Computer Games: |
Rebellion |
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Lucasarts
Space Strategy
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This game had the potential to be my favorite game of all time, and for a while it was my second favorite (after Civ II), until I realized I had something better to do. The Star Wars atmosphere is excellent, which is mainly the reason why I did not give it a rating of 3 heavenly-light bulbs. In Rebellion you command either the Rebel or the Imperial forces in a battle of galactic scope. The game proceeds in a Real-Time fashion, as your opponent, whether the computer or another human player, makes his moves at the same time you do. Basically you have to colonize planets, draining them of resources to feed your war campaign, while keeping the people happy and trying to get your opponent away from your planets. You can build all sorts of cool starships and starfighters, which engage in pretty nice real-time fights where you give them orders and blast your enemy's fleet to shreds.
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Visuals |
If you are looking for great Star Wars art in full 3D and huge, massive explosions, you are looking at the wrong game. I don't know, get Jedi Knight, download some from the 'Net, or watch the movies themselves. This game's graphics are composed mainly by thousands of windows which are used to give units commands, to change production in planets, move your fleets, and make all sorts of decisions that need to be taken in a space strategy game. It's also got a decent share of nice stills depicting the various things you can research and build, and the game's interactive CG intro is very nice-looking indeed. The graphics in the fleet battles are only OK, as the ships are mostly small icons that rotate and move around, and starfighters are mere colored dots and tiny sprites that can fire in one direction while facing some other direction. |
Music and Sounds |
As you can probably imagine, Rebellion's soundtrack is made up of tracks taken straight form the movies and edited a bit. Translation: Rebellion's soundtrack rules! God bless John Williams! If you are so pathetic that you don't know what I'm talking about, Star Wars music is mostly explosive fanfare and epic orchestras, with very apparent mood swings in the songs. If you still don't believe me that it rules, do yourself a favor and go to your local music store and get a Star Wars CD, any kind. The sounds in the game are sometimes cool, sometimes lame. Cool sounds include the awesome classic TIE roar as it zooms by, the screeching trademarked laser blast, and Artoo's blips and beeps. Among the lame sounds are ever-so-incredibly-irritating C3PO's voice and some other voices that don't really cut it, like some Leia and Mon Mothma sound bytes. |
Merits |
The addition of 50+ characters per side, each having their own strengths and weaknesses, into the game is a very nice feature. You can give them a wide assortment of missions ranged from Diplomatic visits to planets to Spying and Sabotaging your enemy's military installations. There is an increbidle difference in gameplay depending on which side you choose. For example, the Empire is better at taking planets by force and simply building massive fleets and taking over entire sectors in a flash. The Rebel side, on the other hand, is better at the Diplomatic approach to capturing planets and thus the people are generally happy to serve them. Also, each side's units are, most of them, unique to their side and not simply a mirror of the other side (no Wookies for Rebels and "Evil Wookies" for Empire, for example). The best merit that this game has is, well, a Star Wars license. I am sure I am not the only person out there who bought this game just to see our favorite Sci-Fi world be developed into another game... am I? |
Flaws |
As soon as I bought this game, I got hooked. And when I say hooked, I mean HOOKED. After a while, though, I began expanding a lot and soon I had control of half the sectors in the map. Not bad, huh? Well, as it turns out, Rebellion lacks the ability to give planets a list of specific building orders that you want them to carry out over time, so after a planet finishes building something it will automatically start producing the next thing you told it to produce. In this game, however, you have to build things one-by-one on every damn planet on the galaxy you control, which quickly becomes tedious enough to make you stop playing the game. This is Rebellion's fatal flaw. Of course, the main reason I stopped playing Rebellion was that I, well, um... I got Starcraft...
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