Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Star Wars: Rebellion has been around for a while, and with the neverending stream of Star Wars games being released by LucasArts, it is surely being relegated to the backwaters of Star Wars gamers' consciousness. Its graphics aren't as gorgeous as Rogue Squadron or any of its sequels, and its style (real time strategy) may not be as popular as either first-person shooters a la "Bounty Hunter" or even "The Phantom Menace."
Yet to some strategy-gamers like Yours Truly, Rebellion (known in the UK as Star Wars: Supremacy) does have its virtues. While it is a strategy game on a galactic scale, it does combine elements of roleplaying (players can send major Star Wars characters from page and film on missions)and space warfare at the tactical level (once a player has built a few fleet units, they can be sent from their territory into enemy systems to invade planets or engage opposing fleets).
Players can choose to play as either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance, choose the level of difficulty, and the amount of planetary systems that will appear in the Galactic Information Display. The tougher the level, the more systems will gravitate to the oppposite side. The object of the game, of course, is to control as much of the Star Wars galaxy as one can, with each side having ultimate victory goals that must be achieved. To be more precise, the Rebels must capture both Darth Vader and the Emperor, while at the same time taking and holding Coruscant.
The Empire's mission is similar but trickier. Not only are Mon Mothma and Luke Skywalker to be in Imperial custody, but Alliance HQ must be destroyed. But unlike Coruscant, the Rebel HQ complex (it looks like Cloud City) can be moved from one Alliance controlled system to another. (Those who find the complete Victory conditions to be too hard at first might choose the HQ-only option.)
Things I like about Rebellion:
1. The "main title" sequence. Most good Star Wars games pay homage to their parent media source (the films) by having the "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...." card and the title crawl setting up the game's storyline. Rebellion is set immediately after Episode IV, so in some ways the game can be used to imagine alternate timelines and different outcomes to those we saw in the movies. Actual cues from the John Williams scores add that touch of genuine Star Wars atmosphere to this starting screen.
2. The use of characters from books and films. Although Rebellion shows its age by incorporating worlds and characters mentioned in books published up to 1998, I like the fact that the game designers did not limit the cast of "agents" to just the canon film characters. Fans of such Expanded Universe characters as Grand Admiral Thrawn, Talon Karrde, Borsk Fey'lya, Labria, and Pellaeon will find them included here. The one limiting factor is that only a few major characters will have audio cues included in their mission reports (and even those get old fast if you play the game in one sitting), so don't expect to hear the famous Thrawn's musings or Chewbacca's growls. I also like the fact that certain characters have strong Diplomacy ratings (Leia, Mon Mothma, Piett, Jerjerrod, and of course Vader and the Emperor) that only get better with each mission, while others are better at Combat and Espionage.
3. The graphics. OK. The game is not new and it's showing its age, but those fleet battles are still pretty cool. They may not be very varied, and at times it's best to just go to the Results screen if you send, say, a Star Destroyer or two against a system defended by one X-Wing squadron....or a Mon Cal cruiser against a single TIE squadron.
What I don't like:
1. It depends too much on mouse clicks. Another reviewer called this game the Death by 1,000 Clicks (or something along those lines). I have gotten used to this, but getting used to something doesn't mean you have to like it.
2. Team building. Supposedly, you can make a team of various characters to accomplish missions...or send out decoys to divert the enemy. While fine in theory, either the program is faulty or I am as dense as a Kowakian monkey-lizard. It did take me several months just to figure out the basic game, even after reading the manual, but geez...I still can't get the Team thing done.
3. Predictability on Easy level. OK. I don't enjoy pain much so I tend to avoid switching levels on PC games, but I have noticed that the Empire never attempts to build a Death Star on Easy level. It DOES drain resources, and maybe when I play as the Rebels I don't give the AI Empire time to gather raw materials for a battle station, but c'mon...to never try?
For an older game, it is not without its bugs -- it does crash from time to time and some of its features do get annoying, but Rebellion is still entertaining and fun to play. What more can one ask of a game designed in the late 1990s for Windows 95/98....except maybe a Prequel edition or a revamped Classic Trilogy/EU version with new graphics?
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Take the galaxy by force. Take the galaxy by diplomacy. Take the galaxy via covert operation. Earn the loyalty or resentment of up to 200 worlds. Rebellion gives you a myriad of means to implement strategy and tactics on a grand scale and in real time environments. With control of the entire Star Wars galaxy as the prize, will the Force be with you? Discover for yourself.
