Rogue Squadron: a game that looks great today.

[StefanS]

I remember the Endor speedbike level being fun, although after the miserable on-foot missions, I probably would have considered a late-era Acclaim title fun.

How could I forget. I must have banished them from my mind

 

[Mobius1aic]

This game always made me wonder why more Cube games didn't have better graphics, especially self-shadowing. BTW, Gun of all games--a cross-platform title that clearly has the PS2 as the basis--is I think the only other 3rd-party title to use the technique.

I would think that self shadowing would be something to avoid as true self shadowing would look terrible along the "curved" surfaces of a character, even with bump and normal maps in combination. Just look at Gears of War, and any other Unreal 3 game, they suffer this attribute, you can see the shadow sampling blocks as they go from light to dark. Mechanical objects or high polygon objects I'm sure make much better candidates for self shadowing, hence why games like Rogue Squadron, and the Ace Combat games on the PS2 did have self shadowing. Much easier, not to mention much prettier to implement, especially when the central aircraft in control of the player is the only element being self shadowed in the entire scene. Only other PS2 software I can think of to offer self shadowing outside of Ace Combat was Shadow of the Colossus on the main character "Wander", and even still they left many elements out of his render because of the limitations of the PS2 hardware. If you look it up, there is a big document all about the development of SotC for the PS2, and how the dev team coped with the PS2s hardware limits and ultimately still managed to make IMHO the PS2's greatest technical achievement.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Rogue Squadron was on the N64 and didn't have self-shadowing. Rogue Leader's self-shadowing looked terrible up close, with a really weird "sawtooth" effect along the edges. And no, the player's craft was not the only vehicle with the effect. The AT-ATs, AT-STs, and your wingmen all had it--I always blew up the TIEs too fast to notice if it appeared on them once they got close. Anyway, they fixed those artifacts in Rebel strike, but the effect on human characters was completely out of whack. The self-shadowing in Gun looks fine, as far as Gamecube effects go. By that I mean that it's not any more inaccurate, blocky, or artifacty than your usual shadow maps on that machine.

 

[vazel]

Self-shadowing looks blocky to me on any machine. I thought that's what hard shadows were supposed to fix but they really slow things down.

I got Rogue Squadron 3 today from a trade on Goozex. You can tell they really try to make each installment better than the last. I enjoyed the diversity getting to pilot an AT-ST and Speeder brought. I also didn't mind the on-foot missions. Sure they're unrefined but they're okay as in-between diversions from the more fun stuff.