Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/18/review-star-wars-squadrons.html
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2 Likes
I love the game. One thing is a mystery to me, though. Why on Earth would you map the pitch to the flight stick and the roll to the rudder pedals? Luckily, it’ll take you 60 seconds to fix this oddity.
2 Likes
The game IS fun but frankly, currently is also a traditionally badly-buggy EA launch, as well, especially if you use VR. The inter-ocular distance is different for in-cockpit and external views, causing different scales to be perceived and the external view to be FAR too small, in relation.
4 Likes
I skimmed through the gameplay videos and was impressed but never saw a Death Star. Is there no Death Star?
2 Likes
AFAIK no but I’m a noob ^^’. It’s set after the destruction of Alderaan, but before the battle of Yavin/destruction of the first Death Star.
2 Likes
I don’t have the game, and this is pre-release info, so YMMV:
What Star Wars Era is It Set In?
The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Battle of Endor is over, and the galaxy is now looking for order. The game is set between the original and sequel trilogy, yet retains the classic aesthetic for ship and troop designs.
3 Likes
Yeah, I had to stop using the VR because it was a detriment to my ability to survive a mission.
The only value I found is that you can look around and see where the ship is “off screen”/not-right-in-front-of-you that you’re turning to attack. It was always a downside to the old Star Wars flight sims that you just followed the off screen indicator and turned until someone showed up in your field of view.
4 Likes
I’m guessing you mean roll on the rudder pedals? TIE Fighter was the same way (it only supported two-axis joysticks, but the axes were mapped to pitch and yaw, with roll requiring you to hold a button while moving the joystick.) I guess that way makes more sense in space, where there’s no up or down to stay aligned with. But on the other hand, fighters in Star Wars have always flown more like atmospheric craft than spacegoing ones, since Lucas based all the dogfighting on WWII films.
Yes, you’re right, roll is assigned by default to the rudder pedals. Corrected it.
I don’t agree that pitch to flight stick makes more sense in space. Your body would just as much be pushed to the side of the cockpit with each turn. But then again, the G forces would kill you instantly in the Star Wars universe anyway, if you would not suspend your beliefs in Newtonian physics, or assume there’s some G force compensator built into these machines. Also: sounds in space.
4 Likes
There’s enough spaaaaaace garbage in the space that sounds are real 
It’s the scavenger bots and gas that transmit all the XBass.
Looking forward to the rhythm-game DLC or bonus or Macross 7 crossover.
A Star Wars dogfighting game with no Death Star? Heresy!
I don’t care what era the game is set in, they still could have put it in as a “flashback” sequence or a “historical training simulation” or something.
3 Likes
Yeah, Star Wars makes no sense so just go with it. You just need to point your ship at your target, and it doesn’t matter if you accidentally end up ‘upside down’ since the flight model has no concept of absolute orientation/gravity, so pitch and yaw are the simplest way to do that. I tried switching to pitch and roll, and found it much harder to line up my targets in my crosshairs, but I don’t have a lot of experience playing aerial combat sims so maybe I just don’t have that muscle memory.
The real crazy thing for me was that the game defaulted to “non-inverted” pitch (pushing the stick forward caused me to pitch up, until I found the setting for that).
It doesn’t even have to be a flashback, just another new Death Star!
The Empire is obviously completely beholden to “Big Death Star” because of some contracts kick-back thing, or why are they always building new ones when they’re so easily destroyed?
I was totally disappointed when the last movie didn’t end with, like, three Death Stars.
Besides, who doesn’t want to fly down that trench? A Death Star campaign should be the first DLC.
8 Likes
“Every Star Destroyer is a Death Star now!” does kind of take away from the uniquely imposing spectre of a Death Star.
4 Likes
Yeah, I really wasn’t onboard with that particular plot element. If JJ wanted a fleet of destroyers there’s so many other things he could have done with it. Like have them team up and simultaneously bombard a planet into a burning cinder. (Oh no- without a single weak spot for us to target, how ever will we stop this terror fleet??). I think that leaving behind a burning shell of a planet rather than the overkill tactic of blowing it completely into dust would perhaps have been even more of a terrorizing message for the other worlds to see. But no, JJ had to go with that silly plot device where each old-fashioned original-style destroyer had somehow carried a high-tech gun that was equally powerful to the weapon of a space station that was thousands (or millions?) of times more massive.
4 Likes
Or each Star Destroyer is constructed around a deadly explosive payload and is crewed by Sith fanatics bent on flying the thing into a planet in a Kamikaze move echoing Vice-Admiral Holdo’s big exit in The Last Jedi.
Not only does it underscore how little regard Palpatine has for the lives of others (even his own followers) but it gives him a chance to guilt-trip the Resistance (“Like my evil plan? I got the idea from you!”)
3 Likes
8 to 9 hour campaign? Bummer, that’s a deal breaker for me. I prefer games that focus on long, complex, fun single player campaigns, with online play as a secondary offering. I’ll never be a fan of multiplayer modes for most games outside of the MMORPGs, and I obviously play few of those (City of Heroes was a notable exception).
“Grand Theft Horse” is so funny I’ve never heard that before
That would have been a good take! Lucasfilm should totally let random internet people like us write their movies for them.
3 Likes
Reading that first sentence felt like someone used a Jedi Mind Trick on me.
