Eagerly awaiting a review
I have it for PC. In many respects
Star Wars: Squadrons harks back to the X-Wing and TIE Fighter series of games from the mid-late 1990s. There is a single player story mode where you fight as a member of a Rebel squadron (Vanguard Squadron) or as a member of an Imperial squadron (Titan Squadron). All game play is in first person mode. The game is set just after the destruction of the second Death Star timeline wise.
Major difference say of this game to Starfighter Assault (SFA) in
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is that power management of your systems (i.e. Engines, shields (if it has them), and cannons) along with what components you equip your ships with that can make or break a successful mission. Further piloting is different as the ships don't "turn on a dime", you have to get your throttle settings correctly to make a good tight turn, and there are mechanics like "drifting" you can exploit.
The story mode gives you the base groundwork of the game, but there is a literally practice mode where you can jump in any ship and just zoom around to see how it handles.
As the name indicates though, "Squadrons" is what the game is designed around. There are 2 multiplayer modes - (1) Dog Fight (where its you in a squadron with 4 other real players going up against another squadron of 5 real players in a straight dog fight); and (2) Fleet Battles (where it is two squadrons of 5 players going up against each other with the objective being to shoot down the opposing team's Capital Ship). You can though go into a Fleet battle alone with 4 x NPC team mates against a full squad of NPC enemies.
Communication with your team mates (even your NPC ones), what mix of ships you have (e.g. Not a good idea to not have a support ship in your squad) and the morale of your group as you fight are important. You get positive morale by shooting down enemy player ships, or destroying corvette sized ships which can swing a fleet battle to you being on the offence.
Unlike in SFA, you do not have unlimited supplies of missiles/torpedoes/bombs nor counter measures so that is why the supply ship is important, cause otherwise if you run out of those things and no Supply Ships is in your squadron, you have to land on your home capital ship to resupply.
Your ship types to choose from are -
1. Fighter Class - X-Wing (Alliance) or TIE Fighter (Imperial);
2. Interceptor Class - A-Wing (Alliance) or TIE Interceptor (Imperial);
3. Bomber Class - Y-Wing (Alliance) or TIE Bomber (Imperial); and
4. Support Class - U-Wing (Alliance) or TIE Reaper (Imperial).
They are all slightly different as they have tried to balance them whilst noting certain lore about ships (e.g. TIEs not having shields).
So far I have found it enjoyable to play but there are a few issues. After launch it was discovered there are deadzones when using flight sticks, which no one anticipated. Also have been some reports of "tearing" due to incorrect refresh settings. Also there are some glitches with rankings in multi-player mode which need to be fixed. Additionally some people reckon the penalty from quitting a multi-p[layer game should only be applied to the quitting player/s and not the entire team (as it can undo all ranking progress in one fell swoop).
It has taken me some days just getting used to flying the ships properly using a mouse and keyboard. Now that my flight stick arrived I have to re-learn how to fly again due to the number of available controls.
Personally I'd give it a solid 7.5/10.
