Factor 5's getting damn good at this "Star Wars" game thing. "Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike" is its fourth "Star Wars" title (have you already forgotten "Battle for Naboo"?), and it continues the trend of improving on its predecessors. This time, you even get to take a friend along.

Everything that has a beginning... Oops! Wrong trilogy

"Rebel Strike" begins with the destruction of the first Death Star. The camera pans down from the yellow title crawl and the space station blows apart. You're then thrown into a frantic battle to defend the evacuating Rebels from an Imperial counterattack on Yavin IV. The ship combat is familiar, and "Rogue Squadron" veterans will find little difference in the way the game plays. "Rebel Strike" does look prettier thanks to new lighting techniques used in the level environments.

Stepping out
Halfway through the stage you're introduced to the newest and biggest addition to "Rebel Strike," the on-foot stages. Luke and Wedge hop out of their X-Wings to go into the Masassi Temple and save some Rebel muck-a-mucks who got themselves trapped by invading stormtroopers. As is the case with most of these segments in the game, this stage is highly linear, fairly short, and not much of a challenge. The characters control well enough on foot, and it's nice to break up the vehicle combat here and there, but the time spent outside the cockpit is a decent diversion at best and innocuous filler at worst.

Thankfully, the vehicle sections are faster and more intense than ever. After the defense of Yavin IV, the mission tree splits, and you can follow Wedge or Luke on their wacky blaster-filled journeys to the Battle of Endor. You'll find yourself flying all manner of Rebel fighter craft, piloting speeder bikes, commandeering AT-STs, and even infiltrating an Imperial compound in a stolen TIE Hunter craft.

Tours of duty
Wedge's missions are mostly Expanded Universe stuff featuring planets not seen in the original trilogy. Wedge even stops at Geonosis to blow up some battle droids and salvage a Jedi Starfighter. Best of all, the Jedi Starfighter includes sonic mines like the ones Jango used to shake up Obi-Wan in "Attack of the Clones." The speaker-rattling sound they make is replicated perfectly in the game.

Luke's stages follow the movie fairly closely and include two stages that take place entirely on foot. They're not very long, and they're exceptionally easy to earn Ace Medals on if you put in a little effort. This is useful if you're trying to rack up points to buy bonus stages.

Flashback
Buy those bonus stages. They're all directly related to the films, and they include the escape from the Death Star, the escape from Hoth, and the escape from Bespin. Do you see a trend? These stages feature the best uses of the out-of-the-cockpit gameplay, and they have some cool sections that let you fly the Millennium Falcon through famous movie scenes.

The audio and video in "Rebel Strike" ooze quality. The highly detailed vehicles and terrain look great, and the characters are good re-creations of their big-screen counterparts. Especially impressive is the speeder bike chase through the Endor forest, which manages to create a clear path for the player to follow without ever making you feel like you're being channeled down some magically convenient speeder bike-size path.

A long time ago, in a galaxy trapped in the '70s
Audio is excellent, as is usual in "Star Wars" titles. The surround work is impressive. If you can, play "Rebel Strike" on a good surround sound setup. The inclusion of the disco version of the "Star Wars" theme is quite possibly the best thing ever.

Also note that the film scenes interspersed throughout "Rebel Strike" are likely the best-quality original trilogy footage we'll see until the release of the DVDs. The ending even uses the original "Return of the Jedi" finale with the Ewoks' "Yub-Nub" song, which may never see DVD.

You can be my wingman any time
"Rebel Strike" features a robust multiplayer mode. The co-op play takes you and a second player through the entire "Rogue Leader" game (minus the two Imperial bonus stages) with rebalanced difficulty and many more enemies. Even "Rogue Leader" experts will need to brush up on their teamwork to survive. A versus mode with many different competitive gameplay options rounds out the split-screen goodies.

As if that weren't enough, all three of the original "Star Wars" arcade games from the 1980s are unlockable bonuses. There's a ton of content in "Rebel Strike," and the multiplayer gives it replayability far beyond that of the previous "Rogue Squadron" games. Don't hesitate to add this one to your collection.
"Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike III" (GCN)