I was blown away, the graphics were outstanding. When I actually got to play I was less than impressed, having played through X-Wing and Tie Fighter I found the game quite confusing and almost impossibly difficult in the later missions. The issue is not the controls but the targeting system, of which there really isn't one. With X-Wing or Tie Fighter you could target fighter groups and pick them off one by one, with RS the targeting system makes this a hit or miss affair, much like an arcade game.
I really enjoyed Jedi Starfighter for this reason, it played very much like X-Wing -- intuitive targeting, systematic approach to missions, etc. Much more playable game.
My two cents.
And I'll say it again. LucasArts should just ditch the Star Wars license and go back to making good games. Monkey Island, the Maniac Mansion games, Loom, Indiana Jones (up to Atlantis, after that Indy was just another Lara wannabe), Sam and Max, Full Throttle, Grim Fandango. How many good Star Wars license games can you name?
And they should stop doing 3D "adaptations" of characters that simply DO NOT work in 3D. Guybrush in 3D was simply horrible, and I imagine the Full Throttle and Sam and Max sequels will look equally horrible.
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A LONG TIME AGO, IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...
I played "Rogue Squadron" on the Nintendo 64. I downloaded and watched in awe the tech demos of "Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader" for GameCube, eagerly awaiting the system's release. When I finally got it in my grubby little hands, I played endlessly for days and, even now, two years after its release, it's still one of the most enjoyable and best looking games for GameCube. I still play on occasion, attempting to get the last gold medals to unlock the final bonus mission. So, naturally, I was more than a little excited when "Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel" Strike was announced.
Again, I downloaded the videos and read all the previews. But this time, I was slightly skeptical. "Rogue Squadron 2" had been so phenomenal and had been so damn pretty, would "Rogue Squadron 3" be able to beat it? LucasArts and Factor 5 have now had years to perfect their GameCube development, but it is the same system. And, come on. We're revisiting the original trilogy AGAIN? After having had no less than fourteen hojillion games covering the same time period? But having played both the demo and now, finally, the release copy of "Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike" (I'll stop writing the whole damn title and just refer to it as RS3 from now on) I can stop wondering how it's going to be, and give my own review of the game.
Quickly, before I begin, I have to be honest. I have not yet explored every single facet of the game. LucasArts is one of the best companies for those who enjoy bonus extras. In the submenus of the "Options" section of the game, there are selections fo unlockable audio commentary, and it was recently made public that RS3 would contain not only the 1980 arcade version of "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" that the demo disk had, but also a version of the arcade game for "Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back." And, as usual, there are unlockable levels (such as rescuing Princess Leia from the 1st Death Star or escaping Jabba's sail barges) and there are sure to be unlockable ships.
But I've played enough that I can give an in depth review of the game. So, here we go...
CONTROLS:
"IT'S NOT IMPOSSIBLE, I USED TO BULLSEYE WOMPRATS IN MY T-16 BACK HOME!"
-Luke Skywalker, "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope"
We'll start off with gameplay. After all, that's what everyone says is most important. Graphics are, of course, nice, but a game can look pretty and still be abysmal. Rogue Squadron 2 had very controls that were easy to pick up. Your ship went forward, the left shoulder button slowed it down, and the right sped it up. 'A' shot your main gun, and 'B' your secondary, if you had one. Sure, there were ways to do barrel rolls and use your targeting computer, but the basics were simple.
RS3 has stuck to the same set of controls for flying ships (we'll get to on-foot controls in a second). If you were comfortable with Rogue Squadron 2, you can easily pick up a controller and get right into the action. All of the ships handle differently, keeping true to the original trilogy. X-Wings are a solid mix of speed and maneuverability, A-Wings are fast with tight turns and low shields, Y-Wings steer like a cow but can take a beating, and so on. Likewise, the Snow Speeders and Speeder Bikes handle very well and the Speeder Bikes give a really great sense of speed.
My one complaint, which I (and everyone else) had in the RS2 and was sad to see carried on to RS3 was the twitch factor of the controls. The GameCube control stick has a large number of usable angles that the console hardware can recognize. So why does the slightest tilt send my targeting reticle flying to the side of the screen? While it's possible once you get used to the controls, pin-point accuracy is still hard to obtain.
Now for the ground controls (and note I included the Speeder missions above, as they handle like ships). I was nervous when it became clear RS3 would include ground missions. I enjoyed "Shadows of the Empire" for Nintendo 64 a lot, bu
I preordered RS3 in order to get the bonus disc.
I'm now on the third mission of the game, and so far here are my impressions:
- The graphics are really nice.
- The cinematics are well-done.
- The menus and other prompts, as well as their music and sounds are **exactly** like RS2. This feels really cheap to me. Even the descriptions you get of the vehicles in the hanger appear to be word-for-word identical.
- The controls for the on-foot sections aren't very good. They are VERY sensitive, which is tough when the camera pulls back so far that your character is a tiny spot.
- Many of the same problems with RS2 are still present. My biggest gripe is the arbitrary three life limit combined with some missions which are relatively long, meaning you're going to play through the same sections over and over when you encounter difficulties late in a level.
- The speederbikes are really fast, but the one level with them I've played so far had a very short distance you could see ahead, which meant lots of crashing into things or off cliffs and having to replay the early sections of that level.
- The writers seem to be suffering from Badly Written Expanded Universe Novel syndrome, and coming up with unconvincing names for things. I'll have to see how this pans out.
- I am **really** disappointed that the RS2 missions which are included are two-player only. If they went to the trouble of improving their graphics, it would be cool to be able to see them properly instead of on a split screen, and then only when I can drag someone else into playing them.
Obviously I haven't had a chance to try out the whole thing yet, but my impression so far is that if this were released in the PC world, it would be a $30 expansion pack, not a $50 full game.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
You've been spoiled. Here's a tip yo momma should have given you: Never expect gifts.