Star Wars: Rebel Assault

The Good
The technology of the game is impressive, given its system requirements. With only a single-speed CDROM drive and a high-speed 386, you too can play numerous action sequences in front of a motion video backdrop. Like Novastorm, the background isn't just for looks; on occaision, you interact with it. If you don't dive fast enough, your ship can run into a geological formation and crash. If you don't swerve to avoid the asteroid hurtling toward you, don't expect to come home.

One nice touch about the video background is that it is larger than the screen. This allowed the developers to shift it up/down/left/right according to player movement, and it helps mask the fact that it's on rails. Another nice trick is a very quick interpolation and rotation section of the video playback code, which allows them to rotate the backdrop +/- 15 degrees if you bank left or right.

The Bad
The action sequences are too hard. Since the action sequences make up the core gameplay. I'd have to admit that the game itself is too hard. I guess I can't put it more bluntly than that, eh? :-)

The joystick code is very sensitive; almost 'twitchy'. There is a patch on Lucasarts' website that fixes this, though.

The Bottom Line
Rebel Assault is a good game to stick on a fast 386 if you want to simulate an early console CD action game like those written for the Sega CD. It looks pretty. It's also a little too hard for anyone other than die-hard shooter fans, so try before you buy.

The Good
The main reason to buy or play Rebel Assault, which is why I originally bought it, is to play a starfighter pilot. And this game lets you do just that - play a rebel pilot (which is referred to in the game's soundtrack as "rookie one").

Lucasarts managed to capture the feeling of the movies perfectly. You get to fight TIE-fighters in an asteroid field, shoot down a star destroyer, have a shoot-out with imperial stormtroopers, destroy an AT-AT walker, and expreience the famous Deathstar trench run. All this to the incredible sound of John Williams' original Star Wars soundtrack, professionaly produced movies and cutscenes, and incredible CGI effects - all thanks to the video backdrop, which ran amazingly well, concidering the technology of the time, and the amount of data that needs to be streamed of the CD.

The gameplay was fun as well, and not to hard at all. Granted, some sections ARE hard, but if you persevere - you will be rewarded by beautiful cutscenes, and more great play. The gameplay is varied - sometimes you will have to quickly and accurately shoot fighters or

people, sometimes you will have to navigate narrow canyons. Sometimes both.

All in all, the game is fun to play - and captures the feeling of the Star Wars movies.

The Bad
As always with this sort of games - the gameplay is extremely linear. Absolutely nothing changes from game to game. And there is no replay value at all - once you finished the game, there is little point to play it again.

Also, instead of a save game system, rebel assault has a password system. The game is devided to 15 scenes, and after every 3, you are given a password to the next scenes. This is very disappointing, especially when you finish a particulary hard scene, get no password, and find out you have to finish it all over again because you run out of lives at the next scene.

The Bottom Line
Today you have much better games that let you experience Star Wars, but
Rebel Assault was the first game that had such a feeling of immersion. Rebel Assault did quite well at the stores, and spawned a sequel, and many video backdrop games such as Cyberia and Novastorm.

The Good
... Or can you? Unfortunately I was not too keen on this game. What I DID like was the fact that the graphics were great for 1993, and that it stuck with the Star Wars soundtrack and general theme. The videos included were very impressive technology at the time.

The Bad
It's too linear, basically. Problem with these games is that whatever you do, you end up doing the same thing if you succeed. You cannot define much, only the general position of the craft. The sound is a pain to get working, and the joystick is a pain to control - Put short, it's a pain!

I also did not like the fact that it did not store your personal settings, and had to stream from the CD so often.

The Bottom Line
If you see it for a very cheap price, I suppose you could give this a go, but Rebel Assault II is a bit more interactive, and is done with real actors, etc. I personally was not impressed, and it took me 10 years or so for me to get past the first level (from 1993-2003), so good luck to you.