Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D

With clear mission goals and easy-to-fly spacecraft at your command, Star Wars--Rogue Squadron 3D offers hours of player entertainment. It has an arcade-style sensibility, scoring your success in each level with a gold, silver, or bronze medal. Enough medals translate into promotions and access to better technology. The action takes place over planets established in Star Wars film and comic book tie-ins; this, when combined with the familiar Star Wars music and sounds, renders pleasing--almost homey--familiarity. The worlds and ships are drawn in meticulous detail, right down to effects like dust plumes that rise from the deserts of Tatooine when you're about to crash into the sand.

Unfortunately, the game allows single-player action only, with no multiplayer options on either a local network or Internet. Some players may find this disappointing. But for fans of the movies or anyone looking for high-flying solo fun, Star Wars--Rogue Squadron 3D may be exactly what you seek. --Alyx Dellamonica

Amazon.com Product Description
In Rogue Squadron, your missions take place during the time between Star Wars: A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Your superior officer, General Rieekan, briefs you on your mission objectives and advises you on tactics that will help you defeat your Imperial opposition. Wedge Antilles and other Rogue Squadron members are your wingmen on your missions, which range from rescue and reconnaissance to search-and-destroy campaigns.

The range of games is astounding. There are strategy games (Rebellion), spacefighter simulations (the X-Wing series), arcade-like sims (the Rebel Assault series), role-playing games (Jedi Knight, The Phantom Menace), and "a long time ago," there was even a PC version of the Star Wars Atari arcade game.

I have owned quite a few of Lucas Arts' PC based games, including several of the ones I mentioned above, including Rogue Squadron.

Rogue Squadron places one in the role of Luke Skywalker during the time between Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, when he is focused on being a fighter pilot for the struggling Rebellion.

Rogue Squadron is a hybrid, part sim, and part arcade game. As in the X-wing series, players must learn to fly such Rebel starfighters as the T-65 X-wing, the A-wing, the Y-wing, and so on up to Han Solo's Millennium Falcon. Also as in the X-wing games, players fly a series of missions linked together in a story arc. Unless one has "cheat codes," a player must complete each level (called a Chapter) mission by mission. The more one increases in performance and skill, the more ships one can fly.

Unlike the more "realistic" simulations, Rogue Squadron has arcade game conventions such as multiple lives, fixed situations, and less complicated flight controls than its X-Wing stable mates. X-Wing veterans will attest to having to refer to the manual at least when first playing the game, and - of course, if you got killed on an X-Wing mission, that was it...no extra lives. Rogue Squadron, while still very challenging (I am still on Mission 3 of Chapter 1) is more of a "hook-the-joystick-up-and-play" game, with really nice 3-D graphics and great sound. (Most players will probably enjoy flying from the default "exterior of the ship" view, although I prefer the more simulator-like "cockpit" point of view.) It runs great on my e-machines T2200 with Windows XP, so if one has a good Windows-based platform with a good video card that can handle 3-D graphics, this is still a game worth getting, even if it is older than Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds.


hooking, fun game   May 12, 2002
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

Rogue squadron is one of my favorite flight simulation games. It has a bunch of levels that are not only hard, but can take a long time. I don't like how the game is put together with the computer version. I like the N64 version better. The controls are exelent on this game and the realism is fantastic. I highly reccomend a joystick, though, or the game will be dificult to control and use. I hope you find this useful.


Disappointing   March 20, 2002
 1 out of 2 found this review helpful

If you are used to the top cockpit simulation games (such as the X-Wing/Tie Fighter games and Mechwarrior 3 and 4), then this game will be a bit of a disappointment. The controls are simplistic, particluarly compared to the awesome X-Wing Alliance. The graphics are just ok, and the gameplay is more akin to a arcade shooter than a real PC sim.

If you are looking for a game that will give you the thrill of flying an X-Wing (or a Y-Wing, an A-Wing, a B-Wing, or even the Millenium Falcon) then buy X-Wing Alliance, or the classic X-Wing and Tie Fighter games.