Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
When "Rogue Squadron" was released in early December 1998, the title's Nintendo 64 incarnation was the second-highest-selling video game for the first half of the month (behind Nintendo's "") and the holiday season. PC Data, which tracked sales in the United States, reported that "Rogue Squadron" sold 584,337 units and earned $29.3 million in revenue by the end of 1998. This made it the country's ninth-best-selling Nintendo 64 release of the year. Delayed until after Christmas in the United Kingdom, the game was released mid-January and debuted as the second-best-selling game of the month, ahead of "Ocarina of Time". In August 1999, Nintendo added the title to its best-selling Player's Choice collection, while the PC version was re-released as a part of the "LucasArts Archive" Series in May 2001. "Rogue Squadron"'s retail success was not anticipated by the game's producer Julian Eggebrecht, who said that the game sold "about 100 times better than anybody expected". The Nintendo 64 version sold over 1 million copies in the United States, and over 44,000 in Japan.
Star Wars: Force Commander
"Star Wars: Force Commander" was met with very mixed reception. Greg Kasavin of GameSpot gave the game a 6 out of 10. He cited dated graphics, ineffective controls, and flawed gameplay as reason the game "falls short of its ambitious intent." Kasavin conceded the game "has some good ideas. Its campaign has an involving plot and interesting mission objectives", and praised the 3D mission briefings. Mark Hill of "PC Zone" felt that while playing from the perspective of the Galactic Empire was a "nice twist, but merely dumping this style of game into the Star Wars universe is not innovative enough." Nick Woods of AllGame felt that the game's 3D models were "blocky and not detailed" and added that there are "many other RTS games on the market better than this one.". Sarju Shah of Firing Squad gave it a 60%. Tal Blevins of IGN gave it a score of 4.7 out of 10. In a feature on the history of Star Wars games, IGN's Rus McLaughlin called "Force Commander" "a blocky, buggy, undiluted failure". A similar article in "GMR Magazine" from March 2004 listed "Force Commander" as the worst Star Wars game. In the book "", author Rob Smith said the "dated-looking visuals and clumsy controls turned off strategy gamers." Hollywood.com placed it fifth in a list of worst "Star Wars" video games. The staff felt that "Force Commander" had "an unwieldy camera and uninspired combat." Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Alec Meer was also highly critical of the game. "I didn’t make it past the first few levels. It was miserable."