Star Wars: Squadrons (2020)

Still enjoying the pew pew. The story is boring and the dialogue is terrible. The one-sided conversations with teammates are tedious and add nothing since characters are so one-dimensional that I'm surprised they are rendered in 3D in VR.

There are also a lot of lines referencing some of the politics of Star Wars, which I never understood or cared about; for me Star Wars is lasers, swordfights, dogfights in space and silly aliens. I ended just skipping most dialogues, which is something I almost never do.

Playing inside a TIE fighter now I realise why they get their ass handed to them every time. With no shields and severely limited field of view, they are terrible.

Honestly I don't know who designed the TIE fighter to not have ANY peripheral field of view, but Darth Vader must've force-chocked them to death when they showed it to him.

Play if your into flight sims like war thunder or microsoft flight simulator, or just a die hard star wars fan like me. Other than the graphics and the flight controls, nothing is impressive. Lego star wars the complete saga was better than this overall.

Graphics were absolutely beautiful. Like walking simulator beautiful. Flight controls were amazing. Maybe a little bit to responsive, but easily adjustable. Campaign? nothing to write home about. Mediocre. Enemy AI feels either super strong or super weak, no in between.

Overall mid game.

Steam Curator

The smaller price tag of Star Wars: Squadrons is indicative of a game that's both lower budget and smaller in scope that any of EA's other Star Wars games, but the true virtue of this title is how strategically applied that budget is.

The core gameplay and flying strikes a perfect balance between hardcore simulation and pick up and play arcade that manages to provide enough depth without being overwhelming.

Like the Death Star trench run, Squadrons is narrow but incredibly well executed.

"Review is for single-player only."

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan. Watched all the movies, played few games etc.

Especially i don't even enjoy these kinda space-shoter fps's (or whatevet you call) mostly. I don't like laser sound, i'ma bullet type of guy.

But...

This game did a really good job combining the space dog fight elements into the FPS genre.

Cockpit view is great. Gives you the feel.

Completed on 'Pilot' difficulty yet game is still challenging. You can go for harder difficulties if like or if you are not a noob like me in this type of games.

Story is okay. Fits the lore. Even if you don't know anything about the Star Wars, you can still enjoy it. You play as both Imperial and a Republic pilot.

Characters are fine. Acceptable in this universe. Good guys and the bad ones. Many dialogues and side characters you can interact with.

Customization is good for single-player. Serves as warm-up for multi-player.

Graphics are amazing. Visual effects are on point. Well, that's what EA for. So.

Sound effects are great. As i mention above, even though me being not a huge fan of laser sound, eveything else feels great. Explosions are tense.

Atmosphere is wooofff.

Overall, i really enjoy my time here. Couldn't find spesific cons.

Play it, it's a good, solid game.

Score: 6/10

Squadrons is a good, but very slender, game. The Campaign itself is passable with some fun cameos from the wider Star Wars universe but the missions essentially training you for the multiplayer and while you can talk to your squadmates the campaign is not truly crafted for you to actually feel like you're a part of them. The gameplay is first person only (which I don't love as I like third person flying better) and you get a kind of sim-lite version of the controls which is cool and adds depth but...it doesn't really hold up the mission design being a little bland. The VR aspect is REALLY cool if you can get it set up and afford the tech (Thanks to Gary for lending me his) but it also can give you a headache! The multiplayer aspect is fun but you really need a good squad to play with. For those looking for a good Single Player Star Wars fighter experience I can still recommend Rogue Squadron on Steam for $5 as a better time. It's got better missions, better music, and you play AS Wedge! Plus it has a lot of fun cheats!

Despite this game being pretty multiplayer-centric, I'm going to start by talking about the story mode because that's what I bought it for.

The story takes place not too long after Return of the Jedi, well before the Empire's final defeat. It's a pretty small scale conflict in the grand scheme of things, which I actually thought was nice. I love seeing Star Wars stories that focus on the normal(ish) people instead of just crazy Jedi stuff. Rogue One, the Mandalorian, all that stuff is great. While the story here was a far cry from the old X-wing books, it was still pretty good.

You flip-flop between the New Republic and Empire throughout the story, but the Empire segments were a lot more interesting. Being the good guy is the default in most games and the Republic doesn't really do anything you wouldn't expect. While that same sentiment is true for the Empire, I love seeing how normal people justify the Empire's monstrous decisions to themselves. "A Rebel attack killed my friends, so I'm fine with firing on an unarmed civilian transport that's helping the Rebels." The "might makes right" attitude of the average Imperial is just so much more relatable than, say, a dark side sorcerer-emperor with aspirations of immortality. Not to mention all the flashbacks to the classic TIE Fighter game.

All your squadmates, on both sides, get a little dialogue between each mission. While none of the characters really get enough time to be super well developed, they're not 2D. They have interesting backstories ranging from a Clone Wars veteran now fighting for the New Republic to an Imperial who wants to rise in her station and use that influence to recreate the Imperial Senate and start getting their government back in working order. Plus there are lots of little references scattered throughout these sequences, like Hera Syndulla showing up in several mission briefings and Alphabet Squadron getting name-dropped, which are always fun.

And then there's the combat. Ships on both sides are fairly balanced, this being a video game, as opposed to the in-universe standard of TIE fighters being cheaply made deathtraps compared to Rebel fighters. Each faction has a fighter, bomber, interceptor, and support ship. Plus the multiplayer later added in the TIE Defender for the Empire and B-Wing for the Republic, but I'm not exactly sure how those are classified given that they're not really equivalent in-universe.

Each ship can switch out main weapons, auxiliary weapons, countermeasures, hulls, shields (if they have them), and engines. Weapons can be switched out for different specializations, like anti-fighter missiles vs. anti-capital ship missles. Non-default equipment gives you some kind of trade-off to your stats, like lighter armor for increased speed and maneuverability but decreased health.

Of the little bit of multiplayer I've played so far, the game seems pretty fun but a little sparse. I played 3 quickplay games, got the Empire all 3 times, and my team lost hard each game. Still fun though. Managed to rack up enough kills to have a good time, although like any multiplayer game the team who has better coordination (i.e. mics) is going to win. Not a ton of maps and stuff, but I tend to get bored with multiplayer games fairly quickly when I'm not playing with friends and none of my buddies plan to pick this up. But if multiplayer is your cup of tea and you like flight sims, this seems like a solid choice to me. Between this and Fallen Order, here's to hoping Star Wars is back on track as far as making good games goes.

From the very first trailer, I realized that this is exactly the game that I have been waiting for. Combining the spirit of the old space simulators with the canon of Star Wars, Star Wars Squadrons is very good and definitely deserves attention.

What I was missing most though is the third person view. I'd like to have the option to switch to this perspective whenever I want. There should be more space aliens for customization. Also, more representations. Yes, Gunny and Gray turned out to be very good, but I would like to see more open representatives of minorities both in the game and in general, in the Star Wars universe. I was also hoping to see Grey's husband in the story. The Phoenix Squadron look does not match the Rebels animated series. I was hoping to see the blue-green camouflage of the fighters under Sato's command. Aside from these minor setbacks, at least for me, it's a good game.

I suck at this game. I'm really bad at keeping my distance, aiming at fast moving targets and making evasive maneurvers, but I had a blast with this game. Controlling an X-Wing or Tie Fighter was so complicated that every little achievement was totally rewarding. I really felt the pressure of managing so many things at the same time.

Also, lots of rewards earned in-game with no microtransactions!!! Like the old times!!

I also liked the campaign. Is a standard Star Wars plot, but it could have easily been a novel in the EU. It also has great cameos and references to TV series and books. As a fan of the franchise, that's extremely my shit.

What I didn't liked? That the matchmaking puts me in the same game with people 20 levels over me. I hope they fix that.

You can read my full review in spanish here.

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