Star Wars: Rebellion

The Good
Well, the lambda shuttle flying through the intro was neat.

The Bad
Everything else. The controls were crappy. That stupid droid that's supposed to guide you around is annoying. You never know what's going on. Half of the time when you want to do stuff you can't with no explanation why. (Yeah, I know, look in the manual and stuff, but the REALLY good strategy games, even complex ones like Alpha Centauri, have a tutorial and helpful comments IN-GAME. I don't want to consult my manual every few minutes). Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and others are demoted to "just another unit". Need I go on? Graphics are sub-par, ESPECIALLY considering this is a Star Wars game, ESPECIALLY considering this was 1998, ESPECIALLY considering this was LucasArts. I really was excited when getting this and tried really hard to like it but just couldn't.

The Bottom Line
If you're drawn to this game like a moth to the lightbulb ("Oh, wow, a real-time strategy war game in the Star Wars universe, how awesome!") like I was, trust me: suppress that urge. Nothing good can come of it.

I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in a computer game. This really craps on the awesome legacy of both the Star Wars name and LucasArts.

The Good
I learned to like this game because of it's complexity. There are several ways on how to win the galaxy over - by brute force (then you have to deal with traitors and uprisings), diplomacy, by colonizing a lot of fresh colonies in the Outer Rim, by sabotage and assasination, by peaceful diplomacy... "Popular Support" is the key to this game - the populace of every planet is either biased towards you or your opponent. If they hate you, you will need to heavily garrison the planet to deal with uprisings and smugglers. On the other hand, if the populace of a planet under enemy control is on your side, you will benefit from informants, smuggling and find it easier to successfully finish a covert operation on that world. Many other factors influence the game - the ratings of imperial personnel improves as soon as the emperor is on Coruscant, a team travelling with Han Solo will be faster because of the Millenium Falcon... If you catch a big enemy fleet and wipe it out, he will lose popular support in the entire system - sometimes neutral worlds even sway to your side voluntarily.

The Bad
Ok, it is true - the interface is not the most intuitive. I had to play the game a lot to get used to it. And it is easy to get confused, if many things happen at the same time.

The Bottom Line
This game is a true strategy game. You can develop several different strategies, not only the usual "defend-build-crush" of other RTS-games

The Good
I tried this game because it had the title "Star Wars", although from the beginning a knew it had bad reviews. I admit that the first 3 times I tried, I could not cope with it and I quit. When the Star Wars virus stroke me again, I gave it a second chance and I was glued for hours!! Yes, the game is really hard, I haven't managed to do anything of notice no matter how many hours I tried but it challenged me... I WANT to beat it!

If you don't stuck on the bad things, you will love this game. It has no action but it's rich and deep. Characters, ships, fleets, missions, spies, technologies and evolution. The game really evolves in your hands and your empire becomes your own personal creation.

There is also plentiful information in the little embedded encyclopedia, about everything in the game, that will boost up your knowledge on Star Wars.

Many say that this is 'a card game with the name Star Wars on it to attract fans'. Maybe, I don't agree, but there is even Star Wars Monopoly. If you don't have a problem to play it, what's wrong with Rebellion?

Also, it's not really important, but I liked the cutscenes :)

The Bad
Yes, I know players dislike many elements of this game, so did I, but I want to justify some of them.

• The nature of the game itself isn't promising for graphics, sound and action. You can't accuse for example a platform arcade game for having poor dialogues. I agree however that (although it doen't affect much) the 'cards' could be drawn better

• Everyone says that the controls are hard and confusing. I am not going to say the opposite, but it can be mastered.

• I didn't like some inconsistencies to the Star Wars timeline. For example you are going to 'discover' and recruit characters that were in the Rebellion from the first movie! also, this is the same for the planets. I had to 'discover' Tatooine!

• Yes, COULD have some action and battles, even poorly done. Even the ancient Centurion had elementary battles.
  
  The Bottom Line
  I can tell that this game was maybe hastily done. It could be simpler, had better graphics, and maybe battles. But if you give it a second chance, and don't define 'strategy' as 'action RTS', and then try to find what is really good of it (believe me, there is), then Rebellion is worth the try!