Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Many reviews compared "Star Wars: Rogue Squadron" to one of its inspirations, the Battle of Hoth flight combat level in "Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire", considered one of that game's best elements. "GamePro" remarked that "Rogue Squadron" "enhanced the flight model with true pitch, roll, and bank mechanics". IGN praised its inclusion of "upgrades, more enemies, better sound, and stunning second-generation graphics". The Nintendo 64 version received mostly positive reviews, and received an aggregate score of 85 percent from both GameRankings and Metacritic. "GamePro" named it one of the best games released in 1998. In a 2008 retrospective, IGN's Levi Buchanan stated that the game revived the "Star Wars" license on consoles through well-paced gameplay, a story tied into the "Star Wars" canon and visuals that made it "one of the generation's top stunners".
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
During the early stages of development, the designers at LucasArts were inspired by "Rogue Squadron" and later "", a series of books and comic books set during the years of the original film trilogy. They began developing the story and gameplay with a similar setting that would include characters from the films participating in new, original missions using Factor 5's terrain map engine as the base. In May 1998, a demo of the game was displayed at E3, but the game was so incomplete at the time that Tosti considered it a tech demo. It rendered a basic heightmap and an immobile AT-AT model, while TIE fighters lacking artificial intelligence flew and fired in a predetermined path. When "playing" the demo for audiences, Tosti followed a very specific flight path of his own to give the illusion that he was actually battling with the TIEs. Despite the demo's barebones presentation, response from gamers was largely positive.