REBEL YELL
Review by Bob Casey

..is the sound of frustration you'll make trying to wade through LucasArts' conquer-the-galaxy game
Star Wars: Rebellion.

Star Wars: Rebellion 
Developer: CoolHand 
Publisher: LucasArts Entertainment 

It started out so beautifully. 

A gorgeously rendered cut-scene (the kind so sorely missing from LucasArts' Mysteries of the Sith expansion for Jedi Knight) follows the standard opening fanfare and scrolling introduction.  As the credits roll, a shuttle soars through the reaches of space, past the various mines, factories and systems that you'll have to manipulate once you've chosen which side you'll play in LucasArts' Star Wars: Rebellion.  Enjoy these beautiful scenes. 

They don't last. 

From the second the cut-scene ends that delivers you to your "base" - Cloud City for the Rebellion (Cloud City?   Where'd that choice come from?) and a Super Star Destroyer for the Empire - you are deposited in a micromanager's nightmare of clicking screens and field reports.   Oh, it's the Star Wars Universe. The entire Star Wars Universe. You'll encounter most of the characters, places, and items that are found in all three movies and even many of the books - although where is Mara Jade, Kyle Katarn, Dash Rendar and other notable post-movie extras?  Sure, Grand Admiral Thrawn, Talon Karrde, and others make an appearance, but you'd think that since the designers included Dark Troopers (from the original Dark Forces game) that these other game creations would be included. 
 

...TO COMMAND A GALAXY 
Your job is to take over the galaxy from your opponent through diplomacy and warfare, and capture their two most significant leaders (Vader & Palpatine for the dark team, Mon Mothma and Luke for the light side) and main HQ (Coruscant or the Rebel Base).  That explanation is the simplest thing about this game.  

You start with seven of your side's major characters - these agents will do your diplomacy, espionage, research, as well as recruitment of more such characters.  The setting is immediately after the end of ANH. If you are playing the Alliance you must make plans to evacuate Yavin as the Empire is converging on this location to avenge the destruction of the first Death Star. And if you follow the Dark path, you are still stinging from the loss of the Death Star and feel the need to make the Rebels bleed. 

he first thing you will need to do is listen to the protocol droid, who will explain many of the details of the game and the current status of the universe. (The second thing is likely to shut him up, as his nattering and constant reminders will grow old fast.  And how come they couldn't secure Anthony Daniels as the voice of See-Threepio?  He was happy to play Threepio the banker for the Star Wars Monopoly game.  The imitation Threepio only adds to the annoyance.) 

The next step is to take a few minutes to look over the universe, as you know it, and take assessment of your planets, resources, and characters. The size of the galaxy you're fighting for is variable - 100, 150, or 200 planets or systems, 10 per sector - based on your choice at the game's start.  Once you know what's going on and what you need to do the game begins in earnest. To this end, the manual is helpful, in the beginning. Later, it seems to lack some of the detail needed for many of the fine points.  

 ...TO CONTROL THE CONTROLS 
Now that you can finally control the Star Wars Universe, you will be spending a great deal of time learning how to do everything.  Of course you know you'll need to generate a fleet, an army, and an alliance of planets, but how you achieve these ends requires much trial and error, even if you have read the manual. The manual does have several tutorials, or mini-missions, to teach you the basics of co-ordinating all of your resources. I found that instead of ending my test game at the end of each tutorial, as the manual suggests, continuing on to the next tutorial was preferable. It made no sense losing any progress I might have made in each leg. Sure, there were setbacks, or miscalculations, but I felt it was better to just press on. 

You'll notice the graphics are crisp, but not inspiring. For the majority of notifications and functionary displays, you are only given still shots - there are no animations or 3D effects to accompany different screens and events. Each system, when filled with mines, shipyards, and troops, has a flat look. Plus, you have to change screens to view each type of resource.  A single glance at a planetary system should be enough to tell you what is there, but you have to spend precious time going through the different views to get the full scope of what you own and operate. The only animations are cutscenes (of the completion of certain victory conditions or the winning/losing of the game - these are the same gorgeous style renderings as the open - but they occur oh-so-infrequently) and the space battle. There isn't much animation there, either (see below).  

Once you are done with the tutorials it is probably a good idea to decide if you want to restart the game NOW, or just live with the progress made. During those tutorials it helped to just keep going in the same game. By now, though, enough had been learned about what to do, some of what not to do, with enough left for you to do some experimenting. 
 

HERE'S WHERE THE FUN BEGINS... 
Now that you know how to play, and are willing to play, be prepared for a massive amount of micro-management and waiting. Since you have only a few resources to manage in the beginning, you will find yourself either waiting for something to finish or fast-forwarding time.  (Even though the game is described as "real-time," you have the option to speed up or slow down how fast the game hours pass.  Real hours, on the other hand...) 

You'll do all of your galaxy conquering from the Command Control Screen (see above).  The ever-present galactic map is helpful in keeping track of the status of the universe. Through different filter selections, each 10-system galaxy will have a representation of who they are loyal to, the locations of shipyards, which are idle, the location of construction yards, mines, factories, troop training facilities, and which of them are idle... hey, its  a big galaxy.   The map can be set to show all sorts of helpful things quickly. You can also locate characters and what they are doing, fleets, and planets when you need to get to them in a hurry. 

Since information is key and time changes all things, you can't always rely on what you see unless it is first-hand information. You receive this information from probes, your ships in orbit, spies, and informants. These are especially useful for Imperial-controlled planets. Don't worry about information changing on neutral planets as they don't progress much on their own and the game always informs you when one of the known systems is converted.  

The problem with all of this is that you can end up with so many small informational windows open, you lose track of where to go next, or where that vital window is that you need.  The game tried to foresee this problem, and allows twelve "minimized" windows to be stored in slots to the right of the screen (see above).  Even that can get confusing, what with the left side of the screen showing incoming messages concerning manufacturing, your characters, state of the galaxy - combine that with your astromech droid beeping each time a message comes in and your protocol droid interpreting that and the need for muscle relaxants and the time control becomes vital. 
 

OK, HERE IS WHERE THE FUN BEGINS... 
Later, when you have more resources to build with, characters to assign, and fleets to move you will find that you will be doing much less fast-forwarding. Now you will be spending more time slowing down the speed so that you can reassign production, redirect where that production is going, checking on those fleets, and deciding what else to do with your characters. Here, unfortunately, is where the game starts to bog down. You start to receive messages for every little thing. You can tell your droids not to announce a particular type of event, but that event still shows up in the queue. It's up to you to ignore it or go see what it is. Almost all of these messages stay in the queue for a short period of time, even if you don't read them. So, if you are trying to get to everything, such as re-assigning production, there may be some things you will miss. 

Even a small universe can become unwieldy. You can have the protocol droid handle some of your production, like creating more mines and refineries. But you can't tell him to create specific items as needed. You can tell him to use the closest resources to create a ship or a specific facility at a particular location, but you may not like the choices it has made. And once you have some time invested in creating something, changing it loses all of those resources and starts from scratch. 

OK, MAYBE NOW...? 
By now you should have been in a space battle or two. The controls are a little confusing. A little practice makes perfect, though.  You can tell each group how and what to attack. However, what's the point?  The main problem here is that once you have issued orders, your ships do some odd maneuvering and then head over to the opposing fleet. Whoopee. It's fun to watch once or twice but unless the fleets are evenly matched the weaker fleet gets creamed. And if the weaker fleet is the computer it will usually run away before anything more than a few shots are fired from your fighters.  

The only time they won't run away that I have seen, is if the Imperials are defending Coruscant. The first time I played it took three tries to take Coruscant and they never ran. Lately, though, it seems the computer has gotten wimpy. I have encountered a fleet with a few Star Destroyers and about a dozen TIEs and I came in with a pair of wimpy capital ships with 3 or 4 X-Wings. The Imperials ran. I tried this again by sending this fleet (hah) to 5 more Empire-controlled systems. Each time the fleet I encountered seemed to be my superior, but they turned tail and ran away.  

Then there are the graphics of the space battle.   Not that anyone was expecting a mini-version of X-wing vs. TIE Fighter, but Star Wars is known for its dramatic, exciting space fights.  Here, the fighters move, but have a static facing. The capital ships move, ponderously. The laser blasts look they used a forward or back slash, right off the keyboard. 
 

DON'T BE TOO PROUD OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL TERROR... 
Now, what is the absolute worst part of the space battle? Well, to have a fair review, I played a game as both the Rebellion and the Empire. As the head of Imperial Forces, I built a Death Star and sent it out to intimidate some systems. It carried a few TIEs for fighter defense. But during the battle, the Death Star doesn't even show up on the battle map. What does show up is a little icon over the command console, a long green bar, and a green square. The manual doesn't tell you how to work this. I found that if you press the green square and click on a rebel cruiser the Death Star fires its main laser at it. Then there is a long recharge time (the long green bar) until you can fire again. Neat as this is, I would like to have the Death Star present to destroy ships, hand-to-hand, as it were. 

The Death Star. I spent all that time and resources creating one. Anticipating its arrival. Savoring the moment of completion. Ah-hah! I now have the Ultimate Power in the Universe!!  

Whoopee one more time.  

Oh sure, the planet-destroying laser is nice to have, but just try using it. When you do find a system you want to destroy (my first target was Yavin) you will get a nice cut-scene effect, similar to the effect in the movie. Cool. Except for the repercussions. By this point in the game, most systems have been either explored or controlled (the Death Star takes a LONG time to rebuild). If you fire your grand weapon, stand by to lose most of the universe to the Rebels. Just about everyone who is neutral goes over to the Alliance. If you control some systems that are close to neutral many of them jump over to the Alliance as well. Bottom line, destroy a planet and you help the Alliance. Shouldn't it be that the other nine systems in that sector tilt a little bit towards the Empire out of sheer TERROR? "Oh yeah, you blew up that planet, so we are going to endanger ourselves by joining the rebels." I could see the other galaxies going over to the Alliance. But any sector the Death Star is in should hop to and pledge allegiance to the Empire to avoid being vaped.  I want to use that laser! 
 

THE POWER TO DESTROY A PLANET IS INSIGNIFICANT... 
Next to the power of the Force? Not likely!  Vader's speech not withstanding, in Star Wars: Rebellion, the Force is useless!!  

There are only two uses of the Force. Neither one is much controllable by the player. The first use is to find others who have an affinity for the Force and can thereby be trained to become Jedis by the Jedi characters. Darth Vader starts off able to determine if a character can use the Force. Luke must go to Dagobah (which he does at random and is unavailable during that time) to become Force sensitive. He won't be able to see the force potential in Leia until he survives an encounter with Darth Vader. But he must encounter Darth in order to reach Jedi status.  

Once Luke is a Jedi, he, like Darth Vader, can perform the second use of the Force: train any others who have force potential. This training increases these four stats of each character trained: diplomacy, espionage, combat, and leadership. Even Luke has these stats enhanced in each step of his progression to become a Jedi. This is all well and nice, but there are no other uses for the Force. There are no missions for which "force-capable" characters are necessary. For all of the scope of the Force, it is reduced to just a training tool to increase some stats. 
 

MEANWHILE 
The soundtrack is very good. It is the classic John Williams score from the movie, with particular tracks selected for various screens.  Occasionally, as in Jedi Knight and Mysteries of the Sith, there was actually some re-editing of the music so it would loop better.  Fortunately, even during the long stretches camped out in front of the Command Center waiting for something interesting to happen, the background music changed or at least didn't repeat much. The quality of the atmosphere was unquestionably high.  

But where is the excitement and adventure of the Star Wars movies?  A character sent on a mission could be gone for literally hundreds of days, and even upon arrival and the completion or failure of a mission, there is no cut-scene or animation - just a static screen with a nice sound effect in the background, and generally good though generic voice interpretations of the characters.  But lack of  animation seriously hurts this game - it doesn't realize the great potential that we're shown in its cut-scenes. 

So, is this the game of the Star Wars Universe that we have been waiting for? Despite a few positive reviews, general buzz on Star Wars: Rebellion has been that of disappointment, with many hoping that the upcoming Force Commander will be the strategy and battle game Rebellion was hyped to be. 

Rebellion is a competent game set in the Star Wars Universe, but it lacks the action, real character interface, animation (even small ones), and extra touches that made the similar Master of Orion series so popular. If LucasArts can do something about all of the micro-management and their messages, make the space battles a little more inclusive for the player, and make becoming a Jedi something to really aspire to, then this game will do more than just spend a few days on my computer. 

You'll note that I didn't spend any time on the ability to play another real person, whether over the Internet, modem, or serial port. This game is slow-paced enough when I am the only one controlling the game speed. With a second person having to slow down the game for their decisions, I didn't want to have to spend hours playing just to see a few game-days go by. As with any game you can play against a human opponent you get good variety. But this game could go tens of hours before you even encounter an opponent, unless you specifically head to one of his systems. But you can't really afford to do that, as early on you really need to spend some time building your manufacturing base, then building your defenses, and finally working on offense. Using this process, you just don't have enough of a fleet to go merrily romping through the other guys' defenses. And the whole driving force around multiplayer is interaction.

(You can frequently find Bob Casey in a Jedi Knight or Mysteries of the Sith multiplayer game cursing his high lag rate and earning his screen name "Reboots Alot.") 

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