"Use the fart Luke!"

Like dancing stars in twilight, squadrons of fighters desperately trying to outmaneuver one another fly precariously in the sky above a desolate planet. Bang. With that shockwave, several small fighters erupted into a heap of flames as they careened towards the planet below. In victory, the Rebel Fleet guided by none other than Luke Skywalker himself return to their home base, letting out shouts of praise in celebration.

Oh, if only it were that easy.

Despite the fact that Luke Skywalker is now a Jedi, he's still just your ordinary pilot, albeit with some sick force abilities. Compared to the immense might of the Empire, he has a long way to go if he wishes to free the galaxy from the evil man's grip. Some help does exist, though, and boy are they help indeed. Meet the Rouge Squadron, a group of highly trained ace pilots that run deadly strike missions against the Empire in an attempt to let freedom reign once more. These missions range from simple “I'm going to bomb you so please stay still” (although they almost always say no), to complex strikes against the Death Star itself. If they're lucky, they may even get to fly over a comfortable city armed to the brim with cannons pointed at them. Sounds fun, eh?

Unfortunately, their job is often anything but, but that doesn't mean your play experience has to suffer. Their experiences actually make for one heck of a game. Starring several regions from across the Star Wars universe, Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II pits you, the player, in some of the most fabled battles in Star Wars history. All of this is done from the perspective of the cockpit, a place that often entails some of the fiercest fighting known to man. Picture it, one small mistake and you're going down in a ball of flame.

Luckily, you have a way to influence that. By choosing one of several classic Star Wars space fighters (X-Wing, B-Wing, and Snow Speeder to name a few), you'll take to the skies and engage the hordes of enemy opposition that the Empire has sent in an attempt to stop you. Thankfully, you're not alone either. In true space fighter fashion, the player has the ability to control a squadron of Rogue pilots. With a simple tap of the control pad, an order can be given for several ships to align themselves at your wing. If you're daring, you can go it alone and tell them to fall back or disperse.

Let's face it though, who wouldn't want to have a couple of ships flanking them as they go about blasting down Empire ships? While not incredibly hard, Rogue Squadron does have the ability to be exceedingly difficult if you can't get a hang of the flight mechanics quickly. If you can, then you may be able to get to the last level with only dieing a couple of times. If you can't, then a trip to the codebook may become a necessary endeavor after some time has passed. How fast you can get the hang of the game depends on your reflexes, but let's just say that the quicker you are on the trigger button, the better. For the people that don't necessarily have the ability to get the hang of the game during actual play, the developers placed in a training level that sports basic fighter challenges for players to train in. Be warned – they're like a walk in the park compared to the real game.

However, the real game truly shows what Rogue Leader can effectively do. Control is extraordinarily tight, and it had to be in order for the excellent level design that was put in place to work. Picture a run on the Death Star Trench, for example. Just like in the movie, the game has the player bobbing and weaving through revolving walls with limited vision. Basically, it's either the solid controls or dumb luck that's guiding you, and my best guess is that your luck isn't what's doing it. Later on in the trench, after gunning down Darth Vadar, the familiar line of “Use the force, Luke.” comes into play signaling you to begin the annual crow shot at the tiny hole to blow up the Star.

After volleying off your payload of missiles, you'll either be treated to a scene of their demise or victory. Either way, you'll likely be astounded by the way that the game looks, if you haven't been already from the moving game play itself. Rogue Leader is still one of the best looking GC games to date, and that's a full <five years after it came out. How can something like that possibly be? Simply put, they took the time to make things perfect, rather than rushing it out of the shop. Each and every corridor, big or small, was perfectly paid attention to, which ultimately assured that even if the game play were a flop, the game would still look nice enough to garner sales. To top it off, the game play was excellent.

Picture it, you're flying over the Valley of Hoth in a Snow Speeder. The snow is rustling under your ship thanks to the engines on the back of your ship. Small droids are flying beneath you, all getting pounded by the turrets lining the walls. Just as you pass the cliff, you make notice of several AT-AT vehicles in the distance. So what do you do? Fly over a beautiful terrain, trying to catch up and preserve the lives of your men while doing a daring bounce around one of the monstrosities with your cable. In a few seconds, the monster falls down in a gigantic boom. That boom didn't come from anywhere either, it came from the sound.

Say all you want about the general nostalgia that comes with listening to old Star Wars tracks – that got old five years ago. The sounds that this game produced ultimately made it an enjoyable experience. When you fire off a gun, you'll hear a crackling sound followed by the hiss of the jettisoned particles. When you get hit, a loud whine will shriek out of your ship as you struggle to stay in control. When a ship passes you, it's engine trails will slowly buzz by. Sure, it is nice to hear the familiar “Duh, duh, dudududuh, duh, dududududuh, duh, dudududuh. And yeah, it is nice to hear that old battle theme. Those only go so far though, and the developers were smart enough to figure out that most gamers could really care less about them, especially newer players to the series that have never heard a Star Wars track in their life.

There are some problems, though, with the game unfortunately. You know that little qualm I let out about the difficulty earlier? Well, let's just say that that's only piddles compared to the nasty usage of visible objectives. Sure, they tell you what to do, but that's normally not even close to what they really want you to do. Guessing game in those conditions? Give me a break. Another unfortunate problem that often comes up has to do with the placement of actual enemies. In some levels they'll be all over the place, while in others you'll be dieing to find even one. That's all well and good, until you find out that that's the norm. In almost every stage available (save for the last two, they decided to dump them all there) you'll wind up flying around aimlessly waiting for the next cut-scene to pop up. When it finally does, you'll be treated to the next boring segment. Scout missions, generator blow-ups, and more all get boring. The problem is that when you take a game that relies on action to get its point off, and then go ahead and don't let there be enough action, you've ultimately got problems.

The redeeming quality of this game is that when you do come across a level that makes adequate usage of action, you'll really be in for a treat. Blasting down Empire ships can get intense, which is exactly what makes this game such an enjoyable experience to play. Couple that with the realistically reproduced Star Wars graphics and sound, and you have a winner. Action such as this doesn't come around too often, especially in a licensed game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/11/07