Star Wars: Rebellion (video game)

Rebellion (or Supremacy in the United Kingdom and European market) is a Lucasarts strategy game released February 28, 1998.

Overview
Although a RTS with the wider sense of the term, it belongs to a genre unlike the famous action strategy games of that time, like Starcraft. The action here is more abstract and the player commands manufacturing, resources, fleet deployment and mission assignments of units and Star Wars characters (55 in all), around the (up to) 200 availiable systems.

The player assumes the role of an officer hired from either the Rebellion or the Empire. The game interface consists of a map of the Star Wars galaxy and an advisor droid (which in the case of the Rebellion, is C-3PO). The map is apartised of sectors of 10 systems each (the number of sectors is customisable for either 10, 15 or 20), all known from the Star Wars universe. Some of them belong to 'unknown' regions and need to be explored.

The player has to take care of general command and maintenance, like colonisation, diplomacy, creation of buildings and units, supervising of mines and resources, building and commanding fleets and their movement, conversion of systems to own's side, recruitment of characters (55 in the game, both from the movies and the Expanded Universe) and dispatching characters or units to systems or fleets and finally mission assignments to them.

Story
The game starts right after the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star. The Galactic Empire is ready to strike back against the Rebel base of Yavin IV, while the Rebel Alliance is readying to move to another system.

Apart from the given time of the beginning, the game stops to be story driven and the scenario expands freely. Although events of the later movies might occur (like the capture of Han Solo by bounty hunters, the Jedi training of Luke Skywalker and the construction of a second Death Star), the player can change or avert some events of the canonical timeline, like not migrating to Hoth after Yavin, create more than one Death Stars, and even lead the Empire into victory.

Apart from this freedom, there are however some inconsistencies to the canon, like having to 'discover' planets and characters who, according to the timeline, were already around.

Some characters are Force sensitive and can be trained by Jedi characters (like Luke or Vader) to augment their abilities. This will lead to a powerful team that will turn many missions successful, improve the morale of planets and fleets they are in etc.

Science advances by research and creating new ones or advanced versions of constructions or units. Every element of a game has its own encyclopedia-like 'card' with a short description and abilities sheet,

The objectives of the player are customisable as: either manage to capture the 2 opposite leaders (Darth Vader/Emperor Palpatine for the Alliance and Mon Mothma/Luke Skywalker for the Empire), capture the opposite's capital (Coruscant for the Alliance and the randomly placed Rebel base for the Empire), or both.

Poor reaction
The game split many fans and players. Some loathed it, reacting with heavy criticism, considering it as one of the most low-quality products of Lucasarts, a failed attempt to bring Star Wars into strategy. Others loved it extolling the value of game play over graphics and considering a high water mark before the dearth of games connected to The Phantom Menace.

It is true that its orientation was an 'electronic card game', which makes the gameplay relying on tactics and thought and not action, graphics or sound. The some players however were hardly impressed by this, expecting to control or see the on-planet battles of their troops, and not just see the outcome, like in old games such as Defender of the Crown. The only action part of the game are the naval battles above planets, with poor graphics and difficult controls. Indeed one of the factors most criticised, is the complex interface, which discourages players at first.

However it is, the more articulate gamers embraced the challenging gameplay, and its enduring popularity among strategy gamers is held testament as on ebay copies regularly go for upto $45.