Sir Taxalot wrote:
I really wanted to like it, as the idea of a shooty space combat game really appeals to me, like the best bits from Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars and stuff. I quite liked the original Rogue Squadron on the N64 for example - but a lot of that had defined boundaries I guess, you knew where the ground was.
But I didn't really get on with the game too well. There was a hell of a lot going on all at once, which isn't a bad thing but a bit bewildering at first. It mostly felt like just chasing the ion trails (or whatever you call them) and firing homing missiles at a marker on the screen HUD. I felt a bit detached, combat didn't feel meaty or close enough for me. I'm going to try again, but I feel it probably just isn't for me.
There is a hell of a lot going on at once, yes - though never really more than in a TIE Fighter mission (though, this game being Japanese, everything is stupidly agile and seems to move faster.
The dogfighting against the swarms of generic fighters is a bit dull - which makes fire a swarm of homing missiles off and killing a dozen great. Which is a nice change from having to painstakingly kill a bunch of weak-as-fuck TIE fighters in X-Wing one by one.
The combat gets plenty meaty and close later on as large capital ships become your primary focus... or at the very least, wings of dangerous heavy bombers.
I have to admit, I didn't really think I liked it at first from the demo. It was really hard, hard to tell what was going on and I kept losing. Once I figured a few things out (especially the targetting system, which is stupidly easy given you either double tap to target what's in your sights or hold it to target the nearest enemy) I stopped worrying about the controls and started worrying about the game... and the rest was great.