INTRODUCTION
Our next mission was to look over the latest installment in the Rogue Squadron series. Since the NHL won’t, can Nintendo impress us once again and pull off a hat trick with Rebel Strike? Will we be throwing down $50 for a mini Frisbee? See what our thoughts are about this game as we take off with Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles to fight for freedom in Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike.

DIFFICULTY
WedgeWannaBe: It seems that the software designers kicked it up a notch and made the game much more challenging this time around. For example, capital ships require longer salvo to take them down. Sometimes the best bet is to pour all your proton torpedoes into the capital ship, get killed, and then repeat. Otherwise, your objective may be lost while you continue to pound on the capital ship with your blasters. The ground-based missions are very tough, but not from a skills perspective. For example, just getting your character to aim at the enemy let alone your intended target can bring tears to your eyes. Too often, you end up running in circles shooting at anything that moves. If there were a good camera set up for the ground-based missions, than these missions would be a real walk in the park. Besides that certain aspect, Rebel Strike is very comparable to Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader. With a little creative thinking and mission analysis, any of these missions can be beat without much effort.

Sand Snipe: This game does not have very much difficulty. All the ground-based missions are a snap and the piloted missions give some challenge, but not much. As WedgeWannaBe said, you can afford to lose a life just to refill your missiles rather than taking the time to shoot the target with guns. The ground missions left me confused, because I found myself shooting in every new room I got in. The only level that presented a challenge to me was the “Speeder Bike Chase” level, because you have to pay attention to where you are going and shoot Biker Scouts at the same time. All the other missions required very little thinking.

GAME PLAY
WedgeWannaBe: Anyone who has played Rogue Squadron or Rogue Leader would be right at home in this game. The menus and craft selection all work the same way and have even improved a little. The storyline seems to take a fork in the road right off the bat and you can follow Wedge Antilles or Luke Skywalker through various groups of missions. This is a worthwhile change of pace that most gamers should appreciate as it gives you a little variety within the storyline and gives you some flexibility, by giving you another path to work on if you get stuck on one level.

As with the previous two Rogue Squadron games, the space battles are fantastic. The addition of the TIE Hunter vehicle is much appreciated. While the vehicle isn’t the best for many space battles, it is nice to test drive something new. The space battles follow the previous two installments in that you are either blowing something up or protecting it. Once again, it seems that the protection escort missions are the most difficult as your team’s AI acts like they’re a few pancakes short of a full stack. Your wingmen try to help out with the enemy craft and guns, but seem to just get in the way more than anything else. The disappointing aspect: I was really looking for an improvement over Rogue Leader for this feature.

The ground-based battles are painful at best. Just like a “Do-It Yourself” Root Canal Kit, this was a bad idea. The camera work is terrible here. How this program got out the door and into retailers is beyond me. I found that for many of these missions, the melee or berserker method worked better than taking your time and aiming. Just remember to keep running and shooting. With all the multiple enemies you have to gun down, you’re bound to hit something. If you are in the AT-ST, just let the enemies come to you otherwise you end up walking around looking like you’re under the influence. I’m very disappointed that they couldn’t have done more here when they already had a successful system with The Shadows of the Empire game.

Sand Snipe: I also like the fork in the road system. The level select is the same, but you now have three different levels to choose from. I never really had trouble with any mission so I found myself just finishing the first three then moving up and finishing the other three. The bonus missions are pretty fun this time, including one with you in a Stormtrooper outfit trying to find Princess Leia. Some missions were just a waste of time though, like “The Sarlacc Pit.” This level had no point; you jump from skiff to skiff, kill the bad guys, jump on the Sail Barge and kill more bad guys. That’s it! I beat it in a little over a minute and it really takes no skill. The only thing it did was reward the gold medal and the remaining points to unlock my bonus mission. Last is the way you pick your ship. Just like in Rogue Leader, your character has to walk over to the ship you want to choose. The bad part is that there are some ships way in the back that you have to walk to, so it’s kind of a waste of time. However, it is fun to have your character dodge roll to his ship.

The vehicles are cool and there is a lot more variety than in Rogue Leader and Rogue Squadron. The A- wing is a lot better this time. It’s fast and while its guns may not be that powerful, its secondary weapon has lock on missiles. The B-wing is a little slow, but has good firepower and the missiles are just average. The X-wing is still the same; it’s the best start off ship because everything about it is average. The Y-wing is still slow, but its firepower is a lot faster now and its bombs are more powerful then ever. The Snowspeeder is as good as it will ever be. It still has its tow cable, average speed and firepower. The new enemy ship that you can drive is the TIE Hunter. It is fast, has speedy firepower and pretty good missiles, so it’s not too bad for a rookie.

The ground-based missions not only let you shoot Stormtroopers, but also allows you to drive some cool vehicles. The Speeder Bike is fun to drive, it has little firepower but it is really fast. The AT-ST is pretty impressive as well. The firepower is decent but it has great lock-on missiles that kick the crap out of other AT-STs. The only flaw is you have to hold a certain button to make it walk. In one mission, for a slight time, you are able to drive an AT-AT. It walks by itself and is nothing to get excited about. It only has the power to shoot and the aim on it is bad, but I’m sure they could have done better with this. Last, the hand-held weapons: your character has a regular old blaster with bad aim, but has a powerful grenade as your secondary weapon. With a Lightsaber in hand you can block blaster fire and slash, but that’s about all you can do with it.

AUDIO
WedgeWannaBe: I was looking for some big improvement here as I felt this was a weaker area with Rogue Leader. However, what I got was character voices that seemed even farther off from the original than in the previous games. Wedge doesn’t sound like Wedge at all. Crix Madine does not sound like Crix Madine. Luke doesn’t sound…well you get the idea. About the only characters whose voices seem to match are the astromech droids. Aside from that annoying point, the sound effects are on par with Rogue Squadron and Rogue Leader.

Sand Snipe: There is nothing special about the audio at all. As WedgeWannaBe said, no one sounds like they are supposed to and everything else is the same as the previous two games. There is really nothing good to say about the sound quality in this game, I actually liked Rogue Leader’s audio a little better.

VIDEO
WedgeWannaBe: The use of new ships and other craft really impressed me. The Imperial Escort Carrier is a true thing of beauty. I was very impressed on how all the main gun turrets moved independently. All this while a capital ship is performing twists and turns to position itself within striking distance of my team’s Nebulon-B frigate. While this brings light to a positive improvement in the series graphics, the camera for ground-based missions casts an even darker shadow on the entire game. What in the world were the software developers thinking about when they sat down to create this aspect of the game? Not only is the camera awkward and out of position most of the time, but they didn’t even include a first-person aspect option. I think that this would have been an easy and common sense thing to do when it has already been done so many times before. For a game coming out from LucasArts, I expect so much more. After all, Super Mario’s developers were able to do it on the Nintendo N-64 game system years ago.

Sand Snipe: The visuals are great in this game, and it seems like it may have had a little improvement. The ships got touched up a bit, especially the ships you can’t use, but the backgrounds got a lot better. I really enjoyed the Imperial Escort Carrier, as it just looks really weird. For the first person issue, I really didn’t care about it. I play the way the camera is already set and the only time I even notice the other camera views is when I push a button on accident. The graphics on the ground-based scenery is OK. I do like the “Speeder Bike Chase” level because it is really cool to have to look out for the forks in the road made by trees.

MULTIPLAYER GAME PLAY
WedgeWannaBe: The multi-player co-op game is OK because it finally gives you some 2-for-1 shooting, as you are flying the old missions from Rogue Leader. The Death Star battle is fun as there are just swarms of TIE Fighters to shoot down, but that’s about where the fun ends. I was wondering why they couldn’t give us true co-op ability like in Halo or Halo 2. Granted, the ground-based missions would have looked like two blindfolded guys chasing a piñata, but it would have been there for the choosing. I was severely let down after selecting the co-op missions. However, the versus set up is another story. If you feel like just pummeling your best friend while buzzing the towers of Bespin, then this is perfect for you. The craft selection, as well as the battle setting is a real blast. This could also be used if you are just bored and trying to touch up some basic skills. For those trying to perfect their gunnery skills, I recommend trying the Geonosis level and going after the smallest asteroids. Either way, this is a good time. I wouldn’t go out and buy the game for this feature alone, but it definitely adds some value and signifies an improvement over the previous two games in this series.

Sand Snipe: Multiplayer is nothing special, especially if you have already beaten Rogue Leader. As WedgeWannaBe said, there are plenty of TIE Fighters to blow up, but that’s it. There are some decent bonus missions to unlock that are not part of Rogue Leader but getting a medal in co-op is hard. Versus isn’t quite as difficult, but after awhile that gets old. Besides that, there is really nothing else to do. The whole multiplayer feature makes it a little better, but it still needs improvement.

REPLAY VALUE
WedgeWannaBe: If you just wanted to replay the space battles and pass on the ground-based missions, than this could be considered to have replay value. However, I’d rather throw fifty dollars into a golf course and play 18 holes while driving a golf cart. This is saying a lot, as I don’t play golf due to the fact it upsets me so much. On the other hand, there is a co-op ability that has some promise. You start out back in the Rogue Leader game at the Battle of Yavin. There’s nothing spectacular about this mode, but it does allow you to have some fun shooting TIEs in a little friendly competition with your friends.

Sand Snipe: The game has some replay value as you can unlock some cool stuff by winning medals. Each medal gives you points and with points you can unlock three bonus missions by getting all bronze, silver, and gold in each level. Doing this unlocks Star Wars “arcade” games. They have bad Atari-based graphics, but they are fun. There is also commentary to unlock for all those people who like that kind of stuff. As for the multiplayer, there is some replay value too. It has the Rogue Leader game in it, but the great thing is there are bonus missions to unlock in there too. That’s if you can actually get a medal.

FINAL THOUGHTS
WedgeWannaBe: Overall, I was expecting more out of a game that had two really successful predecessors. The addition of a multiplayer feature isn’t enough to overlook the gross shortcomings of this game. Between the awkward camera and bad voices, I’d have a hard time throwing down the money for this game. Rebel Strike is a rental at best. While the game isn’t a terrible loss or blemish on the Star Wars universe, it definitely did not live up to my expectations.

Sand Snipe: I thought they could have made this game a lot better. The voices really threw me off, and the easy levels don’t make it any challenge. The multiplayer is really something LucasArts needs to fix, and it’s not really worth it for this feature. Save your money and just rent it instead of buying it.

GRADING SCALE