Star Wars: Rebellion

The Good
I think that Rebellion is best categorized as a 4X strategy game but it's not an obvious clone of any strategy game I've played. Unlike most of the other 4X games, it's not turn-based but instead operates in real-time. There is a lot to digest. It took me many hours to figure out how to play the game. I read some of the rather large manual and followed the tutorial. Once I got the hang of things, I really got sucked in.

There are many strategic options. You can go the conqueror route, with huge armies and fleets of ships led by officers who gain experience. You can alternatively go with a more "diplomatic" direction. You can also do lots of sabotage, espionage and incite rebellions and such. Combine, mix and match. Whatever you enjoy.

The game has a lot of Star Wars "expanded universe" material. I really like seeing the games go beyond the movies. There are numerous characters and a lot of technology from the novels. I have read a boatload of Star Wars novels and recognized a lot of things and this definitely enriched the experience for me.

The space combat is strange and maybe difficult to control, but it definitely has the proper slow lumbering naval capital ship feel to it. The simulation of each ship/fighter's capabilities is complex and fascinating and definitely is something you can learn to leverage advantages and weaknesses of.

The Bad
The interface isn't really capable of dealing with the amount of info you have available. I would like to have seen an interface with windows that you can drag around so you can keep them open. It's hard to juggle the game events. It's not that bad though.

The real-time aspect isn't particularly beneficial to a game like this. Thankfully the game speed is adjustable so essentially it ends up being a turn-based game without a turn button.

Ground combat isn't presented in a satisfying manner. I think a little animated battle screen like the MOO games have would have added some excitement to this aspect. A little goes a long way, but this game does zero.

Space combat is ugly? This is true but I don't think it matters. The ships are recognizable and that's all that matters to me.

The Bottom Line
Rebellion is a misunderstood game for some reason. I think a lot of people were expecting Command & Conquer Star Wars Edition. That is not what this game is at all. If that's what you want, look at Force Commander or Galactic Battlegrounds.

Don't expect it to be easy to jump into. It has a nasty learning curve. Give the manual a read and follow the tutorial to get a grasp on the basics and then things will go much better for you.

If you want to see a simplified and arguably refined version of this game, look at Star Wars Empire at War. I immediately caught on to this when I first loaded EaW up. I think they went way too far with the simplification of the strategy aspect and the ground combat is not great, but the space combat is fun.

The Good

I have to admit, when a friend of mine and I first discovered this game, we stayed up literally ALL night long some nights building Star Destroyers and Death Stars. That part of the game is pretty cool. You are finally able to build up a huge fleet to roam the galaxy blowing up planets and terrorizing the rebels. Or if you play as the rebels, you can have fun stickin' it to the man. Ok, you won't have 'fun', exactly, but you'll be doing something more fun than undergoing extensive dental surgery.

The Bad

After all the hours I invested playing this game, I feel that I am fully qualified to say that it is one of the absolute worst games ever produced. This is such an obvious attempt to get Star Wars fans to buy a game based on that golden license. Sadly, like so many other Star Wars games, the developers obviously knew it was going to sell regardless of the end result, so no real effort was put forth to make it an enjoyable experience.

'But you stayed up hours playing it! How can you say it isn't fun?' you say? Well, I am a classic example of the kind of sucker who buys this game. I am a die-hard Star Wars fanatic, and anytime I can get involved with Stormtroopers and AT-ATs I will do so. Unfortunately, after the initial 'cool factor' wore off, it became more and more apparent what an awful product this 'game' is.

It's been mentioned before, but I feel it's important to point it out again. This game, at its heart, has almost nothing to do with Star Wars. The Empire and Rebellion begin in almost identical situations militarily and diplomatic. This game begins just after the Battle of Yavin that ends the first Star Wars movie. Hmmm... do you remember the Empire and Rebellion being military equals at the outset of The Empire Strikes Back, because I don't.

Both sides have the same basic types of ships, ground units, buildings, etc., except with different pictures to represent them. There is almost no significant strategic difference in playing the Empire as opposed to playing the Rebellion. Your advisor robot (who is useless) is different, as is the look of the interface, but that is about it.

Oh, and about that 'interface'... It seems that Lucas Arts has gone to great lengths to make certain that players must open as many menus as possible to access the most basic information. There are no pages where important statistics are laid out for you all at once. No quick and easy system for finding out what planets are building what, or what troops are where. Can't remember who is building your Death Star? Have fun searching each shipyard for it. It is quite honestly the worst user interface I have ever encountered in any game for any system, ever.

The so-called 'characters' in the game are perhaps the most ridiculous attempt at adding Star Wars flavor to this generic strategy stew. Darth Vader will spend the entire game conducting diplomacy to peacefully win over planets. Just like the movies! Princess Leia and Mon Mothma do an awful lot of recruiting of new characters, as does the Emperor. Again, just like the movies!

Missions that can be performed by the various characters are also a joke. It seems that a dice roll is all that determines success or failure, and I could never discover what factors under my control might help produce a positive outcome. And why does it take SOOOOOO long to do anything? I realize the galaxy is a big place, but aren't all these Star Wars types of ships supposed to be REALLY fast? Most of the game is spent waiting for so-and-so Rebel character to get to such-and-such a planet to capture so-and-so Imperial character, only to find out that the target character isn't there anymore. Then you get to wait for the character you sent to go ALLLLLLLL the way back to where they came from. What fun! At least in the meantime I can access countless cumbersome menus to keep me occupied.

The game touts its '3D space combat' like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Well, it's about as interesting as slicing breade, andabout as visually compelling. The movement 'orders' you issue to your ships seem to be taken largely as suggestions. You never really get the sense that you are an admiral in charge of a fleet of starships. Instead you feel like a guy sitting at a PC trying in vain to make ugly 3D blocks move around andshoot ugly weapons effects at other ugly 3D blocks. Strangely, this turns out to be precisely what you are doing.

**The Bottom Line**

I could blather on for days about all the games other faults, but they are too numerous to mention, and I grow weary of being so negative. 'Star Wars: Rebellion' is by all accounts a random poor quality sci-fi real time strategy game, with a thin coat of Star Wars paint slapped on it. Only a huge Star Wars fanatic like myself could ever have any fun with this game, and even then the novelty will wear off very quickly. Perhaps if you have never played a computer game before you should play this. Every game you play after that will seem like a masterpiece! The bottom line is this: without the Star Wars license this game would be regarded as a totally useless space based strategy game. With the Star Wars license, it can now be added to the growing list of sub-par Star Wars games shoveled onto the market. Lucas Arts should honestly be ashamed. Avoid this nightmare at all costs.

The Good
Star Wars stategic combat? Take control of the Alliance or the Empire? what a concept!

The Bad
The execution of the wonderful concept is the absolute pits.

1. "Rebellion" has the worst interface of any game published in the last ten years. Accomplishing even the most mundane task is a nightmare of right- and left-clicking, none of which is based on any sort of logical menu algorithm. Even if the game was otherwise terrific, the interface alone is enough to make it worthless.

2. The graphics and sound are the pits.

3. The AI is terrible. Ten years ago I might have accepted bad AI, but for a game written in 1997 it's ludicrous. The AI acts in an essentially random fashion.

4. Despite big promises, the game's Star Wars feel is lacking. The personalities are just Strat-o-Matic cards that you assign to uninteresting missions, for which you get text boxes stating whether the mission was successful or not. Most of the really cool characters, like Darth Vader or the Emperor or Princess Leia, are merely used on one "diplomatic" mission after another, which doesn't do anything except slightly raise your influence over a planet.

The entire game doesn't even match the Star Wars universe. The Empire starts out with virtually no military power, which just doesn't make any sense at all, and controls next to no planets; they're pretty much equal to the Rebels, which of course pretty much blows the whole "scrappy rebels vs. huge, lumbering Empire" thing right out the door. My idea of the perfect Star Wars strategy game would have the Rebel player forced the hit and run and disrupt the Empire from all corners, slowly breakign it down, while the Imperial player would have to use sheer force to try to box the Rebel player in until he had nowhere to run. Most planets are unexplored, which makes no sense in a Star Wars setting. At the beginning of the game the Empire exerts no control over the galaxy. What the heck are they an Empire OF? What are the Rebels rebelling against?

The truth is that the game HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STAR WARS. The strategic and tactical elements of the game are no more relevant to "Star Wars" than they are to Fried Green Tomatoes. The game is merely a very, very bad abstract strategic game on which they've plastered the "Star Wars" name and put some of the character's names on the playing cards. Big whoop.

The game's tactical combat system sucks as well; the graphics are poor and the combat is uncontrollable and boring. Other types of missions have no combat at all and there's no ground combat, so you can't order General Veers to begin his attack, and what fun is that?

The Bottom Line
This game is a complete ripoff, an attempt to use the Star Wars name to sucker gamers into buying a terrible, boring and buggy game. Don't buy this game; don't take it if someone PAYS you to play it.