Support NeoGAF

[Romulus]

Star Wars: Squadrons impressions: A heavy asterisk at launch for PC players [Updated]

A far from complete look, since we can't yet properly play the PC version.

arstechnica.com

They think the game is pretty fun (although quite arcadey) when it works, but for PCVR players there are some inconveniences that sound kind of irritating.

imma still buy though

Most of the opinions I've read don't describe it as quite arcadey, more of a mix of sim and arcade.

 

[Krappadizzle]

Read the PC version's VR is kinda shitty. Not that it doesn't work, that it takes a lot of fiddeling to get to work. Though that may just be the Origin version. I'd bet the Steam version works better considering SteamVR seems to be what they are using for VR.

 

[TheMan]

So is there a way to play this early like we did with FS2020?

 

[RAIDEN1]

What a month for Star Wars fans though, you have this game releasing, and then end of the month Mandalorian Season 2!

 

[worldwithpyramids]

Playing early through a VPN and can not get my HOTAS to register. Ugh.

Steam VR working flawlessly though. Played the first mission with M+KB and really enjoyed it. It's clear this game leans into SJW territory. I actually laughed out loud a little with the voice/body type combinations. Whatever though, the gameplay is fun. Just want to play properly with a HOTAS!

 

[Hendrick's]

Is this getting EA play trial?

 

[cyberheater]

Read the PC version's VR is kinda shitty. Not that it doesn't work, that it takes a lot of fiddeling to get to work. Though that may just be the Origin version. I'd bet the Steam version works better considering SteamVR seems to be what they are using for VR.

I’ll be getting the Steam version then.

 

[Romulus]

Mission 1 for the Empire has obvious Xwing Vs Tie Fighter nods lol

 

[Krappadizzle]

Playing early through a VPN and can not get my HOTAS to register. Ugh.

Steam VR working flawlessly though. Played the first mission with M+KB and really enjoyed it. It's clear this game leans into SJW territory. I actually laughed out loud a little with the voice/body type combinations. Whatever though, the gameplay is fun. Just want to play properly with a HOTAS!

Looking forward to your impressions when you get it working. What HOTAS are you using?

Mission 1 for the Empire has obvious Xwing Vs Tie Fighter nods lol

HHHnnnnnnnngggggggggg. So jealous of ya'll playing it. I have to hold out on unnecessary purchases for the time being, but I really like the sound of this...

 

[trikster40]

Sounds great!

Yup sold me, just preordered.

 

[Warnen]

Are the last 2 star wars game really gonna be better then the last 2-3 movies?

What a time we live in lol

 

[cyberheater]

Are the last 2 star wars game really gonna be better then the last 2-3 movies?

What a time we live in lol

It wouldn’t be hard.

 

[Romulus]

The feeling in cockpits and VR is just second to none

 

[DrumNBassDanTTV]

The game seems to be getting really good reviews which has surprised me, wonder if its worth it without a flight stick

 

[cyberheater]

All I need is confirmation that the PC version works with a Hotas and I’ll hit the buy button.

 

[BlackTron]

No TIE Defender = no buy


edit: what I mean by that is that the ship selection is just so incredibly low. Just 4 on each side? Come on, man! Not only that but the 4th in each faction are from Disney Star Wars and thus aren't iconic at all. There are literally dozens of far more recognizable ships in Star Wars and yet, they go with these ones. Sad.

And thus why this is a $40 game.

I don't mind a great deal TBH. It's probably easier for them to make a balanced multiplayer game this way. Rogue Squadron had an insane assortment of ships, but some of them would have been totally broken in PvP.

This game is low on content, but also low on price and it seems to me she's got it where it counts, kid. Making legit Star Wars dogfights with your friends possible, with VR and HOTAS. If the game does really well, I'm sure there will be a sequel with more stuff.

 

[Romulus]

And thus why this is a $40 game.

I don't mind a great deal TBH. It's probably easier for them to make a balanced multiplayer game this way. Rogue Squadron had an insane assortment of ships, but some of them would have been totally broken in PvP.

This game is low on content, but also low on price and it seems to me she's got it where it counts, kid. Making legit Star Wars dogfights with your friends possible, with VR and HOTAS. If the game does really well, I'm sure there will be a sequel with more stuff.

VR with a solid 4 hour campaign is worth $60 to me. This is 8 hours at $40.

 

[BlackTron]

VR with a solid 4 hour campaign is worth $60 to me. This is 8 hours at $40.

I heard the campaign is only 2 hours, but I'm getting it regardless of the campaign anyway. As a fan of Rogue Squadron and X-Wing Alliance, not getting this at $40 while owning a PSVR would be madness.

 

[NoMoChokeSJ]

The game seems to be getting really good reviews which has surprised me, wonder if its worth it without a flight stick

Good luck finding one, MS fight Simulator decimated the flight stick market.

 

[Romulus]

I heard the campaign is only 2 hours, but I'm getting it regardless of the campaign anyway. As a fan of Rogue Squadron and X-Wing Alliance, not getting this at $40 while owning a PSVR would be madness.

It's confirmed several places to be between 7-9 hours, 6 if you rush through.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

I hope the reviews are good. I've got a $20 Steam card and, if it's good in VR, I'm probably using it on this.

 

[Romulus]

Very informative

 

[Tesseract]

arcadey is fine, i loved the rogue squadron games

 

[TrainedRage]

Dusting off the Vive. This is gonna be fun times in VR.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Are the last 2 star wars game really gonna be better then the last 2-3 movies?

What a time we live in lol

It saddens me greatly that this is a true statement. The OT are easily my three favorite movies and the Star Wars universe has captivated me for 40 years. The last decade has been a very big letdown for a fan.

 

[Romulus]

Some VR specific quotes I've singled out from the reviews


IGN

You can take in every inch of its detailed ship interiors, track enemies with your head, and more easily marvel at the lovely space around you. The fact that you can play this entire game in VR is just incredible, easily earning it a place as one of the best VR games available.

UploadVR

If you got a chance to try the brief, but magical, X-Wing VR Mission in the first DICE Battlefront game on PS4 with PSVR and wished it could have been made into a full game, then this is exactly that and so much more.

The Verge

And of course, there’s the crown jewel of Squadrons’ immersion: comprehensive support for VR across the entire game (both single and multiplayer). While my own time with the game was limited by the technical abilities of the PlayStation VR and its outdated display, after playing a few missions of Squadrons in VR, it’s hard to imagine playing the game any other way.

Polygon

I’ve also put hours and hours into modern flight simulators, including DCS World, IL-2 Sturmovik: Great Battles, and this year’s Microsoft Flight Simulator. Flying around in Star Wars: Squadrons feels as good as any of them, but Motive’s implementation of VR puts the game in a class by itself.
From inside my HTC Vive Pro, I feel totally immersed in the action. I’m surrounded by cockpits that look just like they do in the classic films. My ears are filled with familiar Star Wars sounds that I can immediately recognize, and Squadrons’ excellent binaural audio brings it to life all around me. I can look in any direction, moving my head as fast as I want without the game struggling to keep up with me. Even while boosting, rolling, and turning to keep a bead on other players during multiplayer, I always felt in control.

In fact, I think that VR might have actually given me a slight advantage.

Gamesradar

Squadrons is fully playable in PC VR or PS VR (I played it on the latter), and it simply ramps up the excitement and immersion of being in a cockpit. While it's a bit lame to say I audibly gasped as I flew through the wreckage of an enemy X-Wing, it is one of those moments where I briefly forgot I was sitting in my living room.

Twininfinite

Star Wars Squadrons is the most immersive and authentic Star Wars combat experience I’ve played. That immersion is increased 10-fold when you pop on a VR headset. The entire campaign and multiplayer can all be experienced in VR, and it honestly may be my favorite way to play the game. Even in online multiplayer skirmishes, I didn’t feel like I was at any disadvantage. Plus, you feel like you’re strapping on your helmet before hopping into the cockpit when you whack your headset on, further adding to the feeling that you’re really fighting back against the Empire… or crushing the New Republic.

 

[Kimahri]

I really can't stand the campaign so far. The gameplay is a lot of fun, but they are working so hard to make me care about these twodimensional characters it's getting really annoying.

I want to shoot spaceships, not listen to you ramble about your family for five minutes. Thankfully conversations can be skipped.

Also, the banter during gameplay is really poor so far. None of them sound like hardened experienced pilots.

 

[DrumNBassDanTTV]

Good luck finding one, MS fight Simulator decimated the flight stick market.

Yeah and that the reason i don't have one

 

[Balducci30]

How do you play it on pc early? I bought it off steam

 

[Romulus]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Looks awesome.

The swaying cockpit and aimer as you move makes it harder too which is good.

I don't play flying game much but I remember those old Ace Combat games where you go into first person views and the game makes it so your aimer is always kind of locked into the middle of the screen no matter how much you move which makes it easy.

One bad thing seems to be after a match is done, it bounces everyone to the lobby and random matchmaking (unless he can't figure it out). So after a match if you want to just keep playing with the same gamers to the next map, you can't as you got to manually log back into a match with new randoms.

And the guy just said you can't party up with friends before entering a match, so its always randoms????

That's a shitty way of doing MP.

 

[M.W.]

Shame it's first person view only.

 

[Thaedolus]

Steam preload complete, Index controllers fully charged and operational. Let’s fuckin goooooo!!!

 

[Self High Five]

FYI the whole multiplayer component can be played offline with bots. So if EA decides to pull the plug on the servers or if there is a low player count, you'll still be able to play essentially the whole game.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Clearly they are onto something good here, await checking it out myself tomorrow, for the sequel they could add conversation trees, a.k.a like Mass Effect! ...Talking of which to think this was going to first release and then October 15th Mass Effect re-mastered....but it wasn't to be!!

 

[IbizaPocholo]

 

[Stitch]

Steam preload complete, Index controllers fully charged and operational. Let’s fuckin goooooo!!!

I think it can't be played with VR Controllers.

 

[Thaedolus]

I think it can't be played with VR Controllers.

Ahem...my Xbox One controller is fully plugged in and operational let’s fucking goooooo!!!!!

 

[Hari Seldon]

Is the mouse aim direct input or sim joystick? I hope it is not direct input as that would give mouse a massive advantage and I’d rather use a more immersive control scheme.

 

[Tesseract]

what is the file size, haven't preloaded yet

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

I wonder why they didn't implement VR controls. If it can work on an XB1 controller, there's no reason for it not to work with Touch/Wands.

 

[Thaedolus]

what is the file size, haven't preloaded yet

steam version was 26.3GB

 

[Karak]

My thoughts so far

 

[TheMan]

man, the steam forums for this game are already brimming with complaints of technical issues, especially with VR mode. Still gonna buy but I'm more reserved about actually getting playtime in tonight

 

[BlackTron]

It's confirmed several places to be between 7-9 hours, 6 if you rush through.

Well then. More than I had heard from impressions. Pretty decent. I'll probably plow through half of it to break in the game then jump online.

 

[Sentenza]

Tried it a couple of hours (two multiplayer matches included).
There's a lot here to love and it does INDEED resemble the old X-Wing games closely.

On the negative side, I'm not sure what it is exactly but despise getting fairly high framerates (90+, often ranging around 120+) it doesn't really feel SMOOTH as those values should suggest (and as some games managed to feel at far lower framerates, sometimes).
Maybe some framepacing issue? Hard to tell, but there's something that needs fixing here.

P.S. Menu navigation/loadout customization at times seems almost PURPOSEFULLY designed to be as unintuitive and cumbersome as possile.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

Pre-ordered to get the bonuses. Hoping there's a patch to fix the frame rate issues, but if not I guess I can always get a refund.

 

[SinDelta]

So is the story any good? Really like the idea of being able to customize characters and fighters.

 

[Rick Monster]

So, can you do that thing? Where you boost ahead, cut your engines, spin 180 and fly backwards to shoot at the guy following you? That's what they kinda said at the big reveal. Is the flying that elastic and flexible?

 

[Tesseract]