STAR WARS™: Rogue Squadron 3D

Properly jumped for joy on seeing this available on DD at last. I'd barely fired the game up when the problems began. Inexplicable blackouts on the main menu, with the action quite happily freezing during the hangar (so instead of moving onto the mission the ship just hangs there bobbing up and down). Even if you do get into a mission it doesn't end there, with the camera moving at a fraction of the speed of the ship. Hitting the afterburners sees your ship disappear far off into the distance, never to be seen again. Even better, the game has just given up entirely, and crashes upon launch. Complete and utter insult to fans of the CD original to release it in this state. Sort it.

I was initially very hyped for this game as I am a huge fan of the second one, but upon installation I have run into some problems. Every time I start the game it goes to a black screen and nothing else once I get past the intro videos. I have to open the task manager just to get out of it. I have updated my video drivers and re-installed the game and have come to no-avail.

This game is very broken. Game is stuck in full screen and cannot be alt-tabbed. When I start it up on my laptop I just get a black screen with music and need to ctrl+alt+delete to close it. On my desktop I got the menu with no music, and it just crashed when I tried to launch the first mission.

Can confirm this runs on 64-bit Win10 build 1909 - all Win10 updates have been installed as of this date. I didn't bother with the default installation folder, and installed to e:\games programs\ with no ill effect. For my Xbox360 USB controller to work, I had to turn off OS compatibility, and I disabled all DPI scaling (let the application set) for good measure. The game flips resolution modes a lot (menus are in 640X480), but when the video mode is set to 1280X1024 in the game settings, and I start the game, my monitor goes into 1920X1080 and displays the game screen correctly with a 4X3 aspect ratio. Looks very nice...

Long have I awaited the day that I would see this title pop up on GoG... And today, it's finally here. I will admit that this review is more or less biased towards the positive because of my situation at the time. This game dragged me through my very exhausting school finals of 1999, even though I'd only play for an hour a day after each exam, after which I'd continue studying late. I was immersed in RTS games and the cRPGs at the time. Yet, after trying Rogue Squadron on recommendation of a school friend, it caught me completely by surprise how good it was (hence the title of this review). I actually learned to appreciate the Star Wars universe thanks to this game. The music, the sound effects, the story (which borrowed heavily from the Expanded Universe) and the controls made for a very immersive experience. Graphics were good for its time (running even on slower/less powerful graphics cards). I remember feeling nothing short of thrilled when, after getting a bronze medal in all missions, I unlocked the Millenium Falcon (which flew as you'd expect; very bulky, but very fast with lots of firepower). The sequels for this game that were released on GameCube did not do it for me, even though the gameplay is roughly the same. But this one did its job, and I loved it dearly.