Star Wars: Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire

The Good
I liked most things, the fact that all the stages were FMV's and the acting was good. Incredible graphics for its time, and I still find myself comparing its graphics with the newer games. I also liked how it had an in-built difficulty level editor.

The Bad
The ground shooting stages were too short, and it was too easy. Thats about it.

The Bottom Line
If you see it for $10, buy it. Its worth it. Even if you see it for $20.

The Good
A good use of FMV is displayed here. I believe what they did is recorded a wider picture than than is displayed on the monitor, so that, in the flight scenes, by moving the aiming cursor to the edges of the screen, the screen pans, giving the illusion of control over your direction. They used this illusion to greater effect by forcing you to "turn" around obstacles in the flight scenes.

It's a rather entertaining shoot'em-up in most sections (it includes 3rd-person "on-foot" scenes and "fliying" scenes, some of which don't involve quite as much shooting) and is easy to pick up and play, making it a reasonable choice for action gamers who just want a quick fix, or for younger children, although the violence, bloodless as it is, may be objectionable to parents.

The Bad
It's the equivalent of a kidde pool; it has no real depth. The story is a single-sided and mostly unsatisfying attempt at a love story which is supposed to be one of those "they fell in love when thier fingers met on the trigger, but couldn't kiss because they were too busy shooting things" type of plots, but succeeds only marginally. The main Star Wars theme is the appearence of a "mysterious TIE fighter", an idea that has been done to death before and since. Finally, I didn't like the ending, but I'll leave that to your discretion and not ruin it.

The Bottom Line
If you take it for what it is, this is an okay game. It's really vanilla, kind of cheesy, but okay. If you look at it for a more demanding perspective, it pales significantly. If you're looking for an awesome Star Wars game, go buy TIE Fighter.

The Good
It's Star Wars! Any game with a spaceship shooting lasers at other spaceships and things is awesome.

The Bad
Maybe this is just my CD but the Tie Training level freezes and then starts back up again. I like the game style of Tie Fighter and X-Wings better because I like to have the freedom to choose whichever level I want to instead of going in order. Plus there are only 15 levels compared to 150 from X-Wings.

The Bottom Line
You fly in a spaceship and shoot tie fighters or maneuver through tunnels. There is also a level in which you are in a building and you have to take out a bunch of guys with white helmets (can't remember the name) with your laser gun by taking cover behind a wall and then spinning around to shoot at them.