| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| PC | 8.40 |
| Overall | 8.40 |
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I grew up a huge fan of the X-Wing games back in the day, the level of depth of those games were incredible. Every ship system you can think of at your command using every key on a keyboard and the flight stick. Long epic games that last many many hours with loads of missions. Squadrons doesn’t quite match that level of depth or scale but it’s the first time in decades that we have a Star Wars flight combat game that had more depth than an arcade shooter. While a bit more simplified, Squadrons is a flight sim giving you much control over the ships systems and targeting that makes shooting not the only skill. You will shift power between systems, manage shields and engines, target individual ship systems and coordinate with your squad. It’s as close to the old games as we are going to get and they nailed it. Flying is a joy, each ship feels drastically different from one another as they should. I love the perfect balance of the x-wing and usually have the same reaction Poe had in TFA when he first flew a TIE, wow this thing can move! Combat is intense but the AI falls into some annoying patterns that are distinctly robotic. It still works as a single player game but clearly this is meant for multiplayer. The main story is like 8 hours long which is actually far more than expected. Fully voiced, well written story with great new characters and surprises. It’s a story told between two points of view, I don’t think the main character of each side really stands out, you mostly play a mute character so I wish that could have been fleshed out more but your squad mates stories more than make up for it. The missions are varied and totally call back the more interesting missions of the old classic games. I just wish there were more of them. I played in VR with a flight stick and holy shit it’s a dream come true. Being inside the cockpit and being able to follow an enemy ship with your head as it zips around your ship is unlike anything you can do in a normal game. There is a level or precision that can’t be matched when in VR. I wish the same could be said about the flight stick, the game launched with a terrible dead zone that ruined most stick play, it’s since been corrected but I feel it’s still off, I don’t get the precise controls as I do in a regular pad. The core of the game is the multiplayer and here is where it actually fails for me, it’s just two simple modes and the progression system is kind of trash. On PC matches are hard to come by leading to long waits for a match to start then a bunch of people quoting so the ranked match ends up not counting meaning you don’t progress, repeat. There just isn’t enough content here to justify spending countless hours on it. Yeah the thrill of online space combat is great but like any online game I get frustrated or bored quick. Squadrons could have been a stellar deep single player combat sim but it focused more on a multiplayer mode that does not seem to have the community support to be a long lasting game. It’s a damn shame because the gameplay and the VR mode is top notch. The game was $40 at launch and now can be found for $20, at that price any Star Wars fan should be looking to buy, I need people to play with. |
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Posted by Dvader Tue, 12 Jan 2021 19:40:36
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travo (2m)
Someone should mod co-op Rogue Leader levels into this.
Anyhow, good review. if there's an 8 hour campaign in there I might just buy it for the single player if I see it discounted.