Star Wars: Rebellion

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
It's a galactic game of conquest in the Star Wars universe, including all the famous ships, characters, and ground vehicles from the movies and the most popular books. What more can one ask for in a concept? Any game that allows one to assemble a fleet of Star Destroyers to scour the galaxy looking for rebels automatically scores points.

The concept of being able to capture planets through diplomacy and the use of espionage to weaken your opponent's forces is a welcome way of thinking in a universe full of 'brute force' games. The game's two sides lend themselves to two different styles of play. The Imperial forces can assemble a huge military force and just sweep through the galaxy, while the Rebel forces need to initially play a diplomatic game, with guerilla attacks to help them win battles.

The use of characters is also interesting, as characters are sometimes more important than a fleet or planet under one's control. The more powerful characters are trump cards of sort. While one would like to use them for everything, one is also afraid to lose them on an inconsequential mission. The Force-sensitive characters can detect such in other characters and train them, increasing their abilities. Who (aside from Vader, Palpatine, and Luke) are Force-sensitive is random each time, so sometimes this concept plays a major factor. For example, once I had Luke discover that nearly half the rebel characters were Force sensitive and had him train them all. What resulted was a true 'Return of the Jedi' as this band of Jedi dominated the rest of the game, nearly to the point where military conflict was no longer necessary.

The Bad
The interface is quite dreadful. One often needs to go through a number of screens to do the most simple of tasks. Planet reports open up in static, half screen windows and opening two of these will prohibit further such openings until the previous ones are closed. Nothing can be done simply and this is unfortunate, as it is the first major stumbling block in this game being a classic.

The AI is as pitiful as the interface. The computer doesn't play a smart game and often seems just to be roaming around the galaxy randomly, hoping to hurt you wherever it can, despite the side it plays. While initially it will cause a player grief because its haphazard approach causes planet losses in secure territories, once a player knows what he/she needs to do to compensate, victory is usually ensured.

The tactical space combat, while one of the things many looked forward to, actually disappoints. Another poor interface causes the battles to be annoying and confusing and one will often resort to just letting the computer figure out the results. While the idea of watching a fleet of Star Destroyers engage a rag-tag fleet of rebel cruisers with TIE and rebel fighters swarming around should be fun, the way the ships maneuver and place themselves make the battle seem stagnant and boring.

The real time pacing of the strategic portion of the game causes an odd pace, as one will often speed up time to wait for the next major event and find oneself pausing the game to deal with issues. This constant change in pace makes the game feel like a round of stop and go traffic rather than an enjoyable game.

The Bottom Line
An attempt to bring what many people wanted, a galaxy-wide strategy game set in the Star Wars universe, that falls short of being a classic because of bad design decisions. What should have been a fun conflict between an evil Empire and a small band of nobles turns into a fight between the user and the interface.

There are a few Star Wars fans that can overlook many of the games problems. If you haven't tried this yet, then chances are you're not one of those people.

The Good
First of all Rebellion was one of the first real time strategy games on the market. Between the concept of the game and the new type of game (rts) Rebellion had the potential to be one of the greatest of all time.

Personally Rebellion was enjoyable and fun. I admit the interface is horrible but after giving it a chance, I got used to it. I think a lot of people who didn't like Rebellion's interface never really gave it a chance. I think many people had this image of C&C Star Wars style, well that's not what it was. Rebellion can be fun and enjoyable but only as long as you cant have too many expectations up front.

I loved building up the empire into the aramada that It should be. I loved it when at the end the Alliance battlecruser is destroyed and the droids run for cover. This is a game I play often and still enjoy today. I liked the tech tree and enjoyed building super ships.

The Bad
Ship combat well.... it sucked. Also what other reviewers said about a card game is true. Players like Luke and Darth are no more than a strato card that can raise planet morale a pinch. The way the game deploys characters is horrible. Also Intelligence was hard and almost useless. It would have been better if they had just done some sort of abstract funding model and said your intellegence depended on how much you spent. (I.E. the more you spent on intellegence gathering, the better you knew the location and strength of your enemy)

 Also lets face it... How can a game call itself Star Wars when the empire starts out even with the Alliance in ships and planets?  <br><br>**The Bottom Line**<br>The game has its flaws.  If you were a die hard Star Wars fan I would probably not recommend it to you.  However if it doesn't bother you to stray a little from the Star Wars universe, then this can be a good game for you.

Trust me, the interface can be mastered, its just a little hard to understand at first.