Star Wars: Rebel Assault

Description

An arcade-style flight and shooting game, Star Wars: Rebel Assault is inspired by the first three films in the Star Wars franchise. During combat against the Galactic Empire, players take control of the rebel recruit Rookie One, who can have either a male or female voice depending on the player's preference. The story events (which don't follow the films to the letter but instead offer their own interpretation and characters) include Rookie One's basic training, an Imperial invasion on Tatooine, the battle of Hoth from "The Empire Strikes Back," and the struggle against the Death Star from "A New Hope." Skyhoppers, A-Wings, X-Wings, and Snowspeeders are the four types of starships that players will pilot in this Star Wars game.

The game has a total of fifteen stages, and they range from traversing canyons, tunnels, and asteroid fields to fighting TIE Fighters in space, attacking a Star Destroyer and an Imperial Walker, fighting stormtroopers on foot, and completing the iconic Death Star trench run. There are three distinct perspectives from which flight sequences can be viewed: either from behind the player's own craft, from above, or from the perspective of the pilot sitting inside the cockpit. All of them utilize motion video backdrops that display pre-rendered scenes and follow a model that is described as being "on rails." In the first-person levels, movement is restricted to a minimum and accuracy shooting is required almost exclusively, however in the third-person levels, you have some degree of freedom to move around in order to avoid obstacles. On some stages, you have the option of taking one of several diverging routes. The on-foot level takes place on static screens, with the player being able to take steps to the side in order to dodge enemy fire. Rookie One is seen from behind during this portion of the level. Stormtroopers move in from side passages. The game includes a password system; however, on the console ports, a password is awarded after each level, whereas in the PC version, a password is only awarded after a set number of levels.