The Force is weak with this one
Written: Jan 10 '05 (Updated May 28 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Some of the graphics are good,sound
Cons: Some of the graphics are terrible,FMV game,controls,story changes...
The Bottom Line: Simple, avoid it.It is better than the majority of Mega CD FMV games, but that really isn't saying much.
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| flash-hammer's Full Review: Star Wars: Rebel Assault for Sega CD |
Given that it is probably the most loved series of movies of all time, naturally there have been countless games based on the original Star Wars Trilogy, accross almost every format going, by countless companies. It's strange then that Sega's Genesis/Megadrive console, one of the most popular consoles going, didn't, to my knowledge, recieve a Star Wars game, yet it's two add ons, the 32X and Sega/Mega CD did.
The ill-fated 32X recieved the wonderful Star Wars Arcade, and the CD recieved a port of the PC game Rebel Assault. I recall Rebel Assault being quite popular on the PC, and playing it once at a relative's house before buying it for my PC a few years later. I was frustrated by the issues caused by configuring a controller, and left the game quite unplayed on it's PC-CD-ROM. Then, in late 2004, I came accross a copy of it for my Mega CD, which was also a recent acquisition, and payed quite a bit over the usual rate for a Mega CD game to get my hands on it. I presume the game is rare or something, or it's due to the Star Wars name, because it certainly isn't a groundbreaking game in terms of quality.
The game is basically a glorified FMV game, of the type that was so popular on Sega's CD based add on, where you basically watch a lot of cinematics and interact with them. There are a few varieties in which you interact, be it from controlling a ship dodging obstacles, controlling a ships guns from First Person or from a sort of above view or controlling your character on foot to shoot Stormptroopers. There are 15 stages in all, although a lot of them seem like carbon copies of previous stages with slightly different appearances and goals.
The gameplay really isn't anything very special. Shoot some stuff, a lot of which is down to luck, direct your ship roughly... it gives you very little to do inbetween the cinemas, and what it does give you isn't particularly exciting or fun to do either. The game isn't very good in a lot of the important ways of making a game. The controls are unresponsive and near useless at times, and the graphics...well I'll get back to those in a minute.
Rebel Assault just generally isn't much fun. Even if all the other aspects of it were perfect, a game where you shoot a couple of guys, watch 5 minutes of film, get in a ship, shoot a couple of ships and rinse and repeat just simply isn't very good, and is a complete waste of one of the best licenses going.
Given the nature of the movies, which really has two appealling action inclinations, the supernatural, lightsabre based Force element and the futuristic war dogfights, games usually pick one or the other to focus on, and Rebel Assault definitely opts for the latter option. The force gets mentioned once here, and it's a throwaway line.
Speaking of the story, this is just comedy. The game takes the rough plot of the first movie, putting you in the role of the main character, a rookie raised on tatooine, who has to take down AT-ATs on Hoth and perform a daring run in the Death Star trench to hit the 2m wide target, but this character isn't Luke Sykwalker, oh no, here you are Rookie One, without a doubt the most generic hero in videogaming history. Why not just use the proper movie story? why butcher it and change Luke into this generic fool? who knows, to add insult, Han Solo's role in the downfall of the Death Star is filled in by an old guy in an A-Wing. Wonderful.
The graphics are without a doubt the most split down the middle in terms of quality I have ever seen in a game. Some of the cinematics use real footage from the movies, and while it is a little grainy, for the hardware it's impressive. Some of the in-game stuff too, especially in the Third Person Soldier and First Person Cockpit views look great. But when you have to dodge walls and such or shoot from the top-down view, the graphics are abysmal. The backgrounds are as blurry and pixelated as you will see, and connection being made with walls and such can happen quite easily by accident, and enemies undetectable if it wasn't for the target that flashes around them. I found these stages almost unplayable due to how tough it was to even tell what was going on, and it made me wonder if there was something wrong with my CD and it had scenes from Road Avenger or Cobra Command or some other such blurry Mega CD FMV title.
If there is one aspect of the game that can't be faulted, it's the sound. John William's epic score is recreated well, and implemented just as well as it was throughout the movies. The game also features a number of voices, which sound a bit electronic nowadays, but for the time they are good, I mean you can clearly make out what is being said and so on. One thing that did bother me was this strange sort of buzzing background noise that went throughout the game, from the loading screens to the menu and throughout. This may just be my copy though.
To be honest, I can't really see any reason why anyone would want to buy this game. It's aged pretty badly, and is generally a waste of time, money and effort for those unfortuneate to come accross it these days. If you must have a Star Wars gaming fix, there are several much better games to sport the franchise, spanning consoles from the NES to SNES,PlayStation,PC,32X,N64 and XBox, so Im positive there is something better for you. If all those fail, just be content with the movie trilogy. Rebel Assault will just spoil it for you.
The only reason Im even giving this rubbish two stars instead of one is that I realise that out of all of these Mega CD FMV games, this is actually a good bit better than most, and at least it has some parts where you seem to be in some version of control of events. But that still isn't any reason to entertain the thought of buying it, or for me to recommend it.
Other Star Wars Reviews
Star Wars Arcade for 32X
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for XBox
Recommended:
No
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flash-hammer
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