Reviewed: November 26, 2002
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Lucasarts

Developer
Factor 5

Released: October 21, 2001
Genre: Action
Players: 2
ESRB: Teen

9
10
10
10
9.8

Supported Features

Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike is the follow-up title to Rogue Leader, the game that was single-handedly responsible for more GameCube sales than any other title at launch. This was Nintendo’s HALO and the reason most of us were waiting in line at midnight back in November of 2001.

Rogue Leader pushed the limits of the GameCube and also marked one of the best (if not the best) console Star Wars game in the lengthy history of the franchise. Most games released last week still have trouble measuring up to some of the audio and visual feats of this mega-hit, but Factor 5 is going to try to one-up themselves with this exciting new sequel.

Rebel Strike revisits the original trilogy in both new and familiar missions that intersperse with the missions in Rogue Leader and events from the film. While Rogue Leader started with the destruction of the Death Star, Rebel Strike begins with a retaliatory strike against the rebels for that destruction. From there you will revisit Hoth, train with Master Yoda on Dagobah, and speed through the forests of Endor.

You get to fly all the popular ships from the movies like the X-Wing, Y-Wing, Snow Speeder, and for the first time in the series you can control Imperial AT-ST’s, speeder bikes, and even saddle up on a Tauntaun. Some missions allow you to pick your ship and many missions offer hidden tech upgrades that you can use to upgrade your shields, targeting computer, lasers, etc.

In a desperate attempt to make the gameplay more diverse Factor 5 takes you out of the cockpit for several on-foot missions. Those of you that played the Star Wars Trilogy in the arcade will have a good idea what to expect here. Unfortunately, I thought these were some of the worst parts of the game and really detracted from the overall experience.

Basically, you control whatever character you happen to be playing at the time in an on-foot mission where you run around with the analog stick firing like a madman at Storm Troopers, commandos, Imperial probe druids, or anything else that fires back. These missions have you moving from room to room or down narrow passages with a third-person camera angle that pans and follows you at a fixed distance. It’s very linear and very confined.

This creates plenty of problems since you cannot rotate the camera. You are forced to use the L-trigger to lock onto enemies that are often off-camera and the locking system is problematic at best. It doesn’t always lock onto the nearest target so you end up running around dodging laser fire rapidly pressing the trigger and the A button like some quasi-3D version of Robotron.

There are some other control problems when you are required to take control over a turret. These weapons don’t lock on and if you move the gun from its default position it slowly creeps back to center, so it is nearly impossible to maintain an extended aim on a ship. The Hoth mission has you trying to destroy three AT-ST walkers with such a turret and it was quite a challenge to find just the right amount of pressure to keep the targeting sight from drifting off-target. Why the crosshairs just don’t stay where you leave them is beyond me.

I commend Factor 5 for trying to evolve the franchise and take it into a new direction but the on-foot missions just seem out of place in what is traditionally an aerial/space fighter. It’s going to alienate a lot of existing fans and those who do like the pedestrian games like Jedi Knight will scoff at the primitive control and game mechanics.

One new addition that they did get right was the cooperative split-screen gameplay mode that allows two people to tackle all of the missions from Rogue Leader. This is certainly a welcome new game mode for those that enjoy playing alongside a friend. Personally, I don’t enjoy spitting my screen in half, and since the missions haven’t been redesigned to promote cooperation (other than ramping the difficulty) you end up playing the missions much like you did when you played it by yourself, only somebody else is along for the ride.

I never thought it possible but they programmers have managed to cram even more enemies onto the screen in Rebel Strike. If you thought the final battle over Endor was massive just wait until you see what they have in store for you now. You can’t swing a dead womp rat without hitting a Tie Fighter, bomber, or interceptor and the ground missions have all sorts of walkers, loaders, and troop transports plus plenty of individual soldiers of various classes.

The detail levels are excellent for the most part with the exception of a few characters that look rather plain. Terrain is stunning and the ship models and textures are dead-on thanks to the integrated support of LucasArts and their high-resolution source art from ILM’s digital archives. Everything has been taken up a notch so even when you revisit Hoth (which already looked amazing) it now looks 200% better.

Much of this improvement is credited to Factor 5’s new graphics engine that uses “light scattering” to create realistic lighting effects, both on the ground and in the air. Particle effects have been improved and water is much nicer and animated. Volumetric fogging is used to create wispy layers of clouds that create some intense combat as enemies fade into the mist.

Again, the only place the game falters is when you exit the ship. Obviously, the improvements were all geared toward the flight aspects of Rebel Strike and even though Luke looks convincing in his orange jumpsuit his animated movements are just primitive and jerky. Foot-mission graphics aside, Rebel Strike easily outshines its predecessor and is now the new reigning visual king and showcase title for the GameCube.

With the obvious quality in place we are left with content and Rebel Strike packs every millimeter of that silver disc with some of the best orchestrated music, sound effects, and quality dialogue of any game on any system. The music creates the perfect cinematic game experience during both the movies and the gameplay, while sound effects are easily recognizable and crystal clear with no obvious compression.

The two-player game modes support both versus and cooperative play. I found the versus mode a bit more enjoyable since it actually requires you to interact with the other person you are playing with. The cooperative mode is a nice bonus for those who have been patiently waiting for it, but the co-op missions still play the same so the novelty wears off faster than it should.

If you own a GameCube then Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike should already be inside it and you should be shooting down Tie Fighters. If you don’t own a GameCube you now have one of the best reasons to purchase one – assuming the recent price drop wasn’t enough. Choked full of quality gameplay, authentic Star Wars goodness, and loads of bonus content, this is the best Rogue Squadron game since the last one.