This was my favorite Star Wars game growing up in the 90s, even moreso than "Shadows of the Empire" from 1996.
After hearing so much fan praise for the Battle of Hoth mission in Shadows of the Empire in 1996, Lucasarts decided to expand on that successful formula and create an action/arcade style game centered around piloting a starfighter instead of another third person or first-person shooter, like "Shadows of the Empire" or "Dark Forces" respectively.
"Rouge Squadron" perfectly captured the starfighter combat seen in the movies. You control Luke Skywalker from the cockpit of a selection of five vehicles: X-Wing, Y-Wing, A-Wing, V-Wing, and Snowspeeder. There are also three bonus vehicles: the Millenium Falcon, an N1 Naboo Starfighter, and a TIE Interceptor. All the craft have differing weapons, speed, acceleration, and deflector shield strength. The flight controls were smooth and easy to get used to and you could collect bonus powerups to improve the capabilities of your ship.
There were 16 missions based primarily on the "Star Wars: X-wing - Rogue Squadron" comic series, while two of them are based on the Battles of Hoth and Yavin from the films. The missions were split into different segments with four possible objectives: search and destroy, recon, defense, and rescue. Throughout them, you'll battle a variety of Imperial forces, like TIE fighters, walkers, probe droids, and turrets.
"Rouge Squadron" was one of the systems first games to use the expansion pack, and it did wonders for the game, because it looked amazing for the time. You would see dimming/brightening engines of your fighter, smoke and flying debris from explosions, and sparks and light flashes from laser fire impacts. The landscapes were huge and well-textured, like Hoth's snowy fields or the Death Stars long, metal trench, and the structures, from Tatoonies homesteads to Corellias skyscrapers look great too, although the distance fog limited your field of vision.
The sounds and music were spectacular Star Wars classics, like laser fire, starfighter engines, and the metallic clanking of walker joints. The voice acting is pretty good; Bob Bergen pulls off a good Luke Skywalker while Neil Ross plays Han Solo. The soundtrack was a nice mixture of John Williams legendary Star Wars music and some original tunes from Chris Huelsbeck that captured the spirit of the films.
Overall, this was a great game that solidified the Star Wars franchise's popularity in the gaming community. Sure, the graphics are quite dated today, but the gameplay still holds up surprisingly well and I found it more enjoyable than the sequels released in the 2000s. You don't even need an old N64 to play it. Try it out on Steam and see how you like it.
