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Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader Review - Gamecube

A long time ago in a cinema far, far away... Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope was first screened. Being a surprise hit, it saw the creation of two sequels and two prequels with a third prequel in development at the time of this review being posted. Ignoring the prequels, Factor Five have taken it upon themselves to release a new Star Wars game on the GameCube just after GameCube's launch in the US and Japan. For Australia and Europe though, it was released on launch date and proved to be the favourite of all the launch titles. But with so many bad Star Wars games released over the years and with only a handful of excellent Star Wars titles being released, can Factor Five's Rogue Leader be one of those excellent titles? But more importantly, can it live up to its prequel?

Gameplay

Rogue Leader sees you play as Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles in the cockpit of star fighters seen in the original trilogy and also, you'll have to face the Empire in some of the famous space battles of the galaxy. The star fighters consist of four major elements that will vary depending on the ship you choose to fly in the mission you select. These elements include: primary weapons which are always twin laser cannons; the secondary weapons which have a limited ammo supply but tend to be more powerful than the laser cannons; R2 unit capability which repairs your star fighter over time; and the overall handling of each different ship. The handling of each ship is what makes Rogue Leader a true Star Wars game because no matter which ship you choose to complete the mission with, they'll always be very different from the rest. However, Factor Five have reassured that you get a go at each different fighter because in every mission, you must first complete it with a particular fighter. However, once you've earned yourself a medal for that mission, you'll find that you have been given the reward of being able to do that very mission with other craft.

The medals are rankings that are giving to you once you've completed a mission within certain conditions such as enemies killed and the amount of time it took you to complete the level fully. In all, there are three types of medals which are Gold, Silver, and Bronze. However, showing off how well you completed that level is not the only cause of the medal system. The medals also have a point system that enables you to unlock hidden level. You see, once you earn a medal, you'll gain points which are tallied up and providing you have enough, you'll unlock the level(s) you want but be warned that once you unlock the level, you'll loose the very amount of points that took to unlock it. The medals are actually a lot of fun to obtain because when you finish the level, you'll be shown all the requirements (continued next page)