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1000x Times better than Star Wars Empire at War!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

it is now an old game, But Star Wars Rebellion has a much better playability and realistic feel to it than the newer "first ever" RTS by LucasArts "Star Wars Empire at War," first ever according to LucasArts.
LucasArts wants to forget that this game was ever made. They screwed up amazingly with it... Had LucasArts actually WRITTEN A good manual for rebellion we would now be playing Rebellion II or III and not some half cocked super cool graphics pseudo Strategy game like Empire at War. The manual for Rebellion was so bad I just threw it out (it does almost ZERO good to read the manual.)

My Advice for anyone who wants a real StarWars game is pick up Rebellion if you can find it.

Wonderful Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When i first got this game i loved it to death, and still do of course, the graphics may not be up-to-date with modern games but what i like about it is that instead of constant war you get to see the Economic side of War, such as having to Send Diplomats to Planets to increase your popularity on them which if it's high enough it joins your side, and then on Enemy planets you can create uprisings and capture heroes or get them back with a rescue team, build up your forces and crush enemy Systems, Bombard planets, build Shipyards, and all other fun things, my point is that this game is great for people who want more Strategic value in a game than regular, a great buy indeed.

Still on my hard drive....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game is one of a handful of games that I still enjoy years after their release. When I initally got the game back in the early 90's I was impressed with the deep strategy of Rebellion. It essentially is an Empire type game. You manage your resources, develope your armies/starfleet, apply espionage forces and heros and there's even a basic fleet warfare element to it. Sound like a recent release called SW battles of empire? It is! They used this as the basic template of that game. For my money though this outshines the more recent game.

If you are the type of person who wants a thinking approach to galaxy domination this is your game. All the main characters from the Star Wars Universe are here, with appropriate skills that you can use to further the Rebellion or crush it. There is sooo much you can do!

Therein is the only real challenge of the game. It does have a significant learning curve. If you take the time to get familiar with it though you'll be extreamly happy you did!

Imagine a game being played turn wise for months on your computer and you've got rebellion. In my experience only games like MOO or perhaps Empire of the fading sun have given me such fun.

This one is worth your time!

Very Nice Game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This one is an oldy but goody, to be sure. It certainly doesn't possess the technology of today's games (one can still hold out hope of there maybe someday being an updated sequel...), but it is the only Star Wars game of it's kind. This strategy game emcompasses not just one army or one world, but the entire galaxy!

You have to use worlds with high resources to boost your supplies, use diplomacy to gain the support of more planets, and build up armies of space ships to defend your planets and conquor your opponent. The ultimate game of conquest, don't expect to complete this game quick! The first time I played it all the way through it took me a couple months, playing for an hour or so each day! The game requires patience and dedication, but if that's your cup of tea, you will be well rewarded with Rebellion!

Even Todays Technology Can't Put It Down

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

And that's the truth. Star Wars: Rebellion can still contend with the current titles, such as Battlefront, KotOR (I/II), and Star Wars Galaxies (and its expansion, respectively). After 7 years I still find it a title that I won't put down. Unlike most other games, SW:R never seems to "get old". Why?

It's an in-depth game set in the Star Wars galaxy where you can build fleets, organize missions, convert planets, assault planets, and fight in massive tactical battles. The game is incredibly massive in and of itself; and this can be quite intimidating for the beginner. Even on the easiest and smallest level of the game the AI acts the same, but only has a limited amount of starting planets and resources. To be frank, this often makes the game frustrating for the "newbie". However, this is just one obstacle. Once the basics of the game are learned it is actually quite enjoyable. The idea of controlling your own empire per se is a Star Wars fan's dream. You're there and you decide how things will play out.

It is debatable whether the two factions are balanced or not but after many years of playing it seems that both are equal in the long run. The possibilities are limitless and Jedi's even play a role in the game, albeit sometimes minimal (it's by chance that you'll have force sensitive characters, however I find that the Alliance gets more). The game switches between Strategic-Tactical in a manner that flows. There is even a feature to "simulate" the battle in case you're not the type to enjoy the tactical portion of the game.

Overall the game stresses critical thinking, strategic planning, and constant adaptation. It is challenging, and sometimes overwhelming, but always provides fun. Star Wars fan should definitely play this game sometime in their life time. Be aware that this game contains graphics that are completely outdated, yet it is often regarded as inconsequential since they play a completely minimal role in the "fun factor" of Rebellion - unless you're a hardcore graphics gamer.

Addictive... a masterpiece fit for the Star Wars Universe

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I first played this game in 1999 and was instantly addicted. Star Wars Rebellion lets you play the role of a supreme commander: you are able to send your minions (Star Wars characters such as Luke for the Rebels or Vader for the Empire) on missions such as recruitment for new characters, diplomacy for one of up to 200 planets, Force Training, espionage, sabotage, and other numerous missions. You also have command over a large fleet. With this fleet, you can attack the opposing side and command your ships in space battles. Resource gathering is crucial; reconniscance is essential. Multiplayer play is great for re-enacting your favorite Star Wars events with a friend or simply defeating your enemy Vader-style. It might seem complicated at first, but once the interface is mastered, Star Wars Rebellion will become a classic game for any gamer.

What a disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 27
Date: October 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This has got to be the worse game I have ever played, although I'm not much of a gamer. The story is that you're in charge of either the Rebels or the Empire (this takes place in the time of the three origanal movies), and you can make plans, move troops, make diplomatic trips to non-Alliance or non-Imperial planets, and conduct espionage missions. You can be any major charactor from Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader. This game sounds good in theory, but the excicution stinks. It is slow slow so very slow. If it is supposed to take a week to travel to a planet, then you'll be sitting waiting for it to happen for a long time. Stay away from this game at all cost.

Control the galaxy, but beware the mouse clicks

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 24
Date: September 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Star Wars: Rebellion has been around for a while, and with the neverending stream of Star Wars games being released by LucasArts, it is surely being relegated to the backwaters of Star Wars gamers' consciousness. Its graphics aren't as gorgeous as Rogue Squadron or any of its sequels, and its style (real time strategy) may not be as popular as either first-person shooters a la "Bounty Hunter" or even "The Phantom Menace."

Yet to some strategy-gamers like Yours Truly, Rebellion (known in the UK as Star Wars: Supremacy) does have its virtues. While it is a strategy game on a galactic scale, it does combine elements of roleplaying (players can send major Star Wars characters from page and film on missions)and space warfare at the tactical level (once a player has built a few fleet units, they can be sent from their territory into enemy systems to invade planets or engage opposing fleets).

Players can choose to play as either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance, choose the level of difficulty, and the amount of planetary systems that will appear in the Galactic Information Display. The tougher the level, the more systems will gravitate to the oppposite side. The object of the game, of course, is to control as much of the Star Wars galaxy as one can, with each side having ultimate victory goals that must be achieved. To be more precise, the Rebels must capture both Darth Vader and the Emperor, while at the same time taking and holding Coruscant.

The Empire's mission is similar but trickier. Not only are Mon Mothma and Luke Skywalker to be in Imperial custody, but Alliance HQ must be destroyed. But unlike Coruscant, the Rebel HQ complex (it looks like Cloud City) can be moved from one Alliance controlled system to another. (Those who find the complete Victory conditions to be too hard at first might choose the HQ-only option.)

Things I like about Rebellion:
1. The "main title" sequence. Most good Star Wars games pay homage to their parent media source (the films) by having the "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...." card and the title crawl setting up the game's storyline. Rebellion is set immediately after Episode IV, so in some ways the game can be used to imagine alternate timelines and different outcomes to those we saw in the movies. Actual cues from the John Williams scores add that touch of genuine Star Wars atmosphere to this starting screen.
2. The use of characters from books and films. Although Rebellion shows its age by incorporating worlds and characters mentioned in books published up to 1998, I like the fact that the game designers did not limit the cast of "agents" to just the canon film characters. Fans of such Expanded Universe characters as Grand Admiral Thrawn, Talon Karrde, Borsk Fey'lya, Labria, and Pellaeon will find them included here. The one limiting factor is that only a few major characters will have audio cues included in their mission reports (and even those get old fast if you play the game in one sitting), so don't expect to hear the famous Thrawn's musings or Chewbacca's growls. I also like the fact that certain characters have strong Diplomacy ratings (Leia, Mon Mothma, Piett, Jerjerrod, and of course Vader and the Emperor) that only get better with each mission, while others are better at Combat and Espionage.
3. The graphics. OK. The game is not new and it's showing its age, but those fleet battles are still pretty cool. They may not be very varied, and at times it's best to just go to the Results screen if you send, say, a Star Destroyer or two against a system defended by one X-Wing squadron....or a Mon Cal cruiser against a single TIE squadron.

What I don't like:

1. It depends too much on mouse clicks. Another reviewer called this game the Death by 1,000 Clicks (or something along those lines). I have gotten used to this, but getting used to something doesn't mean you have to like it.

2. Team building. Supposedly, you can make a team of various characters to accomplish missions...or send out decoys to divert the enemy. While fine in theory, either the program is faulty or I am as dense as a Kowakian monkey-lizard. It did take me several months just to figure out the basic game, even after reading the manual, but geez...I still can't get the Team thing done.
3. Predictability on Easy level. OK. I don't enjoy pain much so I tend to avoid switching levels on PC games, but I have noticed that the Empire never attempts to build a Death Star on Easy level. It DOES drain resources, and maybe when I play as the Rebels I don't give the AI Empire time to gather raw materials for a battle station, but c'mon...to never try?

For an older game, it is not without its bugs -- it does crash from time to time and some of its features do get annoying, but Rebellion is still entertaining and fun to play. What more can one ask of a game designed in the late 1990s for Windows 95/98....except maybe a Prequel edition or a revamped Classic Trilogy/EU version with new graphics?

History Lesson

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Some of the newer Star Wars strategy games (ex: Force Commander) could learn some lessons from this great old title. I purchased this game upon first release and it has been a constant icon on every PC I've owned (3) since. I will not uninstall it, ever. In fact the first thing I do after getting a new machine is to load this game.

The game is set in the Star Wars universe just after the Empires defeat at Yavin. You can take on the role of commanding the Alliance or the Empire, the later being my favorite (you can't play as the bad guys often enough in other games).

Once started, your objective is simple, colonize other worlds or bring them to your cause through diplomacy or flat out invade them and then win them over with diplomacy. Just keep going until you have captured the other sides leaders and have deystroyed their base.

The game is heavy on micro-management and there is a bit of mouse work involved, but all functions have short cut keys, usually involving the shift or control keys. You can even name your ships and fleets which I love to do.

Each side has a specific strategy for playing and one will not work with the other. Play as the Empire and overwhelm the Alliance with brute force and numbers. Play as the Alliance and you'll find hit and run, mission based tactics and diplomacy work best.

Resource management is a huge factor in the game. You can manage it yourself (hard to do) or you can delegate to your assistant. Just make sure your maintence resources don't slip into the negative or you'll start lossing personell, ships and facilities.

The graphics are reasonable but nothing to get excited over. The sound is OK with stuff right out of the movies, but even with the best speaker system, it still sounds like it's coming out of a walki-talkie. Game play makes up for any and all short comings however.

Warning to anyone wanting to run this game on Windows XP. I have experienced some graphics problems which don't last long, slight slow down and auto play problems (better to launch from the menu after putting the cd in than using auto play). These issues are a slight anoyance and after the initial install, I have had no problems with launching the game. The game has also never crashed on me using XP.

If your SW fan who really likes to micro-manage and has no problem with lots of mouse work, then this game is for you. In my book, this game is second only to the original X-Com (which is the other main-stay on my PC's).

An entertaining SW outing

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: May 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Lucas Arts has come out with some notable fiascos over the past few years as far as games are concerned. Force Commander, X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter (which is only good in multiplayer), StarFighter, etc. This is one of thier outings that I actually would rate at 4 1/2 stars and is one of the most misunderstood and underrated games to come out of George Lucas's computer game brainchild.

The premise is simple. You are given control of either the Empire under Emperor Palpatine or the Rebel Alliance under Mon Mothma. If you start out as the Imperials you'll get a significant advantage in technology and capital ships as well as more developed worlds...plus you have a bonafide Jedi in Darth Vader, who can detect and train Jedi Students as he discovers them, making these officers even more valuable (more on this later). The Rebels start off with 2nd rate capital ships and planets that are far flung for the most part. Thier base is moveable, and under the circumstances that's a good thing since part of the Imperials' goals is to destroy the Rebel base.

I'll try to simplify this game, but it's not an easy task. Depending upon the size of the galaxy you have picked (Small, Medium, Huge, etc) your goal is to colonize planets and develop them, use diplomacy to introduce other cultures either into the Rebellion or the Empire, or outright conquer enemy planets. These planets can then be equipped with varying tools to make use of thier inherent commodities...for instance one planet might have multiple Shipyards for building your navy, while others might be resource sytems, used only for mining and maintaining your credit flow. Characters in the game each have inherent uses...some can do Ship Research, others can be used for Diplomacy, while others can be sent to Sabotage enemy worlds and ships. If the Character has been detected to be a Force User, then a Jedi Knight or Master can begin to train them, resulting in a Character with increased scores for thier particular specialty. In addition Characters can be places in positions of Authority, either in Fleets or on Planets. Admiral Ackbar can lead one fleet while Lando Calrissian can General it, thus resulting in your fleets doing more damage and taking less hits in battles.

Research is a lot of fun and can be begun almost from the beginning, in one of three areas. Ship research (New ship designs, fighters, etc), Building design (New Planetary Shields, Improved Shipyards), and Troop Design (Dark Troopers, Sullastan Regiments). Typically whoever has a leg up in Research has an easier time controlling the game and it's highly recommended that if you find any NPC's (Wedge Antilles can do Ship Research, Bevel Lemelisk can do all three types)to start ASAP.

The part everyone wants to know about though is the gigantic ship battles, and man they can get epic. There's nothing like seeing 100 Rebel ships do battle with the same number of Imperial ones, and engagements can run up to 30 minutes. The graphics of these battles are a little dated by today's standards, but still seeing a Calamari Cruiser turn sideways to exchange broadsides with a Star Destroyer is a sight to see. Fighters swarm around the whole time sniping at enemy fighters or helping engage the big capital ships. There's different options for your ships to maneuver into position for attacks, but as far as I can see they're for the most part pointless as both fleets typically run straight for the other and begin duking it out.

Single player is fun, but gets dreary after a while, especially if you're playing as the Rebels. The Imperials generally name thier ships at the beginning, but the database for ship names must be shallow because soon after you'll start seeing such inspiring names as "Carrack Cruiser 152" or "Star Destroyer 43". And the most glaring deficiency in Single player mode is that the Imperials will *never* build a Death Star. Ever. Leading me to want to shout "The Death Star plans are not in the main computer"!

This game becomes sterling in multiplayer though, and if you ever wanted to play a strategy game on an almost epic level, this is definitely a game you want to check out. A human will almost invariably play by different strategies than the computer will, and oftentimes you'll find different and sometimes very unique methods employed for winning. My brother tends to build zillions of fighters on each planet he owns, making capital ship conquest almost impossible to accomplish without matching the number of fighters in your own fleet. My nephew builds heavily into Capital ships with a mixed escort screen, basically heavy on planetary bombardment. I tend to make a mixture of the two aiming for a well rounded task force. And when Turn 5000 hits and you're still grappling for control of the galaxy with your opponent, well let's say that it never wears down on you. If ever you get a chance to build a Death Star, do it. It is an incredible rush to build one secretly, moving it suddenly and unexpectedly into your opponents main manufacturing planets' orbit, and then hitting "Destroy Planet", watching half of his shipbuilding capability go up in a blaze of smoke and rubble.

Unless you have a LAN at home and know someone who wants to try this gem of a game out, the only place you'll be able to play is on Gamespy and Internet Gaming Zone, but expect games to be *very* long and drawn out, sometimes lasting as much as a week, depending upon how often you have to save and reload.

The mediocrity of the Single player game is more than made up for in Multiplayer. Trust me and grab a copy and see for yourself :)

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