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
The Basics: Star Wars: Rebellion is basically a resource-managing strategy game, with real-time 3d combat when the inevitable conflict occurs. You attempt to win through sending characters from the books and movies on missions such as diplomacy, sabotage and abduction, managing resource gathering on a lot of planets, organizing your fleets well and winning the battles.

Interface/Technology

Rebellion uses a Windows-like control system for managing planets. Once you get the hang of it, this works pretty well. There are a few convenience features for when, later on in the game, you'll have a lot of planets to manage, which makes using them easier. A sidebar shows your reports and the bar at the bottom allows you to access things such as the encyclopedia and find specific characters and fleets. It doesn’t take up too much screen space, and I like that.

Things go downhill in the real-time combat. The designers obviously had very little experience with this kind of game device because the mechanics here are poorly done. Moving the camera around is a royal pain and it's far too difficult to issue basic commands to your fleets.

Score: 3/5

The Bad
Graphics

The graphics in the tactical game section are generally decent. Every character has a mug shot which, in reports, is pasted over a different background depending on the mission they're on; there are special pictures for informing you of sabotage, fleet arrival, etc. This is all okay, but the color scheme is far too drab and the images often feel very unprofessional, as if they were slapped together in a very cheap paint program. As far as artistic merit goes, it's all right, but there wasn’t a single image in the whole game that really wowed me.

The handful of cut scenes are fairly high quality and don't suffer from the drab colors the rest of the game does. They're quite good actually.

And like all the rest of the mechanics, it goes sharply downhill in real-time combat. Ship meshes are so low detail that they look blocky at the minimum zoom level, and snubfighters are something like 32x32 bitmap sprites. It's really, really low quality, and not even two huge fleets with full bays of snubfighters colliding manages to look impressive unless you squint (sniffing glue might help, but should not be required to make a game look nice).

Score: 2.5/5

Audio

Sound effects are rare and when you do hear them, only mediocre quality. In real-time combat they're as drab as the colors; I'm not sure if it's low sound quality or just poorly designed effects. Possibly both. Altogether it's quite unremarkable.

The musical score is, surprise, from the movies. It's not context-sensitive or anything as far as I can tell, so basically it's just a few tracks looping in the background. I eventually turned it off. We all love it, sure, but it's overused and there is far too little of it here.

Score: 2.5/5

Single Player Gameplay/Balance

I really like the concept here. You manage fleets and ground troops, handle research of new technology to help the war, control your commandos and use the rare ones with the Recruit ability to find more. There are some neat gimmicks thrown in like finding and training Jedi and assassination missions that only the Empire can perform. The mission system is well done and the most enjoyable part of the whole game.

Resource management is strictly mediocre. You mine ore that refineries transform into resources which are used to make things. It's not supposed to be in-depth and I never found it hard to deal with, but it’s not notable either.

The ships were disappointing; basically, there's an Empire and Rebel version of each one, with slightly tweaked statistics and a different graphic. There is no very unique unit on either side. This is especially annoying because with all the ships they put in, you'd think there'd be some more originality.

Battles ultimately boil down to who can shoot the capital ships up the fastest. There are some advanced tactics options for various styles of attack that, I know from extensive play, are absolutely pointless and only exist to make it look more complicated than it is. Hit points and firepower are really all that matters. There's no navigation, no organization, and no tactics.

Score: 2.5/5

Multiplayer Gameplay/Balance

I never played this game on multiplayer because I never found anyone to play with. I'm not rating this category, but I'm putting it here to let readers know it exists.

The Bottom Line
LucasArts has been going steadily downhill since the great game that was X-Wing. There is no innovation here and it doesn’t even get the tried and true concepts right. This title has little to offer to turn-based strategy games and Star Wars fans and absolutely nothing to anyone else. If you fall into both the previous categories, like me, it might be worth picking up and playing once as both the Empire and the Rebellion. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Total Value: 2/5

The Good
Most games are about excitement. I play games like Medal of Honor for the thrill of victory. Starcraft is fast-paced strategy excitement. Titan Quest offers fun abilities, while Mass Effect and other RPG games offer a compelling plot.

Rebellion offers almost no plot. Rebellion is not fast-paced. And while a well-placed headshot may give me a smug feeling of superiority or a thrill of quick victory over an opponent, Rebellion offers no similar quick endorphins. Instead, Rebellion gives you an open format and lets you decide.

We all know the Star Wars universe well. If all you know is the original trilogy, or even the first of those movies, you know enough to understand the back history of this game. If you have read the novels, played the games, and love every aspect of Star Wars, you will get even more out of this game.

Rebellion is set up for long-term strategical satisfaction. It actually takes time to build a kilometer-long starship. There are no super-units; balance is important. Research doesn't always work. In short, Rebellion is a mix of sci fi, video game, and reality.

Characters are recruited, then sent on missions. Intelligence is gathered slowly, and is not always reliable- sure, Darth Vader may have been on Corellia when Han Solo scouted the planet, but by the time Wedge Antilles arrives with a battle squadron, Vader has left.

Resources are gathered via mines and refineries. Maintenance of equipment is important- just because you can build it doesn't mean you can keep it running. This is the idea behind Rebellion: more realism.

This game provides players with the ability to do what they want. Make the Star Wars plot change, build a real fleet with the Rebel Alliance or use the Empire's starfighters to destroy the rebels. Train new Jedi, or new Sith. Assassinate enemy operatives. Bombard worlds into oblivion, or blow them away entirely with your own Death Star.

With great power comes great complexity. Most bad reviews are because of the time required to learn this game. If you don't mind actually thinking about your video games, you may ignore most of the bad reviews.

The Bad
There is a learning curve. Once you have played the game for a bit, you'll find the AI is pathetically inadequate. Fleet battles are difficult to manage beyond the basic. Parts of the game are hardcoded and cannot be upgraded.

The Bottom Line
Rundown: Graphics: Certainly not fantastic, but are acceptable except for fleet battles. Music: Standard Star Wars. Neither spectacular nor bad. Interface: Poor, but manageable. Flexibility: Superb. Few games offer this level of options.

Final thoughts: a great game for thinkers. There is still a thriving community for this game: http://www.swrebellion.com/

The above website also offers tools like RebEd, which allows customization of units, build times, etc. Highly recommended, especially if you like the extended universe.