Star Wars: Rebellion

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
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
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.