Tech blog post 5/3/12 Star wars elite and renegade squadron (psp)

Hey Folks

Hope you all had a good weekend, I myself was abroad from Friday to Sunday so the only gaming I managed to fit in was on the psp. I didn't take my vita with me because it's not insured and neither is my psp to be honest, but it's a bit older so I wouldn't care as much if anything happened to it. Also I have a bigger library of games on psp, but the two I spent the most time playing were star wars elite and Renegade squadron, with renegade being the first game and elite squadron being the sequel. Both of them are spin offs of the hugely popular star wars battlefront series but renegade and elite squadron were designed from the ground up for psp so they aren't just simple ports.

The strange thing is, renegade squadron (the first game) is a whole lot better than the sequel elite squadron despite them both being made by the same studio, which is called rebellion. Renegade squadron offers better customisation, more vehicles, better maps and I even prefer the graphics and controls In the first game. It just made me wonder why the studio would bother to make a sequel that is drastically inferior to the prequel (probably money £££).

The story in the prequel was a lot more interesting as well, which involved han solo (a character we actually care about) leading a squadron of troops on daring missions and operations. The story in the sequel was just about 2 random clone Jedi called X1 and X2... Really? How long did it take to come up with those names... . The story was basically either X1 or X2 is evil (shows how much I paid attention) and the other is good and tries to stop the evil one.

The only real feature that makes elite squadron better than renegade, is the 3 levels of transition between the areas of the maps, you have interior (which is the inside of your capital ship in space), then you have space itself which you transition to once you fly out of the hanger of "interior", and then there is ground, where you fly towards the planet and eventually transition to the surface. It helps spread the combat out and makes it feel like a really large conflict is taking place, and some of the things you do in space can affect the battle on the ground, for example using orbital cannons to fire down may kill enemy troops, and then using the ion cannon on the ground can disable the capital ships in space etc. However even this feature does have its problems, when you enter a transition you momentarily loose player control and have to watch a cutscene while the next area loads, this breaks the flow of the game, like if you are In a dog fight with a tie fighter in orbit and accidentally fly too high and transition to space then the dog fight ends which is really infuriating.

Both games however provide the epic star wars battles that you would expect, whether your stomping through the snow in an AT-AT or driving through the forests of Endor on a speeder bike, you will feel like your really in the battle. Plenty of guns, equipment and power ups are also available to choose from such as jet packs, rocket launchers and remote turrets, the variety of tools at your disposal helps make each battle feel unique because they require you to play in a different way.

Anyway, if you are one of the few people who aren't jumping on the psvita bandwagon and want a good star wars game to play on psp, I would definitely choose renegade squadron over elite squadron.

Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow

Ryan