Rogue Squadron 3 is an excellent addition to its series, regardless of some relatively minor flaws.
User Rating: 8.6 | Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike GC
To conceptualize Rebel Strike, think of Rogue Leader. Now, upgrade the graphics. Now throw in multiplayer, a co-op mode, and a new single player campaign spanning 20 levels. Still with me? Now add speeder bike segments, as well as on foot missions and mech combat, and you have the basic idea. The graphics in this game look great - I can't stress that enough. Using a brand new game engine optimized for peak performance on the GameCube, Rebel Strike runs much faster than its predecessor, and does that while at the same time significantly enhancing the visuals. All the models are very high polygon, and have self-shadowing. There is a liberal use of bump-mapping used throughout the game, and a new lighting system has also been used. There is a "viewtiful" new shining effect used on many of the objects in the game as well, making everything quite pleasent to look at. A new "light scattering" system has also been used to simulate light bouncing off dust particles in the atmosphere, bringing a whole new realm to the levels' visuals which simply wasn't there before. This game has tremendous value. To start with you get a whole new single player campaign that is larger than Rogue Squadron 2 alone. Then, you also get a two-player co-op mode of the ENTIRE ROGUE SQUADRON 2 game in addition to that. On top of that, there are multiple multiplayer modes to take advantage of as well, including dogfights, races, rampage modes, etc. And there are also old star wars arcade games packed in for good measure. And all of that is wrapped up nicely in a graphically overhauled star wars setting. When it comes to flaws, I think they could have used a little more time to iron out a few things here and there. First off, there are two separate occasions throughout the single player game where a level has been split in two, and had a piece of an incomplete level thrown in. This is sort of hard to explain, but if you've played through those parts, you'll understand what I mean. It would have been nice if they had completed those half-done levels and then also kept those split levels as single levels, the game structure would have been much more organised that way. The mech combat is great - no complaints there, but the on foot portions needed a little more work. Maybe more lightsaber-weilding levels and with more moves included, rather than so much shooting with a pistol, the gameplay experience could have been greatly improved in that area. Also, the subplot could have used a little more work; but if there was no time to fix that, then maybe Factor 5 should have just scrapped the minor subplot to the game with Sarkli and such, and just focused on the overall picture of the war against the Empire like its predecessor did. All in all, Rebel Strike is not perfect, but it is just as good as Rogue Leader in every single aspect, and then also greatly improves over it in practically every way. 
