Star Wars: The Battle For Naboo could have been titled Rogue Squadron: Episode One. After a somewhat deceiving (and disappointing) first level, which involves flying an armed land speeder inside of an extremly claustrophobic Naboo town, this title quickly switches to what is essentially "Rogue Squadron With Episode One Starships." Is that a bad thing? No, not by any stretch of the imagination.
With the near perfect formula developed for Rogue Squadron, it looks like Lucasarts spent their time on diversifying the missions and making fantastic ship models. Control is nearly identical to that found in Rogue Squadron, so while it sometimes feels like a ten-ton starship is flying you instead of you flying it, it is very representative of what it would "really" feel like when behind the throttle. The difficulty is challenging but not frustratingly so. If you spent a decent amount of time with Rogue Squadron or even if this is your first time behind the controls of a starship (Shame on you, go buy Rogue Squadron!), you should be able to squeak by with a bronze rating on your second or third pass on the beginning levels. But we all know that Lucasarts is famous for hiding those little extras for the pilots who can achieve pure golds, so a challenge is always there.
A few negatives did crop up during our efforts to save Jar-Jar and company. (Okay, we didn't try that hard to save Jar-Jar.) Due to the similar shape of some of the allies and enemies ships, we accidentally found ourselves laying a few lasers across our wingman's bow. While constant glancing at the heads up radar display will mostly prevent this, we had hoped that the technology in a galaxy far, far away would have developed enough to somehow add a friend or foe readout to the third person perspective cockpit display.
Lucasart's have once again secured quality voice actors to provide the constant chatter that fills the airwaves and the cut scenes that link the missions. They have also stretched the cart to it limits by including all the sounds associated with the Star Wars series, from John Williams score to the scream of federation fighters as the fly through outer space.
The N64 has the best console Star Wars games available, but not for much longer as The Battle For Naboo will be Lucasarts swan song on the 64. This is another need-to-own for fans of Star Wars.
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