This is what old gamers keep their old systems for!
Coolhand and Lucas Arts brought us an amazing game that has come under massive debate. You either love it or hate it. For those gamers who love first-person shooters, simulation games and mindless "doom generators", this is NOT the game for you. For those who like to have their games with a little mind-bending strategy based in the Star Wars world, this is indeed for you.
To start off after the nice video intro, you enter the command screen. Decide on the difficulty, side of the war (Empire or Rebels), the size of the galaxy, and weather or not you are playing head to head against a real person over the web or not. Afterwards, you get to see a video of where you will be stationed before the game flops you on the command deck with a droid who gives you an update on your situation. The game will progress with building an army large enough to topple your foe and win all of the existing planets in all of the sectors to your side.
To do this, a vast amount of depth will come into play for which a very detailed game manual is necessary to have with you. Information on ships, armies, spies, droids, planets, commanders, defenses, facilities, and even missions for all are here in the manual. This is your bible.
Here is the catch: the AI is not very good. It's difficult to get your bearings at times in the massive galaxy (even when you chose a small one). The manual is your biggest resource to help you find what or who you are looking for, should you get lost. But those experienced gamers who use patience find that it all becomes second nature after a few games. Unfortunately, to add to the problems, no patches for later computer models were made available and this game may die out with the invention of Windows 7 (even xp is problematic although it does play).
The graphics are nothing more than icons and "Windows"-style boxes. The only massively active portion (besides the videos clips from the movies) is the 3D battle cube for space battles. But consider this: the game of chess has only 64 squares, 16 pieces per side and only certain moves can be made by certain pieces. Yet this game has been around for many centuries and continues to baffle the masses. Rebellion is just about the same - not very flashy, just a simple "playing board" with multiple levels (or if you prefer: "sectors"). Only not only can you be dealing with how to defeat your opponent in one sector, but with the split screen, you could also be figuring out how to get your best commander out of a tough squeeze on the other side of the galaxy - at the same time!
Each ship, commander, spy, defense mechanism, etc. has stats that can change with the game-play. Which means you can have differing outcomes to the same situation depending on the numbers. Upgrades become available during the game based on research. Better yourself by sending your commanders on missions which drive up their stats if they are successful. Having trouble being successful? Send more guys or more experienced commanders with good stats to train the rookies. And just you wait for the stats to shoot up when either Luke or Vader find a new "force user". The depth and abilities are so diverse, you can get lost in you own sector!
I've played the game multiple times, with multiple endings - all different. Hours in a day, and even days have been lost in the Rebellion world. Believe me, if you have not played this game, you are missing something rare. Rebellion sits on my shelf of best games along side Civilization IV and Medieval Total War - where it should be. But if you want more from the interface, go somewhere else.