After the first Death Star was blown to pieces at the battle of Yavin, young Luke Skywalker formed Rogue Squadron from the remaining energetic group of dedicated Rebel pilots. Along with Wedge Antilles, Luke logged 16 missions against the Empire before the Imperial invasion of Hoth ended that portion of his career. LucasArts invites you to take Luke's place in Rogue Squadron, and relive the historic adventures of a heroic young Jedi. Rogue Squadron consists entirely of flying and shooting action. As Luke Skywalker, you'll have five fighter ships at your disposal, including the Empire-eliminating X-wing and V-wing vessels. Each craft utilises the same controller configuration, but has its own strengths and weaknesses. You can choose a third-person perspective view that shows your ship's bodywork in all its glory, or opt to view the action from the cockpit.The sand dunes of Tatooine are crisp, and Han's home planet of Corellia is so realistic you can almost smell the sea. LucasArts and Factor 5 achieved these great visual effects by taking advantage of the N64 Expansion Pak to allow the game to run in Hi-Res Mode. Rogue Squadron's collection of cinematic sequences is easy on the eyes, but this game is more than just another pretty face. Die hard fans of the original Star Wars saga will be impressed with the variety and accuracy of the 16 missions found in the game. Wedge Antilles, Zev Senesca, Dack Ralter, and Wes Janson are just a selection of the Squadron elite who make appearances throughout the missions, and detailed character biographies are provided for those players who are not familiar with these Rebel heroes.All of the missions take place in authentic Star Wars settings which capture the scale and beauty of the original movie trilogy's locations. You and the Rogue Squadron will protect Mos Eisley from TIE fighters, destroy AT-STs and AT-PTs in the humid lands of Barkhesh, and use your tow cables to take down AT-ATs in Gerrard V. Missions range from the simple task of protecting supply caravans to the monumental effort of defending a city from the attack of the Imperial forces. With the exception of the cloud battle at Taloraan, the other missions take place close to the planets' surfaces. As you're destroying Storm Troopers, probe droids, and other threatening forces, you'll have to weave through canyons and avoid hitting the dirt. Keep an eye on your radar to locate enemies and avoid destructive dead ends.Rogue Squadron pilots who demonstrate exceptional skill while completing missions are rewarded with medals. As you collect Bronze, Silver, and Gold medals for each level, additional crafts become available for that particular mission. Gathering medals is no easy task, and provides significant replay value to dedicated pilots. The music in Rogue Squadron is just as impressive as the graphics, and contains new compositions in addition to the classic Star Wars theme music. Utilising "Interactive Music" technology, the mood and intensity of the soundtrack changes as the game unfolds.Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is packed full of voice samples, with narrative voices explaining everything from character biographies to craft descriptions. Mission objectives are also described verbally, and you can listen to the comments of your Rogue companions during game play. The developers invented a sound compression technology that squeezes data up nice and tight, allowing more sound to be packed into less space, creating a level of drama that will satisfy any Star Wars fan.

Original N64europe Review

Lucasarts is back with a game, Rogue Squadron, which seems to be a hell of a good game. In this game you have to fly your missions which makes it different from SOTE because in that game you had various kind of levels like walking, flying and hovering. Rogue Squadron is completely about the flying part of Star Wars, also to be seen in the title.

The story line of the game is quite cool because you get to be Luke Skywalker, you have to take his place in Rogue Squadron. After the first Death Star was blown to pieces at the battle of Yavin, young Luke Skywalker formed Rogue Squadron from the remaining group of rebel pilots. The game has 16 levels in which you have to stop the Empire before they can do an invasion of Hoth.

As luke Skywalker in the game you have got 5 ships available which are the X-Wing, Snowspeeder, Y-wing, V-Wing and the millennium falcon. They all have to same controller configuration, but they have there own strengths and weaknesses. Just like in SOTE in the first level, you can choose of a cockpit view or a third-person view to play the game.

The graphics of the game are great with the N64 Expansion Pak. I advice you to play the game with the Pak because it makes a hell of a difference. Without the Pak in Low-Res I think the game hasn't got very impressive graphics. But with the Hi-Res settings on the game has fantastic graphics.

All of the missions take place in big levels.. they are up to five times larger than in the first level from SOTE. Your Duty is to protect Mos Eisley from TIE Fighters and Bomber, AT-ST's, AT-AT's and AT-PT's. Those names will probably say more for a star wars fan than for the common teenager but believe me they can be hard to take down. The mission vary from the task of protecting to defending a whole city from furious attacks of the Imperial Forces.

The sound of the game are as the graphics very impressive. The game features a new kind of music technology named "Interactive Music". This technology can change the mood and intensity of the soundtrack as you fight your way through the levels. The games is also packed with voice samples explaining the missions and giving you comments during the game play.

I think this is game is worth buying for everyone, but I think that you'll need a RAM Expansions Pak to get the whole Star Wars feeling. Trust me, it makes the game much better!! With all the great graphics and sound of this game you'll be playing this game for weeks on!

- By Tim Symons