A seemingly promising, but heavily flawed dive into the strategic part of the Star Wars universe.
In Rebellion you play as a nameless and faceless officer (fresh out of the Academy I assume) who must decide whether he or she wants to remain loyal the Empire or join the Rebellion. After you make your choice you are taken to your new flagship (Or in the Rebellion's case, the Rebel HQ, and then your flagship) where you will get a briefing on the situation in the Galaxy from your droid assistants. The game is set after the destruction of the first Death Star, so quite a few planets have openly defected to the Rebellion, but some remain loyal to the Empire and some refuse to support either side. This is where your task begins.
In Rebellion your primary objective is to destroy or capture the enemy HQ and capture the opposing side's two dominant figures. If you are a Rebel Commander, your objective will be to capture Coruscant and then abduct Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. If you're an Imperial your objective will be to find and destroy the hidden Rebel HQ which is always on the move, and capture Luke Skywalker and Mon Mothma. Along the way you'll also have to battle Rebel Fleets and get planets under your control.
Having planets under your control is essential in Rebellion, and the nice thing about the game is that you can sway them to your side in whatever way you want. You can control a planet out of fear by bombarding and assaulting them then keeping a garrison on world, persuade them to join your cause by sending one of your agents on a diplomatic mission, or inciting an uprising on an enemy world. Once you have a world under your control it is a good idea to construct mines and refineries so you can get resources to construct more capital ships, starfighters, and troops. The problem with this freedom, is that depending on your side the Rebels or Imperials can only effectively take control of a planet in one way, for example: The Empire is horrible at diplomacy, you can of course make your agents better by sending them on a slew of diplomatic missions, but for the most part you're better off assaulting a planet. The rebels on the other hand are better off using diplomacy and inciting uprisings.
The combat in Rebellion is a mixed bag. Space battles let you issue commands to ships in a paused format, and then you can unpause and watch your fleet engage the enemy fleet. This combat can be somewhat dry since the ships just sit there blasting away at each other and usually do not express any desire to maneuver around or above and below their opponents. Starfighters maneuver, but it's more like watching a small 2d sprite zig zag back and forth. I generally "auto-resolve" space battles since the outcome is usually the same as what you'll get if you fight it out; it's just over a lot quicker. Space battles aside, the game doesn't let you take control of the ground combat at all. If you're assaulting a planet the only thing you can do is hope your trooper stats, and numbers are enough to overcome the enemy defenses which is a shame. You can usually weaken the enemy's hero\agent resistance by abducting or assassinating agents or heroes on that world (though it's usually wise to spy on the planet first to make sure that your target is still there), and this can aid in taking planets.
Rebellion's biggest problem is the clunky interface. In the control room you're allowed to have two windows open at once, you can minimize some of them, but in the end it becomes a chore to keep track of everything. Sending agents on missions can also be tedious; you'll be forced to open up the planet's ground forces window (and use the tracker if you forgot where they were since their last report), open the location or individual you want to assign them to, right click your agent, select mission, and select from the list what you want them to do with the specified target. It is as tedious as it sounds, but you may not even mind the clunky interface eventually.
The graphics in Rebellion even for their time are mediocre. Most of the game takes place in your flagship control room so the graphics there are understandable, and usually the scenes you see in your reports are even good, but the space combat is just plain poor. Capital ships are fairly large and 3D, but they are undetailed and look like something out of the DOS versions of the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. The Starfighters are just small 2D sprites that zig zag back and forth in combat and the lasers are just as much an eye sore.
The audio in Rebellion is your typical Star Wars fare. The traditional John Williams score plays in the background as you make your decisions aboard your flagship, and during space combat you'll hear classic Star Wars laser fire. Oddly enough, however; there is virtually no music during the space combat sequences which only adds to the dryness of them. It would have made the space battles at least somewhat dramatic.
Rebellion is a solid RTS set in the Star Wars universe, it's not great and could have definitely had a lot of changes made to the interface. It could also have used controllable ground combat and a more interesting space combat simulation system, but if you like Star Wars it's worth a shot because for the most part (except for some small continuity errors since it came before the prequels) it stays true to the Star Wars mythos. If you don't like Star Wars or are neutral towards Star Wars and are just looking for a great strategy game; stay far away. The interface and dry space combat ruin what is otherwise a solid RTS that had much promise.