Critical Brit #1: Star Wars: Squadrons Review

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…there was a game and its name was X-wing. An entire flight sim based in Star Wars with cinematics , story and all the soundtrack on a disk with less space than the images on this page and it was good.

Well 27 years later EA finally bust out the nostalgia with Star Wars Squadrons on X-box, PS4 and PC

After a short prolouge after the destruction Alderaan the main story is Set shortly after the battle of Endor it follows the adventures of the new republics Vanguard squad flying x-wings etc and also as a member of Titan Squadron of the Empire allowing you to get your hands behind the controls of a range of TIE ships.

I’ll leave the single player plot out as it may spoil it for some but it revolves around the secretive “project sarhawk” and features appearances form a few well (and less well) known characters. After a Briefing on the missions respective flagship you have a chance to chat to some of the crew and select loadouts for whatever ship you’ve been designated for each mission. Nothing too drastic but you can sidegrade several things to tweak performance to your preferences so you can have faster turning at the cost of a little speed or stronger hull at the cost of some turning agility. After that it’s off to the last place yet to be corrupted by capitalism… SPAAAACE!

Most of the game will be spent in the gorgeously detailed cockpits of one of the classic fighters from A wings to tie bombers with the job of flying through a series of missions. While managing your vessel and engaging lots of enemies. Visually and audibly the game is top notch and absolutely up there with the recent AAA battlefront games. As an old PC dork I started out playing squadrons with an analogue HOTAS flight stick and use keyboard for all the things you have to do in the cockpit such as diverting energy to engines, getting your astromech to do repairs on the fly and diverting all power to front deflector screens. This might seem like a lot to deal with but the game leads you in gently over a few missions introducing options as you play so as to not overwhelm new players. I did wonder how they would manage to cram all this onto a controller but having paired a PS4 controller to my PC it turnout they did it very well and it’s just as playable, It’s a flight sim but it trends towards arcade over realism and it hits a solid balance that’s skilled but fun.
Actually flying the ships is simple enough for beginners, with no gravity or air speed to worry about its just a case of pitching about to face a target and throttling in that direction. Rolling is done via the left stick should you want to orient yourself “up” compared to other ships but of course this is space so it’s only cosmetic unless you need to hit a certain area of a larger Cruiser or star destroyer. Advanced tricks can be used as your skill grows. Adjusting throttle and power distribution will increase your handling and speed but over time your shields will drain and your weapons will recharge slower so it’s all balance. Add missiles, counter measures, boosting, & extra sharp drift turns and it will take you a good while to really feel like you’re a budding Poe Dameron swooping close to a destroyer to take out it’s shields or whipping round after a tie interceptor before it can take out a wingman.

Overall squadrons is a fun time with the story running about eight or nine hours and multilayer extends this if you feel like getting your arse handed to you by online jedi ace’s too, But even if you only want the story mode the games midrange price point ($15-25 or £15-20) before any sales is not too intimidating.

It’s great to see a modern iteration of an old classic that does it all this well. The cockpits of the various ships is a comforting fun immersive place to spend a few hours. The only down side I can really say is the characters are maybe a bit bland, not bad at all but not exactly memorable. Here’s hoping for an expansion or dlc Misson pack soon.

Special thanks to our resident Critical Brit @Steboost

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