10 Brutally Difficult Opening Levels In Video Games

Quirky and super solid as Luigi’s Mansion was at launch, it’s arguable that it just wasn’t the title that sold fans on the GameCube’s capabilities. That game, perhaps, was Factor 5/LucasArts’ Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II - Rogue Leader.

Licensed games are infamous for the way they vary in quality, but Rogue Leader was absolutely the real deal. The concept was simple: use every ounce of technical grunt the console had to offer to recreate some of the most epic battles and setpieces from the original trilogy, then cast the player as Luke Skywalker or Wedge Antilles.

The presentation was all-around incredible for the early 2000s, and the game threw the player right into the thick of the action from the start. There’s an open training level set on Tatooine, introducing the basics of control and some intermediate flying techniques, but the first level proper is a real doozy: the iconic attack on the Death Star.

From culling pursuing TIE fighters to wiping out ground defenses and firing those Proton Torpedoes, there’s a TON to manage, and many struggled to make it past even the beginning of this awesome game.