Star Wars Star Wars: Squadrons - space dogfight sim set after Return of the Jedi

[J_C]

Pretty sure this is going to have a MOBA like mode, they talked about your squadron joining waves for attack or defending their own ships. YOu first need to destroy enemy fighters (mid map moba fights) then their smaller capital ships (towers in MOBA) and then their main capital ship (tree in Dota).

Well in that case Unreal Tournament's Assault mode was also MOBA because in that you also had to meet objectives to win.

There is nothing MOBA in this, unless MOBA means that you have objectives.

And SP part will probably be super short

Unfortunately this will be probably true.

 

[Jarpie]

No need to play it, rebels won.

 

[Morgoth]

https://www.pcgamer.com/star-wars-squadrons-hands-on-the-flight-sim-weve-been-waiting-for/

Star Wars: Squadrons hands-on: the flight sim we've been waiting for
By Wes Fenlon an hour ago

Squadrons stays authentic to classics like TIE Fighter while adding in modern customization options.

After playing just a few hours of Star Wars: Squadrons, I'm mad that it's taken 21 years for someone to make a Star Wars flight sim again. X-Wing Alliance came out in 1999, and in some alternate timeline (or galaxy) we spent the 2000s and the 2010s playing a new X-Wing or TIE Fighter every few years, enjoying better graphics and physics and more elaborate flight systems with each upgrade. Somehow it took two decades for Lucasfilm and EA to remember that flying a damn X-Wing is cool as hell, but here we are, at last—Squadrons is proof that getting in a cockpit and blasting through a space dogfight is still one of the best ways to experience Star Wars.

It really only took a few minutes to assure me that the developers at EA Motive hadn't screwed anything up here. This is genuinely the 2020 reimagining of X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter I hoped it would be, with some beautifully rendered cockpits and combat arenas set around space stations and stunning multicolored nebulas.

While flying might be a bit more forgiving than it was in those games 20-plus years ago (I ricocheted off walls a few times without taking too much damage), this is still more sim than Rogue Squadron. It's first-person only. You have to actively manage your power system between shields, weapons, and engines to suit the moment; you can also rebalance your shields from front to back with a button press, which will help more skilled players survive dogfights. Aiming your standard laser cannons doesn't give you a leading target reticle that tells you exactly where to shoot, so you'll have to get a feel for that yourself, eyeing the speed and distance to your target.

Even turning takes finesse. Like a race car, at half-speed your fighter can make tighter turns, which is key for avoiding missiles or other players on your tail. While I didn't play Squadrons long enough for flying to feel second nature, a few months from now skilled pilots will be mastering the timing of decelerating to half thrust and turning 90 degrees to juke a lock-on, then jamming all power to engines to as they accelerate to get behind an enemy ship and shoot it to pieces.


Just dodging a missile felt like an exciting accomplishment in my play session, and I felt like a bit of a badass when I managed to quickly shunt power to shields and rebalance my front shields to the rear when I started getting shot, then corkscrew away from the enemy on my tail. It takes some coordination to do all of those at once, let alone follow it up with a kill.

I played Squadrons with an Xbox gamepad, because unfortunately the demo version didn't have full hands-on-throttle-and-stick support yet. A joystick definitely feels like it will be the right way to experience this game—though I did pretty well with a pad, it was still hard to wrap my head around moving efficiently in 3D space. But that's a big part of the learning curve for any flight sim, and I'm glad that Squadrons feels sophisticated enough that it'll probably take me many hours to really get good at it.

My Squadrons demo was focused on multiplayer, but there's also a singleplayer campaign, which you can play from the perspective of the Empire and the New Republic. I only played the prologue, but the developers told me that the campaign will have bespoke missions to go along with its story. That was reassuring, since Squadrons is a $40 game that seems largely focused on its multiplayer—I was a little worried that the campaign might just dress up the same modes with a few cutscenes in between.

That's not a knock against the multiplayer, though. The primary mode, Fleet Battles, is where players will be spending most of their time, and it delivers just the right scale and structure to make for exciting multiplayer showdowns.

Fleet fights
Fleet Battles are 5v5 matches, either online or with and against bots, that throw you and your teammates into a large scale, tug-of-war fight between two flagships. In between each side has a pair of smaller capital ships (which still dwarf your starfighters) that you have to knock out before attacking the flagship, and the battles are filled out with a bunch of AI fighters flying around. These increase the scale of the battle and mean you're rarely going to spend much time without a target, even if the other team's players are all respawning.

Fleet Battles are Squadrons' showcase mode, and probably what the majority of players will spend their time on. The other mode, dogfighting, is lower investment and a good way to learn the basics, but the scope and added strategy of Fleet Battles makes them a lot more engaging. It's a bit more straightforward than something like Battlefield 1's Operations mode or even Battlefront's Starfighter Assault, with neither team being explicitly on attack or defense.

At the start of a Fleet Battle, the two teams butt heads in a dogfight and start scoring kills against enemy players and AI TIE Fighters or X-Wings. There's a meter for each team's morale, and getting kills fills the meter up for your side (other players are worth a much bigger morale boost than AI fighters). Once you pass a certain morale threshold, you can move forward to attack the enemy capital ships, which are heavily armed and armored. If your team dies too many times, the meter will sway back in the other direction, and you'll have to go on defense and protect your own capital ships until you earn enough kills to go on the offensive again.


The final stage is attacking the flagship, which is a big cruiser for the Republic and a Star Destroyer for the Empire. Like in the classic Star Wars flight sims, to take down these ships you need to destroy certain weak points, like the shield generators and the power systems, so it's a multi-step process. And again, you can still get pushed back to defense if you lose too much morale (ie die too many times), and the turrets on the flagships can take you down really fast.

I like the structure of the fleet battles a lot, because they give each team a chance to make a comeback, and you can't just brute force your way to a win. Dying gives the other team points, so suicide runs are pointless, and attacking solo is a good way to get targeted by every turret on giant ship. Against another team of decent human players, teamwork and ship composition will be important—you'll have to attack targets together, and with the right balance of nimble A-Wings or TIE Interceptors and heavier-hitting bombers to make real progress.

There also seems to be a decent amount of strategy in how you approach each stage of the battle. Every few minutes each team will send an AI attack cruiser into battle that can help you push forward into enemy space. Destroying one of these is worth a lot of points on the morale meter, but they're also likely to kill you if you don't attack with a coordinated team, which would end up giving your opponents the advantage. Knowing how to capitalize on those will be important. On the flagships, there's no correct order for what you destroy first, so defenders won't always know exactly what you're going for. Plus, you're in freaking space—there are a lot of directions to come from.

Ultimately the Fleet Battles add just enough structure and scale to the basic act of flying a starfighter in Star Wars: Squadrons. And again, that experience is good enough to make me wonder what the hell took so long to make this happen.

Build your fighter

Long-term, Squadrons seems like it's relying on its ship customization system to create variety across hours of multiplayer. You can unlock a ton of different laser cannons, missiles, shields, even hulls for both the Republic and Imperial ships, and these seems like they'll genuinely transform the playstyle of your ship. One shield offers less defense but speeds up how fast your lasers charge. Another makes your ship take way less damage, but never recharges if fully depleted.

There are laser cannons that offer some auto-aim, but don't hit as hard. There are rockets that can't lock-on but give you tons of ammo, and others that take ages to lock on but can do big damage to capital ships. Any of these could really change how you approach each phase of a Fleet Battle, especially when you factor in playing with 4 friends with similarly tweaked out configurations. You could make a sturdier A-Wing or a faster, glass cannon Y-Wing, or swap ships mid-battle to counter a particular enemy player who's outgunning or outmaneuvering you.

Most of those parts were locked, so I didn't get to try out many of them. But the ones I did try made for some memorable moments. In my first dogfight rounds I picked the slow, boatlike TIE Reaper support ship, which let me throw out resupply materials for my teammates. Because I wasn't as maneuverable, I opted for the homing lasers, and racked up a pile of kill assists on fighters I helped whittle down. Later, in a fleet battle, I discovered the fun of the automated ion cannon, which zapped a TIE Fighter I was chasing, leaving it helpless for me to blast to pieces.

It'll take hours more with the game to get a good sense of how dramatically those ship parts affect the dynamics of a match, but I'm hopeful they feel like meaningful unlocks to chase as you earn points just for playing.

My one real worry with Squadrons is that Fleet Battles might not be enough to keep its multiplayer going long-term. I think it's a good mode. Plenty of competitive games, from Counter-Strike to League of Legends, have survived for years or decades on a single gametype (and hell, sometimes even a single map). But the spectacle of the battle, of being in a starfighter, is a big part of the appeal here, and after 20 years it's hard to be satisfied.

Squadrons is a $40 game, and the developers aren't pitching it as a games-as-a-service model where new stuff is constantly added. EA says it wants this to be a satisfying complete package from the start. I don't completely buy that—I think Squadrons is likely to get quite a few post-launch updates if it's a success, and I hope those add just a bit more scale and variety to the combat situations that I sense might be lacking right now.

Flying up to a giant Star Destroyer in my demo was an awesome experience—I can't overstate how great this game looks in the Frostbite engine, and how well the detailed cockpits ground you in the universe. But I'd love EA to bring in Super Star Destroyers or attacks on a space station, something huge that really sells how tiny your fighter is, in comparison. Co-op for the campaign, too, feels like a natural addition. I hope Squadrons gets the opportunity to expand, because what I've played of it so far is really promising.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...elivers-on-the-promise-of-a-modern-day-x-wing

Star Wars Squadrons delivers on the promise of a modern-day X-Wing

Stay on target...

Preview by Martin Robinson, Features and Reviews Editor

22 July 2020

Are we really getting a modern take on the 90s' outstanding X-Wing games, complete with that same nerdish detail and with the power and spectacle possible on modern hardware? All of it. It's all true. EA is indeed making a successor of sorts to Totally Games' beloved series, building an entire experience around the evergreen fantasy of battling in the skies of the Star Wars universe. And while Star Wars Squadrons is its own thing - developed by EA Motive, it's a stripped back and very modern game, complete with a whole heap of unlockable cosmetics and ties to the new Disney-sanctioned lore - the links to classics like TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance are deliberate and for old-timers like me mighty satisfying too.

The basics, though - you're taking charge of one of a fleet of iconic Star Wars ships, in one of two small squad-based multiplayer modes or in a single-player adventure. I got to sample the opening of that single-player adventure, which has a neat dual perspective - you choose two pilots and lightly customise their avatars, with one to fight for the Empire and one to fight for the New Republic, then see their fates intertwine over a short campaign. A tutorial is set shortly after the first Death Star blows up Alderaan before a short three year time skip places you in a story that takes in cameos from the likes of Wedge Antilles, Star Wars Rebels' Hera Syndulla and new extended universe star Rae Sloane.

Watch on YouTube
It's grand stuff, full of all the spectacle of classic Star Wars as you clear out mobs of fighters and thin out weapon arrays, all combined with writing that feels like it's been staled through several layers of approval as is the way with more modern Star Wars, though I think it's fair to say that the single-player isn't really the main focus here. Instead it feels like a neat way to become acquainted with the systems, and the delightfully sim-ish way the business of space combat is handled here.

The headline, for veterans of the X-Wing series like me at least, is that power management is very much at the core of the experience. You'll be juggling power between shields, lasers and boosters, empowering one at the expense of another depending on the situation, while also able to access overcharged speed and firepower by converting power. There are neat tricks to be found too, like double boosting then cutting the engines to enable a deft drift that sees you rapidly change direction - and most importantly, when pulled off at exactly the right moment in a dogfight, makes you feel just like Poe Dameron.

Which is honestly all you could ask for when playing a Star Wars game, and judging from a handful of multiplayer matches Squadrons has more than its fair share of exhilarating Star Wars moments. In dogfights it's there as you head out from the open stars into the hull of a spaceship and dodge its innards before bursting through the other side - hopefully, with a little skill, with the wrecked carcasses of your pursuers left in your wake. The basic five versus five skirmish mode has all this in spades, and if it's a little more depth you're after the Fleet Battles mode aims to deliver.

Here's where strategy comes more into play as you work with your squad to take down an Imperial Star Destroyer - or, if you're playing as the Empire, an MC75 Star Cruiser. There's some slightly convoluted mechanics underpinning it all - taking down AI enemies will help fill a bit of your team's morale meter, while taking down player-controlled ships will fill up even more, and when you've enough morale on your side you can perform a run on the opposing enemy flagship. What it ultimately means is there's a neat ebb and flow to battles as the frontlines move back and forth, and as assaults are carried out and seen off in equal measure.

Playing into that is a clearly defined class system that is, for Star Wars fans at least, self-explanatory. TIE Fighters and X-Wings serve as the all-round fighter class, while A-Wings and TIE Interceptors perform a slightly different role with their increased speed and agility. TIE Bombers and Y-Wings are your bomber class, and an extra twist is provided by the support class that features Rogue One's U-Wing and TIE Reaper, both able to repair allied ships while disarming enemy attacks. It's all complemented by a fairly effective targeting system that lets you easily switch between ships and is quick to let you know where your next prey may be, as well as a ping system that's indispensable when figuring out how exactly to take down a flagship with its various systems of defence and attack.

There's a deep enough toolset for some serious strategies to emerge (though I admit I didn't exactly master any myself in my short playtime) and it all suggests that Star Wars Squadrons' Fleet Battles will provide an engaging multiplayer experience, though there are still a few small reservations. It all feels quite slight, as if it's a part of some bigger package that's been cut loose. Maybe that's in the aftermath of Star Wars Battlefront's Fighter Squadron and Starfighter Assault modes - both of which didn't offer quite the same amount of depth here, but that still offer some of the same fundamental thrills. Indeed, the slimmer price point of Star Wars Squadrons - this is coming in at around £34.99 - feels indicative of that.

You'll unlock cosmetics and components for your ships via two in-game currencies known as Requisition and Glory - the latter of which you'll earn through the likes of Daily Missions.
Some small gripes also emerge during play, though nothing that can't be fixed in the weeks before release. HOTAs support remains a fuzzy area for console, and even in the PC build that's offered up for demo it's not currently available which suggests controllers are first in mind for Star Wars Squadrons players - which, as a grumpy old veteran of Ace Azzameen's campaign, feels like the wrong priority. Still, the mouse and keyboard support that I settled on for this first playtest certainly did the trick, while a controller was also faithful to the nuance of managing one of Star Wars' iconic ships.

VR support - which will be featured through the version of Squadrons - is also something we can't sample just yet, which leaves me keenly anticipating seeing how full HOTAs support and a headset come together with the detail and spectacle of what EA Motive's delivered here. I'm also keen to see where exactly the campaign can push the action, and how creative the mission design can get - while also a little sceptical whether a slew of cosmetic items and ship components (all unlockable with in-game funds - after being burnt by Battlefront 2, this is a strictly no microtransaction game) can lengthen the appeal of the two multiplayer modes on offer. For now, though, Star Wars Squadrons really does deliver a decent enough take on some of the same things that made the X-Wing series so cherished - and I'm more than happy with that.

After Jedi: Tarzan Fallen Order, could this possibly be another good Star Wars game?

 

[Ninjerk]

Changing ships mid-flight?

And what is this morale meter bullshit?

 

[vonAchdorf]

After Jedi: Tarzan Fallen Order, could this possibly be another good Star Wars game?

Unlike Fallen Order, it's multiplayer focused so I won't hold my breath.

 

[Morgoth]

After Jedi: Tarzan Fallen Order, could this possibly be another good Star Wars game?

Unlike Fallen Order, it's multiplayer focused so I won't hold my breath.

Maybe, but they haven't really shown anything of the campaign yet, so fingers crossed.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[warpig]

Seems gay and lame. I think I'd rather replay tie fighter for the nth time that play this crap, no thanks :/

 

[Morgoth]

Doesn't look too shabby. But I'm concerned about mission design and writing. Space sims get boring fast if they don't excel in these areas.

 

[warpig]

They are probably going to simplify the mission design. As for the writing...prepare for some gay ass netflix style writing and cringey characters :/

 

[J_C]

It's fast paced, which is a good thing in a Star Wars sim. Looks great, sounds great, I just hope the missions will be decent.

Although at 2:30 - Tie Fighters do not have jump drives.

 

[warpig]

The empire hired black genius scientists and hyper-smart transsexual engineers and now tie fighters have jump drives.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Morgoth]

So now the Rebels are being depicted as heinous and the Imps as noble.

EA just keeps getting more

 

[Alienman]

Rebels fear the samurai.

 

[Tehdagah]

So now the Rebels are being depicted as heinous and the Imps as noble.

EA just keeps getting more

From my point of view the Rebels are evil.

 

[J_C]

So now the Rebels are being depicted as heinous and the Imps as noble.

EA just keeps getting more

Rooting for the Empire against Rebels goes back a long way.

This CG short was amazing, but I already feel the wind of disappointment when the full game will have just a shitty short campaign. Fuck you EA, I want a fully dedicated campaign ala X-Wing Alliances. But no, you will probably focus on multiplayer and make a barebones singleplayer story.

 

[Morgoth]

The fact that they have fully mo-capped characters already ruins the game. Probably more than half of the budget went into this.

Voice-over only and a lengthly, intricate campaign? B.. but that would have been sooo archaic, lament the scrooges, graphics whores and whiners.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I'm really confused as to why suddenly Disney and to an extent EA must make the Empire Diverse. They forgot the Empire was based on Nazi Germany.

 

[J_C]

They forgot the Empire was based on Nazi Germany.

Do you think Disney/EA knows anything about Star Wars?

Although having diverse human characters is not a problem IMO, since the empire was always pro human, they were only against aliens and xenos.

 

[Tehdagah]

IIRC Lucas based the Empire on American imperialism.

 

[Morgoth]

IIRC Lucas based the Empire on American imperialism.

Well, Hitler gotta had to get his ideas from somewhere...

 

[Drakron]

I'm really confused as to why suddenly Disney and to an extent EA must make the Empire Diverse. They forgot the Empire was based on Nazi Germany.

They are morons that fail to understand iconography, there is a reason why the Empire cast was entirely done by male British actors as the Rebels were by Americans and why Stormtroopers only had one voice.
But this is from the same people that did "Battlefront 2" so this should come as unexpected, hilariously by trying to be "inclusive" all they are doing is making the Empire less monstrous that it was and so justifying the Emperor ... I guess it wont be long until we have wymyn Wookiees as Stomtroopers and then Palpatine victory will be complete.

 

[Morgoth]

https://www.gameinformer.com/review...wars-squadrons-review-roaring-with-excitement

Star Wars: Squadrons

Star Wars: Squadrons Review – Roaring With Excitement

by Andrew Reiner on Oct 01, 2020 at 07:00 AM

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Motive Studios
Release: October 2, 2020
Reviewed on: PC
Also on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One


A hail of green laser fire rips dangerously close to my X-Wing’s cockpit as I rocket through the debris of a downed Star Destroyer. A TIE Fighter gives chase, and my astromech unit alerts me that a missile strike is imminent. I put my X-Wing into a spin and dive through a narrow gap in the wreckage, narrowing scraping a wall. In this moment, the Star Wars fantasy of piloting an X-Wing screams with excitement, showing how thrilling the dogfighting between the Rebellion and Empire can be. Developer Motive Studios has created a fantastic multiplayer experience that has the visual detail and edge-of-your-seat thrills of Star Wars’ epic space battles, but only fires direct hits in the online space, struggling to captivate with both its single-player content.

Star Wars: Squadrons is set after Return of the Jedi, with the second Death Star scattered to cosmos and the Empire retreating while looking for ways to strike back at the Rebels. This era gives us the cool ship designs from the original movie trilogy, but with more firepower than Luke Skywalker had at his fingertips. Whether I was in an A-Wing in a hunter role against a TIE Interceptor or a Y-Wing on a bombing run against an Imperial flagship, each craft feels distinct and is a blast to control. The movement is so smooth and precise that you can skip along the surface of an asteroid and safely snake through a space station’s interior without dinging the hull. And even if you do, the game is forgiving in damage, allowing you to quickly correct the flight path.

Unlike most space shooters, Squadrons is only playable from the first-person perspective. This is an odd design given just how iconic these ships are, but the locked viewpoint makes sense given how many systems the player has to monitor at any given time. Rather than littering the HUD with these meters, most of them are visible within the ship’s cockpit, and they all function admirably, allowing for quick reads on ammo, radar, and most importantly, how power is balanced throughout the ship. With a click of a button, the player can adjust the power to favor shields, weapons, or speed. I was constantly switching for various needs, and it always feels great to get that extra boost in the thrusters or to rattle off more laser blasts to down a TIE or A-Wing.

The loadouts of each of the eight ships can also be tweaked in a number of ways, such as switching a steady laser to burst fire or giving up hull integrity for shields. The number of components that can be swapped is fairly deep, allowing the player to tweak performance in a number of strategic and satisfying ways.

No matter what ship I was piloting, the one-on-one battles against other player-controller ships are almost always intense. These duels can be quite long, as the targeted vessel can make a run for it, dance every which way through cluttered airspace to dodge laser fire, and perhaps get the upper hand and start firing back. If an opponent is shielded and at full health, you’re in for a good fight. Missiles will be dodged with countermeasures, and repair kits used to get health back. The maps are also nicely designed, providing surprisingly cluttered areas for the harrowing chases and open space that can be used to lure enemies into traps if you are coordinating with your teammates.

The online multiplayer in Squadrons is limited to just two avenues of play: Dogfight, which is wildly fun and is determined by kill count, and Fleet Battles, the heart and soul of this experience that delivers awesome wars of attrition. Fleet Battles flow to a moving front that forces you into offensive and defensive positions. Victory is achieved when your opponent’s flagship is destroyed, which takes time; victory can come down to barely visible slivers of health on both opposing flagships.

Both multiplayer modes are 5v5 conflicts. The small number works well for dogfighting, since the maps accommodate it. Fleet Battles could use more players, but the scale feels massive thanks to the healthy presence of A.I.-controlled ships, many of the larger variety. Both modes deliver plenty of exhilarating dogfighting moments, gorgeous backdrops to fly against, and iconic Star Wars music and sounds to set the tone.

After a match concludes, experience points are accumulated and currency is handed out to purchase new cosmetic items for both your ship and pilot, including goofy bobbleheads which are always viewable in the cockpit. The player can use a different earned currency to buy new ship components to add even more depth to the loadouts.

I love EA’s stance of not having microtransactions or DLC, but the well of unlockable cosmetics is surprisingly shallow, and relies too heavily on alternate colors for the same item. I only had my eye on around a dozen items, and the unlock time isn’t extensive. While multiplayer is great on its own and has depth in just being fun to play, not having that carrot dangled in front of you to get new stuff you care about hurts the drive to play more.

While Squadrons’ single-player campaign introduces a number of cool Star Wars characters, most of the story is told as they stand around in a hangar or at the briefing table. It doesn’t have much of a pulse, even though the narrative setup of a mysterious “Starhawk” project is quite good and remains an intriguing focus point for the entire arc. When plot is delivered mid-flight, the dialogue is rough and lacks impact, and certain moments could be framed more clearly.

Flying all of the ships in the single-player experience remains enjoyable, but the enemy A.I. doesn’t put up a good fight, and is the worst part of the entire game. The A.I. pathing is also a mess. Watching a TIE Fighter fly directly into an asteroid and then slowly spin on its axis to get free made me cringe. Some of the set pieces are good, but most of the campaign missions play out like mini tutorials, teaching new tactics even late into the game.

All of Squadrons’ content is fully playable in VR, and is a perfect fit for this medium. Through a headset, the battles feel like they are much larger in scale (even though they’re exactly the same as on TV), and I loved being able to sneak a quick glance at my astromech unit whenever it chirped. A variety of flight sticks are also supported, though I did not play with one for my review. EA included a full suite of accessibility options, and crossplay is supported for all systems, including VR.

Squadrons’ single-player may fizzle out frequently like a malfunctioning hyperdrive motivator, but the multiplayer continually impresses and is worth the price of entry alone. Flying in formation with a group of friends put a smile on my face, and that was just the calm before the storm. When the lasers start flying, Squadrons’ multiplayer can be nothing short of exhilarating and a great test of skill, pushing players to be clever in the cockpit to outthink and outmaneuver opponents. Given just how enjoyable it is to pilot an X-Wing or TIE Fighter, this is a multiplayer experience I will continually go back to, even if EA doesn’t support it with new content. It’s just fun to play, providing something different compared to most of today’s competitive games.



Star Wars: Squadrons
The multiplayer delivers huge thrills, while the single-player struggles to hit the target.

Purchase More Info
8.25

Concept: Set after the events of Return of the Jedi, this space-combat game tells a new story, and wows with its multiplayer
Graphics: Even though it’s all set in space, each map has plenty of variety in the backdrops and navigational spaces. The amount of detail in every object is excellent
Sound: The iconic soundtrack and effects cannot be beat and are in full force. Some of the voice acting is a little overblown, especially when trying to sell drama from the cockpit
Playability: Dogfighting with an enemy and lining up that perfect shot feels fantastic. The controls are excellently crafted, and the ships are all powerful in different ways
Entertainment: The single-player campaign teaches you the ropes, but achieves little else. Multiplayer is always fun and is exactly what it needs to be to wow Star Wars fans
Replay: Moderately High

 

[vonAchdorf]

Time to dig out my Thrustmaster? It does have joystick support, right?

I played Squadrons with an Xbox gamepad, because unfortunately the demo version didn't have full hands-on-throttle-and-stick support yet. A joystick definitely feels like it will be the right way to experience this game—

Did that change in the release?