Title: Star Wars Rogue Squadron
Publisher: LucasArts
Platform: N64, PC
Released: 1998
Played from: 1998-2000, 2009
Have you ever been reunited with something you treasured from your childhood, only to find out that it just lost its magic sometime between when you were seven years old and the present day? Rogue Squadron is not an example.
The N64 is something of a legend among gamers who, like myself, grew up in the 90s. Sure, it had its share of blunders and flops, but it was home to many of the finest games ever created. Unfortunately, I was not one of the lucky kids who got an N64 for Christmas, so I played this fine game on the PC. Truthfully, I think flying games were better when played with a joystick designed for flight sims, anyway. I was an avid Star Wars fan in my youth, and I played this game endlessly from about third through fifth grade. While cleaning out my room a couple years ago, I decided to boot it up for old time's sake and see if it was as much fun as I remember it being 11 years earlier. Here's my take on it.
Overview
--------------------
So, what is this game? Simply put, it is a Star Wars flight sim. You fly around in one of eight flyable aircraft to blow up bad guys, save good guys from being blown up, and generally be a nuisance to the Empire. You are given a briefing before the start of each mission, although unforseen events often interfere with the plan, which adds some nice variety to the gameplay. The game tracks your statistics (time to complete, enemies killed etc.) and gives you one of three possible medals depending on how you performed. None of the levels are particularly difficult, but obtaining every gold medal can be more than a little challenging.
Gameplay
------------------------
Simply put, this game is good, old-fashioned fun. It is equally appealing whether or not you are a fan of the Star Wars series, and offers enough variety to keep your interest. There are 15 missions in the normal game in addition to 4 unlockable levels that can only be played after completing all normal missions with at least a bronze, silver, or gold medal. Additionally, two extra ships can be unlocked for obtaining a nice collection of medals, and Episode 1's Naboo Starfighter was included as a secret that can be unlocked with a patch (on the PC) or with a series of passcodes (on the N64). In an interesting departure from most other games, the scope of this shooter is not to save [good thing] from total annihilation from [bad thing]. In fact, the vast majority of the missions are much more believable--launch a raid on an Imperial base to cripple AT-ST production temporarily; rendezvous with escaping prisoners and escort them to safety. My only complaint with the game missions themselves is that there are a very, very large number of escort missions, sometimes with very fragile good guys making a blind dash through a gauntlet of bad guys. Fortunately, the game is not particularly difficult, at least until you go back through to get gold medals all the way through. When you have to complete the Death Star trench run with 75% accuracy, a decent number of kills, and a time literally within 10 seconds of the flawless run scenario, you will be cussing and throwing things at your screen. There is something of a loose story here, but you will be just fine if you skip almost every movie in the game.
Graphics, Sound, Mechanics
--------------------------------------
Something happened between 1998 and 2001. Something magical that revolutionized the way video games could look. I like to call it the Dreamcast. But, simply put, this game regrettably shows its age with jagged, clunky polygons, infantry troops that are actually 2D sprites, and low-res bitmaps. But, this game was designed to fit onto a 30-MB N64 cartridge, so let's cut it some slack. Graphics are clear enough to tell what's going on, and that is good enough.
Sound? It's Star Wars. If you don't know what Star Wars sounds like, there are six movies that you need to watch. The music and voices are a little on the compressed side, but it still gives the full Star Wars experience.
As far as handling goes, this game is solid enough to appease even the most vehement of control freaks (get it?). Ships are responsive (some more so than others, but that is the point!). My only complaint is that the camera has a tendency to get "stuck" or lag behind the player's ship, especially when accelerating quickly. So, I just played it in first person mode for the more genuine experience.
Replay Value
--------------------------------
As stated above, this game is packed full of nice unlockables that will take a fair bit of skill to complete. Finish the game, and you get a post-trilogy mission to play with a new ship. Finish that one with at least a bronze, and you get a new ship to fly through a race. Beat the game with all silvers, and you get the Death Star Trench run. Beat everything with gold metals, and you get two secret ships, the Battle of Hoth, and the ability to use any ship on any level.
Unfortunately, after having played the game that exhaustively, there wasn't too much left to it. I guess after the challenge is over, this game loses much of its appeal until you start a new game. But, since it will take you a nice handful of hours to complete, this game has much more to it than many modern games do.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Cell phone: Motorola MotoZINE ZN5
As my first post, we shall take a look at the appliance that inspired this blog in the first place: the ZN5.
Make: Motorola
Model: MotoZINE ZN5
Carrier: T-Mobile
Owned from 7/2009 - 7/2011
In July 2009, the phone I had carried for the entire duration of high school and part of college had finally kicked the bucket, and it was time for a new phone. After doing some research, this is the phone that finally caught me in a two-year contract.
Introduction
---------------------------
This phone is an odd old relic of a transitional time; a time before the smartphone had fully asserted dominance in the market for premium phones. Rather than touting processor speed and RAM capabilities, this phone was developed in conjugation with the well-known Kodak corporation to create the camera phone to rule all camera phones.
Camera
------------------------------
Since this was the selling point of the camera, this seems like a logical place to start. This phone is essentially a low-end Kodak point-and-shoot camera sans-zoom and with a phone slapped onto it.
Major features of note are:
- 5MP Kodak sensor
- Xenon flash
- Auto-focus (normal/macro)
- 2x/4x digital zoom
- Integrated basic photo editing
Simply put, this is the best phone camera I have ever owned, which is saying a lot since my new HTC MyTouch has a whopping 8MP camera. Photos are crisp and noise free, except when using low-light (high ISO). The xenon flash can tend to over-expose subjects photographed in low light settings, but it is infinitely more useful than the standard LED flash found in most cameras even today. The camera program loads quickly when the lens cover is opened, and shutter lag is minimal, which is surprising considering the phone's tendency to freeze(we'll get into that later.) My only real complaint is the difficulty it has with photographing direct light sources. The protective glass over the lens has some sort of anti-glare coating, which works fairly well. But when photographing a light source (sun or street lamp), the light from that source will bounce back and forth between the lens and the protective covering, causing a number of red "ghost" images to show up in the image. They can be removed with photoshop, but are nonetheless a nuisance. Below are some sample images taken with the phone (all taken by me):
Calls and Text
-----------------------------------
Although the camera was the main selling point of the phone, let's not forget that it is still a phone and your only way to communicate with the outside world. So how well does it keep you in the loop?
Calls are acceptable, but not outstanding. It can sometimes be difficult for both parties to hear the call, especially when in areas with spotty reception. Out of the box, it comes with the MotoROKR hands-free set, which offer amazing sound quality and a really, really crappy microphone. So, don't try using those for anything except music. The phone works well enough when held up to your ear, but keep in mind that this phone puts out just about the maximum legally acceptible amount of radiation.
Texting is doable, but only minimally so. The phone was designed without physically separated buttons, so if you are a touch-texter, you only have a series of bumps to navigate by. The bump is very slightly larger on the number 5, which makes it possible to text without looking at the keypad, but this is not a recommended phone for a novice texter (which I was at the time). To further complicate things, the bump on the number 0 broke off after I had the phone for about a year and a half, and the bump on the number 1 broke off about three months later. If that wasn't enough, the phone is notorious for random freeze-ups as it frequently runs out of RAM and has to halt all graphics processing while the CPU catches up. So, expect the phone to freeze for up to 20-30 seconds before catching up to what you were typing. The phone does this when performing other tasks, but expect it to happen most often when composing a message.
This phone is simple enough. It sports the standard keypad buttons, two context-sensitive menu buttons, and a directional pad with a central enter button. The phone is locked and unlocked via a switch on the side. It is relatively heavy and very thin, but it has a very good feel if you can hunt down the rubber skin made for the phone. The camera button is located on the side, allowing it to function just like a digital camera when in camera mode. Pushing the camera button or opening the lens cover will cause the camera to go directly into camera mode, although it will yell at you if you attempt to go into camera mode with the lens cover still closed.
Memory is not lacking on the phone, for what it's worth. It can hold as many contacts as you are likely to actually know in real life, and it will generally max out after roughly 3,000 messages. If you are like me and like to hang on to the cute messages that special someone sends you, I would highly recommend organizing them, since the inbox has a tendency to freeze if you store more than a few hundred messages in it. The phone comes with about 350 MB of internal storage, and can support up to a 4GB memory card. This is enough to store a couple thousand photos, so you won't have to worry about constantly deleting the contents of your phone. The phone also has a built-in MP3/M4A player that can put out some high-quality audio, so I would recommend putting those otherwise useless ROKR headphones to good use.
Out of the box, the phone has built in Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities, but without a touch screen, I can't say I'd recommend trying to browse the web on this thing. It doesn't have anything except a couple demos loaded onto it, but there are a number of games and other programs that can be loaded onto the phone, either via USB or BlueTooth. A friend of mine gave me a homebrew Zelda game he downloaded online, but it inexplicably disappeared from my memory card six months later. So just remember to regularly back all your programs and files on a regular basis.
TL;DR
----------------------
Bottom line is, this phone was sold as a stand-in for your favorite digital camera, and that is just about all it's good for. It is laggy, buggy and frustrating, but it takes gorgeous pictures.
Make: Motorola
Model: MotoZINE ZN5
Carrier: T-Mobile
Owned from 7/2009 - 7/2011
In July 2009, the phone I had carried for the entire duration of high school and part of college had finally kicked the bucket, and it was time for a new phone. After doing some research, this is the phone that finally caught me in a two-year contract.
Introduction
---------------------------
This phone is an odd old relic of a transitional time; a time before the smartphone had fully asserted dominance in the market for premium phones. Rather than touting processor speed and RAM capabilities, this phone was developed in conjugation with the well-known Kodak corporation to create the camera phone to rule all camera phones.
Camera
------------------------------
Since this was the selling point of the camera, this seems like a logical place to start. This phone is essentially a low-end Kodak point-and-shoot camera sans-zoom and with a phone slapped onto it.
Major features of note are:
- 5MP Kodak sensor
- Xenon flash
- Auto-focus (normal/macro)
- 2x/4x digital zoom
- Integrated basic photo editing
Simply put, this is the best phone camera I have ever owned, which is saying a lot since my new HTC MyTouch has a whopping 8MP camera. Photos are crisp and noise free, except when using low-light (high ISO). The xenon flash can tend to over-expose subjects photographed in low light settings, but it is infinitely more useful than the standard LED flash found in most cameras even today. The camera program loads quickly when the lens cover is opened, and shutter lag is minimal, which is surprising considering the phone's tendency to freeze(we'll get into that later.) My only real complaint is the difficulty it has with photographing direct light sources. The protective glass over the lens has some sort of anti-glare coating, which works fairly well. But when photographing a light source (sun or street lamp), the light from that source will bounce back and forth between the lens and the protective covering, causing a number of red "ghost" images to show up in the image. They can be removed with photoshop, but are nonetheless a nuisance. Below are some sample images taken with the phone (all taken by me):
Calls and Text
-----------------------------------
Although the camera was the main selling point of the phone, let's not forget that it is still a phone and your only way to communicate with the outside world. So how well does it keep you in the loop?
Calls are acceptable, but not outstanding. It can sometimes be difficult for both parties to hear the call, especially when in areas with spotty reception. Out of the box, it comes with the MotoROKR hands-free set, which offer amazing sound quality and a really, really crappy microphone. So, don't try using those for anything except music. The phone works well enough when held up to your ear, but keep in mind that this phone puts out just about the maximum legally acceptible amount of radiation.
Texting is doable, but only minimally so. The phone was designed without physically separated buttons, so if you are a touch-texter, you only have a series of bumps to navigate by. The bump is very slightly larger on the number 5, which makes it possible to text without looking at the keypad, but this is not a recommended phone for a novice texter (which I was at the time). To further complicate things, the bump on the number 0 broke off after I had the phone for about a year and a half, and the bump on the number 1 broke off about three months later. If that wasn't enough, the phone is notorious for random freeze-ups as it frequently runs out of RAM and has to halt all graphics processing while the CPU catches up. So, expect the phone to freeze for up to 20-30 seconds before catching up to what you were typing. The phone does this when performing other tasks, but expect it to happen most often when composing a message.
Hardware, Software, and GUI
-------------------------------------------This phone is simple enough. It sports the standard keypad buttons, two context-sensitive menu buttons, and a directional pad with a central enter button. The phone is locked and unlocked via a switch on the side. It is relatively heavy and very thin, but it has a very good feel if you can hunt down the rubber skin made for the phone. The camera button is located on the side, allowing it to function just like a digital camera when in camera mode. Pushing the camera button or opening the lens cover will cause the camera to go directly into camera mode, although it will yell at you if you attempt to go into camera mode with the lens cover still closed.
Memory is not lacking on the phone, for what it's worth. It can hold as many contacts as you are likely to actually know in real life, and it will generally max out after roughly 3,000 messages. If you are like me and like to hang on to the cute messages that special someone sends you, I would highly recommend organizing them, since the inbox has a tendency to freeze if you store more than a few hundred messages in it. The phone comes with about 350 MB of internal storage, and can support up to a 4GB memory card. This is enough to store a couple thousand photos, so you won't have to worry about constantly deleting the contents of your phone. The phone also has a built-in MP3/M4A player that can put out some high-quality audio, so I would recommend putting those otherwise useless ROKR headphones to good use.
Out of the box, the phone has built in Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities, but without a touch screen, I can't say I'd recommend trying to browse the web on this thing. It doesn't have anything except a couple demos loaded onto it, but there are a number of games and other programs that can be loaded onto the phone, either via USB or BlueTooth. A friend of mine gave me a homebrew Zelda game he downloaded online, but it inexplicably disappeared from my memory card six months later. So just remember to regularly back all your programs and files on a regular basis.
TL;DR
----------------------
Bottom line is, this phone was sold as a stand-in for your favorite digital camera, and that is just about all it's good for. It is laggy, buggy and frustrating, but it takes gorgeous pictures.
Friday, January 6, 2012
I am who I am who am I?
What is this blog? Simply put, it is a blog of reviews.
But not just any reviews. I have chosen to call it "Retro Reviews" because I believe that one cannot intimately know anything in and out when given a couple hours to play around with it. What if you were only given one date to decide whether or not to marry a person? Just wouldn't make sense.
So, I will rate things that I have come to know intimately as one can only do after months or years. Reviewed will be everything and anything--old video games, phones I had back in high school, restaurants, literature, and possibly an occasional rambling about nothing in particular.
So (in the odd chance that somebody besides me will be reading this), read; engorge upon my words, and be merry!
But not just any reviews. I have chosen to call it "Retro Reviews" because I believe that one cannot intimately know anything in and out when given a couple hours to play around with it. What if you were only given one date to decide whether or not to marry a person? Just wouldn't make sense.
So, I will rate things that I have come to know intimately as one can only do after months or years. Reviewed will be everything and anything--old video games, phones I had back in high school, restaurants, literature, and possibly an occasional rambling about nothing in particular.
So (in the odd chance that somebody besides me will be reading this), read; engorge upon my words, and be merry!
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