STAR WARS: REBELLION

A Computer Game Review by Mike O'Brien

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being best): 9

This is one of the best STAR WARS games I've played in years. The main reason is because it's such a departure from the type of gameplay a typical STAR WARS game features (mainly, arcade style combat).

REBELLION is a highly complex strategy game that's sort of a cross between RISK and SIMCITY, but with much more complexity, variety, and nuance to it. As the supreme leader for either the Rebel Alliance or the Empire, it's your job to see to material production and manufacturing in order to build the resources you'll need to win the war against the enemy. You can build shipyards to manufacture ships to add to your starfleets. You can have training facilities built to produce various types of soldiers and special forces units (like spies, or infiltrators, etc.). You can also see to the construction of long range probe ships to explore distant, unknown worlds on the outer rim of the galaxy. And there's much more. Basically, you'll have no trouble keeping yourself occupied managing resource production. (Good thing you can have C-3PO manage that nitty gritty stuff for you to some extent.)

But resource production, although a very basic and necessary aspect of the game, is by no means all you have to deal with (nor is it the most fun). Basically, you are also in command of all military aspects of the game; where to deploy fleets . . . what ships should go into what fleets . . . send them to attack enemy worlds . . . conduct ground assaults . . . . you name it. Military strategy is the name of the game. And when one fleet encounters another, you can choose to enter a special tactical mode whereby you command the fleet to perform specific attacks and attack strategies on specific ships and what not. Of course, you can have the computer simply take over or give you the results of the battle without viewing it yourself. The danger with this is that you don't know what kinds of potentially foolhardy moves the computer might have your fleet perform. If I have a squadron of X-Wings and they have to defend a planet from six Star Destroyers, I don't want the computer to try and have them take that fleet on. I'd rather take control and just have them retreat so they can live to fight another day. (Now if only they could combine this game with X-WING VS. TIE-FIGHTER so one could REALLY get involved in the battles. I mean if you have 6 X-Wings against 20 Tie Fighters, the Ties win simply because they outnumber the X-Wings. That's B.S.! I could take out 50 Tie Fighters with ONE X-Wing in X-WING VS. TIE- FIGHTER. Geez!)

But the aspect of the game I think is the most fun is controlling characters. As the Alliance, you have at your disposal the likes of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Mon Mothma, as well as many others. As the Empire, you have the Emperor, Darth Vader, Admiral Ozzel, Captain Piett, General Veers, and again, many more. In addition, you can send personnel on recruitment missions to gain more allies. Every character has certain attributes that make them good at a particular mission. For example, Mon Mothma has a high diplomacy rating, so it's good to send her to neutral planets to try and get them to join the alliance on a mission of diplomacy. Han Solo has a high espionage rating, so send him to spy on the Empire. In this respect, the game becomes somewhat like a role-playing game.

Outside events you have no control over occur all the time in this game, too. A natural disaster could destroy a manufacturing facility on a planet. Luke goes to Dagobah to learn to be a Jedi from Yoda. Han could get captured by bounty hunters. All of this adds a certain realistic aspect to REBELLION that further enhances its charm.

And there's so much more that I couldn't even begin to touch upon. Assign people to command fleets . . . conduct research and development . . . incite uprisings on planets who seem dissatisfied with who is ruling over them . . . build the Death Star (if you're the Empire), have your X-wings do trench runs on it (if you're the Alliance) . . . even piss off C-3PO by constantly commanding him to do things he can't do. It's just a really great, complex game.

Basically, I've never been a big fan of strategy games like this. And when you first start to play this game, you may be a little intimidated by all the things you have to deal with and learn. (I've read novels that were shorter than the instruction manual that comes with this game.) But that's also part of the fun . . . learning what strategies work and which ones don't. I've played through REBELLION five times already, and I've lost the war every time. But I also learn a little bit more from every defeat. This is the kind of game that can potentially keep you occupied for a very long time.

After a while, the complexity and responsibility becomes very addicting as you try to plan your next move. (And if you're as big a nerd as I am, planning your next move may even keep you up at night.) Of course, the fact that it all takes place in the STAR WARS Universe is the real selling point of this game, let's face it. (Just don't do what I did and use the movies as a guide for how you should play the game.)

So basically, REBELLION is indeed a very fun, wonderful game. And coming from someone like me who doesn't usually care for games like this, that's saying a lot.

Michael O'Brien ([email protected]) has a degree from Cal State Long Beach in film and has worked for a number of years in film production as a sound mixer. He now works in the field of motion picture editing.