Off topic: How are games failing you?

[Trumanator]

I thought EAW was probably the best Star Wars strategy game so far, but space combat was the only thing worth coming back to.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

I thought EAW was probably the best Star Wars strategy game so far, but space combat was the only thing worth coming back to.

Other than the fact that Rebellion, which was published 9 years previous, had fully 3 dimensional space combat, and EAW is purely 2D.

You may scoff at this, but you could set waypoints in full 3 dimensoins in Rebellion, and perform some very stunning tactical maneuvers, taking full advantage (or disadvantage) of weapon facings, mobility, differing weapon types, etc. EAW's space combat is much more of your traditional RTS fare, in comparison - fast action, few tactical options beyond the "special abilities" of the units themselves, and the superficial interaction of differing weapon ranges and whatnot.

All things considered, I found my experience with Rebellion to be far more enjoyable, on nearly every level (besides eye candy, of course).

[Trumanator]

In actuality, now that I think about it I haven't played any other SW RTSes besides Galactic Battlegrounds. I'm guessing the combat in Rebellion was like in Homeworld? Even in that case I still don't think I would have liked it. Too many weird keyboard commands and such. I'm too casual a player.

[JimMorrison]

Honestly, I don't think it's fair to compare the space combat to anything - other than what I imagine space combat would and should be like.

That is, most ships are somewhat slow and cumbersome, but have a freedom of movement that very elegantly offsets the reduced mobility. IIRC in Homeworld, things happened very fast, as most games try to portray them. I think in reality, gravitational forces and inertia would have profound effects on what you could and could not do with a ship in combat, and this comes across well in Rebellion. It's a much more strategic system, where I think frequent use of Pause is not only reasonable, but to be expected.

The shortcomings were of course the limit of 2 factions, the lack of any sort of randomized map, the lack of any customizable characters, and an AI which we poo-pooed at the time, but while bad, was still better than nearly every game I've played of such scope and magnitude.

[rdonj]

I played rebellion a long... long time ago. I never really got into it because I completely failed to understand the resource system, and as a consequence, sucked. I wonder if I could make something of it if I went back and tried it again.

[Agema]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Oddly, I met a number of gaming industry people in my time in WoW, including a couple who claimed to be working on that title. According to them, it was an offshoot of Westwood - but they were pretty tight lipped about most things. They also stated that they were not part of the "old guard", and apparently their co-workers (for SOME reason) didn't talk much about the glory days.

The really top brass at Westwood (and hence the major old guard) got very good positions within EA. I dare say pre-takeover their day-to-day input to titles could be relatively low, but their overall creative direction might have been considerable.

* * *

I was disappointed with Star Wars Rebellion. It was hopeless at reflecting that the Empire was a vast Behemoth and the Rebels a scruffy element skulking around the fringes, although the empire working by repression and the Rebels by hope, freedom and diplomacy was implemented. The battles were well done, but it took so long to get a fleet anywhere I could never manage to actually get a decent engagement where two big battle fleets met in a galaxy-deciding blaze, just a series of hopelessly one-sided skirmishes.

[JimMorrison]

Hmmmm. I remember (it's been yearrrrrrrs) that with the Rebels, I fared best if I gobbled up rim systems as fast as I could with my amazing diplomants, while keeping the Empire running around in circles with Han+Chewie and my other awesome saboteurs running interference within the core. If done right, eventually I was zooming into the core with insane fleets of something like 5 Bulwark Battlecruisers, with support. Though my first strike fleets would tend to consist of just 10-12 Nebulon-B, as they had an excellent combination of firepower and maneuverability, with 2 fighter squadrons apiece, and IIRC could carry some ground forces as well.

As the Empire, it seemed a fairly simple feat to get a couple battlegroups of Star Destroyers up, and bombard the living hell out of any dissenting core systems, hammering them under the iron fist of the Empire with ruthless efficiency. The key here was to get a very strong economy going, because it takes a lot of manpower to bring the rim systems under your thumb, with so much distance between the clusters.

I don't know, I thought that there was a great combination of diplomacy (fighting for influence on each world), subterfuge (few games have had such engaging covert ops components), and gorgeous (for 1998!) space battles. I definitely rank it as one of my favorites of all time, and probably the best game to ever be associated with Lucas Arts (though Ballblazer was SWEET back in the day oh yeah, and Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken!).

[Trumanator]

Is Rebellion available as shareware?

[Aezeal]

Tie fighter was a great game associated with lucas arts

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

Is Rebellion available as shareware?

Everyone seems to agree that it should be Abandonware by now, it's been out of print for a long time, and has no LucasArts support. However, Home of the Underdogs apparently -will not- host LucasArts games, because they are notorious aholes about it. I found one site that hosts LucasArts abandonware titles, but their list stops at 1997, and I found one site that promised it had a "full download" of Rebellion, but it wanted a signup fee.....

Cheapest used copies on Amazon are $38+shipping, and a new copy will run you ~$150.