Star Wars Squadrons

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

New aerial combat game, based on some science fiction thing or other.

It's going for a surprisingly low 35 quid on the Playstation store (and also on Steam, I hear - I don't know about Xbox) which put it into impulse buy territory for me.

I've no idea how reliable IGN are supposed to be, but they gave it a good review. Favourable comparisons were made to the '90s X-wing and Tie Fighter games, although it's obviously not going to be as in depth as those. It's shit hot in VR, apparently, although I got dizzy enough playing Ace Combat on the big telly, so I'm not sure I could handle it.

I've got it downloading currently. I shall post my first impressions once I've given it a go. I'm sure you're all waiting with bated tenterhooks.

[Wonderful Butternut]

It's solid enough, and the power distribution mechanic does work well, especially in single player where distributing to shields in attack runs on capital ships and quickly switching back to lasers a little before they run out of charge keeps you alive and dealing out damage fairly well.  I'm still tweaking the joystick settings to my liking. It doesn't help that I haven't used one in a while and haven't got much discipline with it. I'm inadvertently twisting it and engaging the roll axis way too much.

Didn't get absolutely stuffed in my couple of forays into multiplayer. Speed seems to be the most important aspect there.

Think they snuck a non-binary character in under the radar. Little tidbits about your co-pilots come up during loading screens and one of them is referred to with neutral pronouns. When I noticed it, I kinda thought the character (who I previously assumed to be female) is a bit androgynous alright. Waiting for the anti-woke rational gamers to explode about that.

[brat-sampson]

I loved Rogue Squadron, the Rogue One movie had me itching for a new one.

Is this that?

[frajer]

Going for less than thirty quid most shops now. Very temped for an impulse buy too. Something for the weekend sir? Yes, flying a spaceship and shooting lasers into the bad sods, please.

[bgmnts]

Think they snuck a non-binary character in under the radar. Little tidbits about your co-pilots come up during loading screens and one of them is referred to with neutral pronouns. When I noticed it, I kinda thought the character (who I previously assumed to be female) is a bit androgynous alright. Waiting for the anti-woke rational gamers to explode about that.

Imagine being annoyed about a nin-binary character in a universe with worm headed aliens, flying wasp Jews and big fat slug gangsters.

Anyway, I didn't even know there was still a market for these aerial shooter games, that's good!

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I think there's a market for anything with the Star Wars brand on it, which makes the relative d[e]arth of games in the last few years seem all the more odd. There was also a new Ace Combat[nb]Science fiction story, but with real fighter planes[/nb] game last year that I had a lot of fun (and vertigo) with.

[evilcommiedictator]

They've fixed HOTAS joysticks now at least, last week it was like trying to manipulate mud as the deadzones were screwed.

The single player is teaching you all the controls for multiplayer, it seems odd that there's only the two multiplayer modes as well. A console game designed for them in mind, as even with 10 buttons, 4 axes i have some controls unmapped


Imagine an ADHD X Wing vs Tie Fighter, with unlockables as you play

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

How is the single player mode? I don't have a PS+ account currently, nor much inclination to get one. As I recall, the 2015 Battlefront didn't actually require PS+ for online play, but I quickly grew tired of it anyway, since I would invariably get killed about two seconds after spawning in.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I loved Rogue Squadron, the Rogue One movie had me itching for a new one.

Is this that?

It may be too early to give a verdict, but maybe. I remember Rogue Squadron on the N64 very fondly and this is certainly not suffering from the comparison.

I've played the first couple of missions. Enjoyable stuff so far, if a little repetitive. I'm hoping there will be some planet based levels to mix thing up a bit. I expect most gamers would balk at a more linear level structure, but I wouldn't necessarily mind a more Starfox like experience. I seem to spend more time spinning around, trying to locate the enemy than I do shooting them.

The power management and shield focus mechanics are nice additions. Just complicated enough to keep you on your toes in the heat of battle, without being annoyingly fiddly.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

The more I play this, the more I get the sinking feeling that I'm not really enjoying it all that much. I know it's meant to be a bit more of a flight sim sort of experience, so maybe I'm just playing it wrongly, but the balance of combat just seems all wrong: No matter which ship you're flying, the handling feels sluggish (like a wet sponge). Meanwhile the enemy fighters all zip around like cats on speed and the range of your weapons is so small that you only get about a two second window to attack before they disappear from view and you're back to spinning around. Attacking capital ships is no better, since their shields wrap around them so tightly that you basically have to park right next to them and try to destroy the shield generator, while the turrets make mincemeat of you.

And, for the love of Space Jesus, why is there no 3rd person view? Outside of VR, first person driving/piloting has never, ever, been a good idea.

[Kelvin]

And, for the love of Space Jesus, why is there no 3rd person view? Outside of VR, first person driving/piloting has never, ever, been a good idea.

That's what I thought looked annoying about the game. A TIE Fighter cockpit might look cool in a film, but who in their right mind would want to play like that in a video game?

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Not I, that's for sure. There is a free look control, but it's useless, requiring a double click of the R3 button to activate and taking away pitch and yaw control while it's on. Baffling.

[evilcommiedictator]

They've said that they're not going to add in any more content (said, mind you), which seems odd, because it still feels a bit shit, and I'm sure there are people who've done the meta and worked out what the best loadouts are and will paste me in about two seconds whilst I'm still trying to work out which buttons I'm missing on my HOTAS (seriously, 12 buttons, 4 axes and a hat is not enough), and playing against AI seems really, really random in terms of difficulty

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I ended up switching the difficulty down to Easy - not because I was finding the game too difficult, as such, just tediously time consuming. With the enemy health lowered and a measure of auto aim to mitigate the controls, things instantly felt a lot more fun. I was swooping close to capital ships and picking off gun turrets in a single, graceful pass, just like in the films. Less dog shite, more dog fight.

It's still not great. The missions and level design remained repetitive throughout. A few planet based missions would have added some welcome visual and gameplay variety.

It's frustrating, as I feel like there's unrealised potential here. I mean, basically, I want another Rogue Squadron, which this ultimately falls short of.