Use The Force Luke

Back in the N64 days, on the Christmas that Star Wars Rogue Squadron came out, my Grandmother had pre-ordered it for me to make sure I had a good Christmas. Once I opened up the game and went into my Grandparents bedroom to pop it in the N64 that I gave my grandfather for his Birthday, which was the month before that Christmas, I ended up playing the game for six straight hours, and had unlocked all the levels and had a silver medal in almost all of them. The only level that I can’t get a gold on now is the last level. But anyway, Rogue Squadron had totally grabbed my attention from everything else in the world, and dragged me to keep playing until I got all the gold medals.

Now that the sequel, Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II, has released on Game Cube, all the fun and challenges of getting a gold medal on each level is back.

Go After Those Fighters!
There’s not much new in Rogue Leader, aside from all new levels, smarter AI, and drastically improved graphics. In Rogue Leader, you can pick from a choice of 5-6 ships including the A-Wing, X-Wing, Y-Wing, Snow Speeder, and the newest ship to come aboard, the B-Wing. As you progress through levels, you’ll eventually unlock the Millenium Falcon and a Tie Fighter.

There are ten levels to fly through with each level having certain tasks to complete to finish a level. When you initially start a level for the first time, only one ship will be allowed to use. But once you’ve passed the level, you can go back and use any kind of the craft, aside from the Millenium Falcon and Tie Fighter if you’ve not unlocked them yet.

A very familiar medal system returns in Rogue Leader, only this time, missions are a million times harder to complete and easier to be killed in than the first game, so most Gold and even Silver medals will give any gamer a challenge. Something new added to the medal system in Rogue Leader is the points valve. If you earn a Bronze medal, you get three points, Silver and you get 6, or Gold and you get 10 points. The points are used to unlock hidden missions like the Attack on Yavin missions where you pilot Darth Vader and his Tie against the Rebels, and the Millenium Falcon mission.

When you get a medal on a level, and then you go back and do it again, only this time you got a better medal, the points won’t be added on as extra, but your previous medal points will be replaced by the new medal points.

Quick! I’m hit!
Each ship has a pair or two of laser cannons that is used as the main weapon against the Dark side. Each ship also has a secondary weapon like proton missiles for most ships or the Ion Cannon used by the Y-Wing.

Maybe you CAN teach an old dog new tricks
In the first Rogue Squadron on the N64, the AI Ties were stupid as can be. LucasArts has changed that and gave them more smarts so you can have some intense aerial dog fights, and actually have a challenge to getting rid of a loose Tie on your back. I’ve failed many missions because of one stupid Tie Fighter that always seems to find me and takes my back end. I guess you could call it tail-gaiting, only for a ship.

All of the action in Rogue Leader takes place in dog fights either deep in space, or in the atmosphere of a planet. Most people may never tire’ of the mid-air fighting however. There is always a challenge to improve yourself each time you complete a mission.

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Graphics
Outstanding! Greatly improved over the original Rogue Squadron which even then had good graphics thanks to the Expansion Pak, so one can’t imagine how good they are here. The only level that really interested me from the start is the Trench Run. The surface of the Death Star looks like it does in the movie with all the gun placements, Ties, and about a billion lasers flying through the air.

Then there’s the actual part of the mission where you fly in the trench, like in the movie, to send some proton torpedoes into the reactor. The graphics look so smooth and they truly show off the power of the hardware inside the little Game Cube.

When you look closely at the ships, they’ve been detailed so well that almost every nook and cranny is visible. Especially the X-Wing, the developers must have spent more time on it than anything, because I compared the game X-Wing and the X-Wing in the movies, and they looked completely identical. No rough edges, R2-D2 even looked like he was a complete replica of the original R2-D2.

The graphics of the explosions have been considerably upgraded to what an explosion should be. Realistic fire followed by flying ship parts from the explosion. A lot of games now and days just use red and orange jig-jags to represent an explosion, and Rogue Leader explosions to those game explosions, is like comparing a Nuclear Bomb to a fire cracker.

Level design was very precise and I saw no defaults on the levels. The frame rate was very steady keeping between 50 and 60 fps and never dropped low enough to cause slow down in the game, even if there were about twenty explosions or hundreds of Ties fighting on screen at once.

Control
After playing Rogue Leader on the Cube and Rogue Squadron on the N64, I noted big improvements in steering the ships especially. The N64’s controls were tighter and caused for harder turns, while the Cube’s was loose and able to turn with incredible precise.

The “A” button is used as the main action command, and the small “B” button below it is your secondary command. When in heavy fog or you don’t know what obstacles you’re suppose to blow up, you can pull up an X-Ray unit to see everything in a different color, literally. Enemies are in purple, and enemies that are yellow are crucial to the games mission. So head for them before you start on the less important purple ones. But be prepared, a Tie could all of a sudden be vital to mission completion all of a sudden.

One thing that sucked in the original Rogue Squadron is the intelligence of your buddies. They would shoot at one Tie for minutes and still not hit it. Now in Rogue Leader, with the help of the small D-Pad, you can give your wingmen certain commands, and they’ll do it, and actually use common sense while doing it. If you’re being swamped by a bunch of Tie Fighters, then have your wingmen go after them and help you out. Sometimes giving commands to your wingmen could be the difference between a successful and failed mission.

Sound
“Sickness sadness and despair, people dying everywhere” You’re flying torwards your mission objective, your job is to destroy the Death Star, but you hear a faint screaming coming from behind you, it gets louder and louder and louder until a Tie Fighter comes out from behind you. If you have surround sound you’d feel like you were there, actually in the cockpit in the Rebel Alliance vs the Dark Side.

Explosions are everywhere, whether it’s a Tie blowing up one of the Rebel’s Transports, or you blowing the crap out of a group of unsuspecting Ties.

You can hear voice overs from the Rebel fleet in certain situations like in the Trench Run, you hear Obi-Wan Kenobi say the most famous line in movie history, “Use the force Luke.” Others like “Cover me!” or “Direct the surface fire away from me.” Even the character of Wedge Antilles makes an appearance in the game, giving Wedge his voice through the game.

Laser sounds sound like any Star Wars laser gun would sound, “Pshh Phew Phew Phss.” To make a summary of all I’ve said about the sound, is if you have surround sound, you’ll be in heaven, no surround sound? Just turn the TV up.

Overall
Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II is a worthy sequel of the N64 hit, and has made a name for itself on the Game Cube. Rogue Leader is a must own and should be in everyone’s household, along with Super Smash Bros Melee when it comes out December 3rd.

~Happy Gaming