A Millennium of Gaming: A Look Back at the Falcon in Video Games

Fan favorite series Rogue Squadron featured the Millennium Falcon prominently, but only to those gamers lucky enough to acquire the cheat. The difficulty in these cheats grew as the series did, until the final installment, Rebel Strike, made the ship part of the basic storyline.

Rogue Squadron (1998) itself was the first, letting players input the code 'Wookiepelt' into the game to crack it open. Handling much like the Y-wing within the game, the Falcon was a purely visual upgrade -- but a necessary one. Only once you've unlocked the Millennium Falcon are you free to unlock the TIE fighter, the fastest ship in the game.

When the next game in the series, Rogue Leader (2001), was released, the Millennium Falcon once again was a hidden secret, although the ship was finally given more attention in the game play. Handling a bit more like you might imagine and less like a carbon-copy of another ship, the Falcon quickly became a favorite - and all fans had to do was enter "MVPQIU?A" as the code.

The final game in the series -- Rebel Strike (2003) -- came to the GameCube allowing players to finally take over their favorite ship without any pesky codes. Not only that, but the ship is even used through the storyline, going so far as to using the multiplayer aspect of the game to allow any combination of ships. Sure, it breaks the storyline a bit, but flying the Millennium Falcon across Hoth never quite gets old.