Star Wars: Rebellion is a game like no other. With either a giant but fractured Empire or a ragtag but mobile Rebellion at your fingertips, you need to conquer the galaxy using fleets, armies and special agents. Before you know it, you're thinking like the movie counterparts and sending hundreds of probe droids to unexplored planets or sending Leia Organa on diplomatic missions to persuade planets to join you. Both sides have their special characters, but with most Imperial characters excelling in Leadership and most Rebellion characters in Diplomacy, you'll fall into the expected playstyle of your faction before too long. If you're lucky, Luke, Darth Vader or the Emperor will spot a potential for the Force in a character, allowing them to train that character in the Jedi arts. Sometimes, this means Chewbacca or Thrawn ends up with Force Powers, leading to all sorts of hilarity. The game is real-time, which means that sometimes you're waiting for minutes before something happens, sometimes things happen so quickly you hardly have time to react. Thankfully, you can alter the flow of time. A friendly protocol and astromech droid filter your messages and can take over some of the more mundane tasks of running an Empire/Rebellion (like maintenance and mining). The space battles can be fought by hand and are a bit clunky, but once you figure out how they work, it's a joy to see your Star Destroyers tear the Rebel frigates a few new holes. The downside is that the computer will quickly figure out when they're outmatched and turn tail. Thankfully, Interdictor cruisers can be researched to negate all warp drives. The graphics are not great, the controls may not be user friendly and the game may be too slow and unwieldy for some. But it's also the only game that will allow you to build several Death Stars and massive fleets of Star Destroyers, allowing you to crush the Rebel scum once and for all. And for that, it is great.
