I agree on most points...
Just finished it yesterday and have the following to say about it.
Gameplay
I think the gameplay was very good. All the missions were different to each other and most of the times I found myself in a hectic battle with diversity of targets ranging from Scarabs (fighters), Turrets and Buildings. There were also always enough Scarabs around to make the game look so nice: Seeing enemy fighters everywhere and looking out not to shoot friendly naboo fighters (god they looked so smooth!) in the meanwhile was definitly a good ingredient to the gameplay.
The controls were well enough (you MUST have a joystick to enjoy this game, as goes for any flight/space sim) and I most of the time had the feeling I was really flying (Which is something that is very rare in space sims). I was so anxious to play the game that not until after I finished it I took the time to look at the controls to find out about the rolling-your-fighter key. Okay so if I'd even add that to the gameplay it must be even cooler to play the game. I did without the rolling and had much fun trying to get my fighter straight again :D (i often found myself upside-down while chasing scarabs or making an attack run on a building)
A somewhat annoying point was that the fighter couldn't really hover still at one point. Okay so that is realistic but it caused for me to do several attack runs on strong buildings, cause with simply one run I couldn't get the shields down enough. And when I returned for my second attack run the shields of the Building were already restored again. That way I sporadically ended up in a loop hole.
A big downer was the little amount of missions. I finished the game in less than a day (few hours) and of which a lot of time also went into the loading of missions heehee. Okay so maybe I finished it quickly because I have l33t Wing Commander skills :p :D ;)
Music
The Duel of The Fates came along at some points and was definitly a treat, it gave me a complete good StarWars Ep1 feeling! I was flying! I was flying a naboo fighter!
Graphics
The landscapes could have been in some more detail and also the buildings were a bit uninteresting to look at. The fighters however were definitly showing good. Especially the Naboo Fighter (i assume that by now you're getting that i love that fighter) was recreated perfectly.
So the buildings definitly needed some more detail in geometry as well as texturing. The fighters were perfect
Cutscenes
These were lacking. There are 14 missions of the campaign in total and there wasn't even a cutscene after each mission. So with less than 14 cutscenes I thought that this game definitly missed out a good story telling.
The cutscenes that were in it though were very nicely pre-rendered videos. Some cutscenes were in-game scenes. (like introduction of a mission)
Story
It was plain weak IMO. But its an arcade game obviously and therefore has a lack of story and character development.
Conclusion
Too little missions, too little cutscenes, lacking story and char development, good music, excellent gameplay, good graphics and good realism.
Despite the bad story and little amount of missions I will buy this game (i played an illegal version, so sue me :P) when it gets a little cheaper :)
p.s.
Missions that are most fun:
-The waterboats escort through the river (it was the best, it rocked with diversity)
-Receiver dishes/Mercenary mission
-Defend Naboo
- Munitions run at night (toughest mission, flying through a canyon with a ship full of munition so you can take very little to none hits at all. Very frustrating mission but feels so good once you finally get the hang of it and finish it :)
that's all :)
Q
Hmmm... This sounds more and more like a game I'll end up renting.