Star Wars: Rebel Assault

Maker:
LucasArts
Year:
1993
Systems:
PC (DOS) / PC (VGA)
Genre:
Action
Tags:
Based on Other Media / Flight / Science Fiction / War
Language:
English
Median Rating:
3/5

Thoughts by Mr Creosote (03 May 2014) – PC (DOS)

To become a killer application, a game has to do something which simply couldn’t be done before. Without a doubt, Rebel Assault, one of the three games which have to be credited for really giving CD-ROM drives their big breakthrough, fits this bill perfectly. Its blend of clips from the original films and high-quality renderings of… ‘similar’ scenes was indeed unheard of. It hadn’t been the first major Star Wars game of the decade. X-Wing had preceded it by about 9 months. Though it had impressed the specialised press and indeed became a bestseller by the standards of the day, it did not have the broad mass appeal of Rebel Assault which just came closer to the feeling of Star Wars.

So how did they try to capture this feeling? The game basically retells the story of the first film, though, admittedly, reduced to the central action scenes: A young country boy joins the rebellion, earns his laurels as an ace pilot and finally destroys the dreaded Death Star. Let’s hope this is indeed intended as an alternate retelling instead of a sequel between films, because otherwise, you’d have to ask how stupid the Empire is, building the same Death Star with the same glaring design flaw of that exhaust vent which will make the whole thing blow up so easily once again. It simply makes no sense at all, but of course, those are the scenes which fans were waiting to replay – or rather ‘relive’.

Talking about mass appeal, however, there is another, more ambivalent side to the status of becoming a killer application: Usually, to reach the necessary mass appeal, the game also has to be simple enough to be instantly understood. Rebel Assault reduces the interaction to the bare minimum imaginable: It falls into a genre more commonly found in the arcades – the rail shooter. Actually, it would have probably surprised nobody if it had come with a lightgun.

Almost all of the 15 scenes revolve around a ship basically flying by itself while the player desperately tries to move some crosshair over targets skipping and jumping erratically over the screen while pushing the fire button at maximum frequency. There is very limited control over the ship itself, although you are also supposed to dodge obstacles at times. Though if the game decides you can’t dodge the approaching asteroid by strafing left, you can’t. In the same vein, if your task is to destroy a stationary (or quasi-stationary, like a large ship) target, it’s not your decision how to run the approach. Which is probably to say that the game does not do all that great a job to make you believe you’re really in the pilot seat.

So what was the appeal instead, then, which made people storm the stores? It was the ‘multimedia experience’: the original musical score booming from the speakers while pre-rendered graphics smoothly flowed across the screen. The thing, though, is, that these rendered graphics did not age particularly well. For fairness’s sake, it should be mentioned that Rebel Assault also had support for the first generation of 3D accelerator cards which made the images a little smoother than what you’ll see on today’s emulators or screenshots. Yet, what you get to see is basically a mix of some nicely rendered objects and some weirdly blurry backgrounds which give little to no sense of depth and perspective – which even turns into a major gameplay issue at times. Animation is basically absent completely, with objects just sliding across the screen. And when there is animation, like for example in the only action scene without a spaceship, it is extremely stiff.

Make no mistake – there was indeed a reason why this became the bestseller it was. There is a reason why it was considered groundbreaking. There are good reasons to still consider Rebel Assault a classic today. It also has to be admitted that all of these reasons are historical ones. What we have here is one of the least timeless games ever. Sort of the opposite of X-Wing, if you think about it.

Thoughts by Anonymous (22 Aug 2014) – PC (DOS)

FMV games have been around since the early 1980s with Dragon's Lair and they mostly all played the same where you have to make the right choice to continue the video through moving the joystick in the right direction or through pushing the button at the right time. Then came games like Star Wars: Rebel Assault which is what I’ll be taking a look at here.

Gameplay

Unlike most FMV games, there’s actually sprites and video used together. In fact, its actually a rail shooter which makes for a totally different FMV game. You will have to dodge obstacles that are in the FMV and shoot down enemies on screen while on a set path. (Though you can sometimes pick differing paths, too, in certain spots.)

While this is kinda cool, it can be unforgiving sometimes and sometimes when I think I’m gonna crash into a spot taking damage, I actually find out I hadn’t hit anything and sometimes when I do believe I can dodge something, I end up hitting parts of the video area sometimes. Now the parts where you have to dodge stuff can get repetitive, but the parts where you get to shoot (especially the parts where your in a 1st person view) are very fun and I enjoy shooting down ships in those parts of the game.

Sound

All of the music and sound is digitized and while it’s not up to CD quality audio, it is still impressive to hear the Star Wars theme and the voices and sound effects which is all thanks to the game being on CD.

Controls

What ever you do, don’t ever attempt to play with either a joystick or a trackball. The joystick functionality feels weird and likes to mess around and using a trackball is suicide. (Now to be fair, I was using a typical Advanced Gravis Joystick, so your mileage might vary.) Controlling with a mouse is your best bet and the mouse controls are fair.

Graphics

The FMV for the time in 1993 is amazing. The compression technology is pretty decent and while it’s still sometimes blurry, it’s still pretty good. When you see your player or your other character’s faces, it’s actually sprites though and not FMV, so not all of it is FMV. (And the way the characters talk is kinda funny this way.)

Overall

If you’re a fan of Star Wars or FMV rail shooters, you might like Rebel Assault, but if you’re like me who pefers playing normal rail shooters like Star Fox and can’t stand FMV, then you might want to try it only once to see if you like it or not. Otherwise, let it pass.

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