This last weekend I felt the need to spend some money in a pointless and frivolous manner. Consequentially I went shopping for a Nintendo Gamecube. Three hours, six stores, and a few hundred dollars later I had a Gamecube, memory card, a couple of Gamecube games, and some Dreamcast and Playstation 2 titles that the gods forced me to purchase.

I hooked the thing up and fired up Rogue Leader. I'd heard great things about this game and was hoping for something as fun as the original vector based Star Wars game I played when I was a kid. Unfortunately I ended up with more old-school gaming than I was counting on. Limited lives and replaying an entire level because I screwed up at the end are not my idea of fun. Nor is being told you missed a check point. Go back and try again. If I missed a checkpoint then there ought to be some sort of delineation as to wth the checkpoint is and where it is located.

So far I've yet to complete a single level. I got to the end of the Death Star trench, saw there was a wall there and ran into the wall after determining that a torpedo wouldn't blow up said wall. I've completed a number of the training mission things but never managed to figure out where the damn checkpoints are that I'm missing when I race Luke's buddies. I wonder if you are supposed to be some sort of Star Wars junkie to play this game. If it doesn't tell me what I'm supposed to be doing and punishes me seemingly randomly then it sure isn't my definition of a good game. In fact it is more like a sure-fire way to irritate the hell out of me. It reminds me of the mind-numbing puzzles in Tomb Raider where you have 8 levers with 8 factorial combinations to try before stumbling across the right one.

I think I'll be looking for the 99 life cheatcode for this game. There's no way I'm ever going to be bothered to finish it otherwise. I don't mind having it be difficult due to good enemy AI or hordes of enemies but artificially making it difficult with lack of direction and limited lives is a bunch of suck.