Impressive when it stays on the air; lackluster when it descends to the ground
After the Rebels achieved what apparently was ultimate success by bringing down the Empire's first Death Star, their forces are surprised by Imperial attacks all across the Galaxy. On this bleak scenario you will follow two parallel storylines – differently from the first game where the single-player mode was consisted of a linear campaign. On one side of the tree you will follow Captain Wedge Antilles struggles that follow the great Battle of Hoth, meanwhile on the other story branches your goal as Luke Skywalker is to help Alliance by flying awesome space vessels, training to become a Jedi and finally bringing down the Empire for good. The fact that the game possesses two distinct paths does not mean the amount of missions here is significantly bigger than it was on the second installment of the series; on the contrary, the number of missions remains roughly the same – standing a little bit over twelve missions.
On its single-player mode the game basically does what all of its predecessors did pretty well, after all why deeply mess with the formula when it has been working so well for such a long time. At first players will only have one missions to select, and after beating it following missions are unlocked. The missions are divided in a series of goals that must be achieved before time runs down, for example you may have to escort transports to a location only to then have to defend their integrity as massive enemy waves try to blow them to pieces. It is a very effective setup, and there is always a feeling of urgency as the missions are invariably coupled with well-done voice acting that lets you know about the situation on other areas of the battlefield – informing you which locations you should head for. The missions are far from being easy, in fact some of them will have players going insane as inability to achieve your goals quick enough, or the losing of three lives will cause the missions to restart from its very beginning. Hopefully, in this case, missions are never really that long – clocking in less than 10 minutes.
Like it happened on Rogue Leader, as players clear missions they receive an award that could be a gold medal, a silver medal, a bronze medal or no medal at all. The awarding of those medals is based on a series of stats including: time taken to clear the missions, enemies destroyed, allies lost, shot accuracy, lives lost and a few others. Failing to reach the criteria on one of those stats means you will not get the medal. Each medal will give players some points which can be eventually exchanged for a few extra missions that are so hard that gamers must prove their value before being able to take them. The medal system is once again responsible for giving the game its great replay value, a characteristic that is absolutely necessary to its success, since when putting into account the number of missions and their length the game is extremely short.
Based on those remarks one could say that Rebel Strike is as incredible as Rogue Leader, as both present a series of astounding Star Wars aerial battles that are exciting and very well-developed. Unfortunately, Factor 5 decided to expand the action from the air to the ground on most of the game's missions, and that is exactly where Rebel Strike crumbles. Some of the game's missions start on air, only to them be taken to the ground once all fighters have been taken care of; to make matters worse, others are only based on on-foot sections. Those segments feature an awful lot of issues that seriously harms the flow of the game. Differently from the aerial goals, the on-foot segments require little to no skill as going through them is only a matter of pressing the A-button as quickly as possible so that your automatically-aimed laser gun can take down as many troopers as possible. As a consequence, all on-foot missions are basically the same – the only difference being the scenarios – as you will always be running and shooting like there is no tomorrow.
The problems don't stop there, though; as the fixed and automatic camera of those parts is more bothersome than helpful since it will inevitably fail to show what players want to see. Not to mention that the game's visuals lose a lot of their appeal – and quality – when the action occurs on the ground as poor character models and average textures come to the surface. If it had been properly taken care of, on-foot missions could have been the game's highlight additions, but since those ended up being a boring and nearly broken face of the game, they fail to add anything at all. Instead, they obscure a big part of this game's undeniable qualities.
If on the ground the game lacks visual appeal, that is not something that the on air segments do not feature. By taking advantage of the very same powerful graphics engine, Rebel Strike looks as good as its predecessor – meaning it is easily one of the system's most impressive games as very detailed spaceships coming from every direction crowd the screen and the gorgeous backgrounds. When it comes to sound, there isn't much to be said as the game presents the very same sound effects and orchestral tunes that showed a long time ago that the Star Wars series was not all about visual effects; it also was a feast to the ears. In addition, there is also very well-done voice acting.
The controls also haven't changed one bit. In order to maneuver players will use the control stick while blasting ships with either the A-button – which represents the ships primary weapon – or the B-button – which is usually a secondary, more powerful and limited weaponry. Being the leader of a squadron, the option to give orders to your peers appears once again in Rebel Strike as each one of the directions of the D-pad represents a certain order that is performed by your commandos on the fly, these actions include: fleeing, forming behind you, shooting tie fighters or shooting guns. While on the air the perfect controls makes the experience even more amazing, on the ground the aforementioned lack of options turns it into boredom.
Overall, Rebel Strike is a must-buy if you are willing to ignore the issues of its ground segments. While inside a spaceship it is as good as its prequel, therefore one of the best games on the system. And although it is indeed short, the medals, extra missions and different crafts – with unique statuses, weapons and handling - that get unlocked for each of the game's missions after you have beaten them once give fans of the series and newcomers a great opportunity to come back for some more. If replaying the game is not your thing, there is always the option to enjoy the game's marvelous multiplayer mode that features versus dogfights, or all of Rogue Leader's single-player missions – with a couple of exceptions – on a cooperative manner which adds a whole new level of awesomeness to an already fantastic batch of missions. With a stellar multiplayer mode and a flawed but solid single-player experience, Rebel Strike is easy to recommend to anyone with a love for exciting epic battles.
Actual Score: 7.8