ADG Episode 202 - Star Wars: Rebel Assault

[@jarbothehutt7027]

First game I ever played on CD-Rom. I remember being blow away by the graphics and leaning in my office chair while doing right turns. I also remember the control reaction time being horrible, even for those days.

[@lsrburst1655]

In the GOG version, lowering the framerate (to about 10) in the Configuration screen seems to help a lot with the controls

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

I remember checking this out on a friend's shiny 486 back in the day. Cripes, I could never forget how much I hated the controls! I grabbed the bundle off GOG (really for the second game) a while back, and all that dislike for said controls game rushing back into my head. All the fancy-pants graphics and audio in the world aren't going to save you when the controls are as fundamentally broken here. Really enjoyed the breakdown here - seeing just *why* the controls are so messed up was really darn educational.

[@OpticFusion]

I really loved this game. finished it about 6 times. I played it on a 486 with the creative soundbalster and cd-rom, it was included in the box. I used a digital joystick with this game but it was nearly unplayable, I switched to an analog joystick and things got way better. I could never play it with the mouse. I have many fond memories of this game, it was also how I got introduced to Star Wars.

[@mrmaxaxl]

I still love it and play it once a year :) All you have to do is be very gentle with the joystick

[@JimLeonard]

There were patches for this game available on BBSes that addressed joystick support. They may have addressed your control concerns. I was shocked you weren't more impressed by the amazing video tech in this game. The video backdrop is larger than the screen and can bank several degrees, and was able to stream from a 2x CD-ROM, all on a high end 386.

[@ToddBarchok]

This, Day of the Tentacle, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis came with my family's Pentium computer. I ended up beating all three games, and I remember struggling to beat Rebel Assault, multiple times. I always figured it was mostly because I was bad at games, but it turns out the controls also kind of sucked. This game was still where a majority of my exposure to Star Wars came from, until the Special Editions got released.

[@joekraemer1602]

About the box art, I think they both imitate Lucasarts’ ‘Rescue on Fractalus’ from 1984.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

Who needs Rogue One when you've got STAR WARS FMV RAIL SHOOTERS?!

[@kizmetmars]

I love your insights into games, very informing and thought provoking.

[@StalwartUK]

About the auto-fire. If you're using DOSBox you can force it with autofire=true under [Joystick] in the DOSBox config file. Seems to work reasonably well with Rebel Assault. Hope this helps.

[@gatnom]

Thanks for the video! I agree on the controls. Which makes them even worse (and which you did not mention) is that the shots will ALWAYS hit the center of the crosshair. That means, if you shoot at an enemy which is dead centered and then quickly move away from it, the shot will MISS because the shot will follow the cursor. This issue was fixed in RA2.

[@Pixelmusement]

+gatnom THAT explains a lot, actually... :o

[@gatnom]

You can see this quite good starting 12:18. You can see the lasers not moving strait ahead, but making abrupt turns towards the rectangle.

[@FunctorialFun]

I loved this as a kid, and I will say you are lucky to be playing it now! There is one big problem that you didn't encounter which was the biggest one back in 93. As you mention CD-ROM games were new and the technology was poorly developed. The reason the compression on the video is so harsh is that it saturates the data rate of a 1x CD drive. It was so severely on the cutting edge that if you jostled the drive it could not have enough buffered to continue play and the game crashed! As one would imagine the drive was really easy to jostle and so most games ended with a frustrating crash! That said you are 100% correct that the reason it is so beloved is due to the novelty. Graphics like this are unheard of at the time and we just weren't sensitive to compression artifacts back then! So to 1990s eyes this game looked just like playing a scene from the film!

[@lucarescigno]

I played the Mac version with the keyboard and it worked fine. The one problem was the slow tracking of the cursor but it was the only way I could aim accurately. I actually bought a joystick for this game but only used it once because it was so bad. I can only imagine what I would have done if I had the DOS version with no keyboard controls... probably just given up on it. Also at the very beginning of the second Beggar's Canyon mission where you are in an X-Wing, if you hold down fire at the very beginning without moving, you will shoot all three TIE Fighters immediately.

[@DarkTenka]

Haha awesome! I played the shit out of this back in 95/96. Hard as fuck .. mostly due to the controls. I used a little trick make the controls more bareable: when calibrating the joystick at the start of the game, don't push it all the way to the top left/bottom right as it says, instead push it about half way-ish .. and try as best you can to mirror the exact same angle on the opposing side. This artificially sets the bounds of movement and if you get it just right you can have pushing your joystick all the way in each direction actually match what is on screen and the game becomes a tonne more playable. It often took a few tries to get an "acceptable" setting since u needed to be as exact as possible for the up/left calibration and the down/right calibration. Crazy that doing something like that actually made the game playable, but back in the day there was nothing else like this .. and it was "mind blowing" lol.

[@7thDementia]

I didn't realize what was wrong with it by looking at the footage. I realized what was wrong with it when we tried it on our old computer many years ago. XD

[@ThePilot4ever]

When I first saw the boxart I thought it was a sequel to X-wing where you could dogfight on planets instead of just being in space all the time and was hooked. I was disappointed this wasn't the case but remember having fun playing it. Skyhoppers and Snowspeeding was cool and surviving on hoth on foot blew my tiny brain. Screw the A-wing stalagtite level to hell though

[@JonnyD79]

Ah Rebel Assault… First CD-ROM game I ever played on a PC. We had a Compaq Presario which was alright I guess. It ran this game okay at least but. Well, I remember being 'wowed' by the graphics at the time but man did this game kick my butt hard. I clearly remember having a heck of a time on the Imperial Cruiser takedown mission.

[@bjorn-falkoandreas9472]

I had struggled to get it to run on my computer. Running both mouse and CD drivers AND having enough memory free was a struggle. And when I got it to run I got ... this. Everybody was saying the game was cool and so I assumed I was doing it wrong. It was just a novelty.

[@dosnostalgic]

The controls are the reason there's never gonna be a DOS Nostalgia review of this game. I'm too old for this sort of stuff. Don't have the patience anymore.

[@Pixelmusement]

+DOS Nostalgia That might make for a fun video then: "Games I Refuse to Review Because Reasons" :B

[@blabblab5589]

same here Dos Nostal. This game (i worked a whole summer to buy it back in the days and was very disappointed with what I bought) frustated me in the early 90's and I don't want to play it again. Oh god the controls......ya ya..right....

[@lilwyvern4]

"It's better to make one good game than two great games." You heard it here first, guys. :P Now I'm really curious what this 7 keys thing is. Blood had 6, who decides to one up my boy Caleb?

[@TheMoogleMaster]

I have this game, never could get it to work except for one time.

[@pelimies1818]

WingCommader series original art.. lol Kilrathi ships mixed straight from StarTrek, StarWars and Galactica. Jogging pilots from Galactica. Even the box art cockpit is pretty straight design from StarWars.

[@timking3587]

I have to dig up this game from the DOS games I stored away. Yes the controls were a pain when you try to go a direction you wanted to go in the first training mission and the 3rd but the way you have been explaing them I can't remember being that bad. I had Rebel Assault on my 486 back in the day (94/95) and completed it many times. Makes me laugh in the game your training instructor saves your ass instead of Han Solo in the final showdown with the Death Star 😂😂

[@rkornilo]

I played the game on my 486/33 w/ 8 MB RAM (yes, megabytes) and 2x CDROM drive back when this game came out so I had the...privilege (??) of experiencing it without emulation. I can assure you the control issues you are experiencing were nowhere near as severe back then - at least for me and a friend who borrowed my copy. And as you mention, gamers back then were much more tolerable of the lackluster visuals the same way we all were when playing Atari 2600 games back in the 80's because this was pushing the limits of the hardware of the time. For starters, A 2x CDROM drive in 1993? They were a little expensive. Another "feature" you didn't get to experience is when you would make a path choice when it forked - the pause while your drive head was seeking. :-)

[@AlyxxTheRat]

You mention during the asteroid runs you have to avoid brown asteroids and shoot blue ones. Funny thing, in Star Fox on the SNES, which was insanely influenced by Star Wars, you have to shoot brown asteroids and avoid bright blue ones.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Alexandria “Alyxx” Thorne Star Fox is WAY better than this game. ;D

[@DarioRuellan]

Yeah, I remember the terrible and infuriating mouse controls, like a cursor tied with an elastic. On the third person missions, you need to constantly compensate the elevation pulling up the nose, always in the verge of loosing control, and is more stressful than anything. On the other hand, I believe this is the first game using the digital version of the iMuse system, and was pretty cool.

[@SierraSierraFoxtrot]

Waves of nostalgia!

[@Calculon1712]

surprisingly the controls are a lot better if you use either Xbox One or PS4 controllers as these work on the GOG version they're also compatible with the sequel and the X-Wing and Tie Fighter games

[@JLMoondog_Dev]

I know this video is old, so you probably won't see this comment. On DOS the controls are terrible yes, but I first played this game as a port to the Panasonic 3DO, which used the 3DO joystick. The controls were near perfect and the game was actually playable, even on the hardest setting. The port came with both games combined into one. It was one of my favorite games on 3DO and one of maybe three I actually beat on the system.

[@Pixelmusement]

Yeah, that seems to be a common sentiment in the comments here is that the 3DO controls were well improved over the DOS original. :B

[@neumi569]

It was best to use a analog flightstick with that game. That allowed much more precise targeting. Modern gamepads or anything with digital controls just don't do it. I played it with a CH Flightstick

[@Nergalsama01]

I had to artificially lower the frame rate in the options menu just to have a chance at completing this game. And even then, the controls made it extremely difficult to make it through some levels, especially the 3rd-person flying stages. Rebel Assault 2 was better, but that's because of the cockpit stages where you could use the mouse to aim and shoot. The stages where you control your ship were still pretty bad, even with a gamepad. That one stage where you have to fly that Corellian freighter through the mining tunnels and where the gameplay changes to a cockpit view mid-stage? That was extremely frustrating, and overall the second half of RA 2 was way better.

[@elimalinsky7069]

From what I gather, the 3DO and Mac versions were identical to the DOS version. I have no idea why there's a claim that the other versions were better.

[@det.bullock4461]

I rencently played it top to bottom in one sitting with a joystick after finding a way to make autofire work in Dosbox, apart from the A-wing level it's not that bad and even there I managed by using a very light touch on the stick.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Det. Bullock Autofire definitely helps, but when this game came out, most DOS joysticks didn't have autofire, so I wanted to measure the quality of the game without it. :B

[@det.bullock4461]

Well, I had another impression at the time, most of the other kids with computers had cheap two-button sticks with an autofire mode. Of course when i finally got the money to buy a joystick for myself they had only had the "strato warrior" that was without it. But probably that's because I lived in the arse-end of nowhere (a small island) regarding computer tech and the local computer shop happened to have a bunch of sticks with autofire. EDIT But now that I think of it I did manage to break the fire button at the time.

[@det.bullock4461]

I think I discovered why it was easier for me, I might have lowered the frame rate in the options when I originally set it up (it was a few years ago, so I don't remember for sure), I don't remember if the default was higher but it is set at 10 FPS in the options.

[@gnntech]

As I watched this, I couldn't believe how smooth the game looked and clear the video was - then I remember that I own the Sega CD version which has hideous grainy video and terrible frame rate.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Daniel Camputaro This game's normal framerate is 15. It's even worse than THAT on the Sega CD? D:

[@gnntech]

The biggest problem with the Sega CD version is that the graphics are muddied and it's hard to tell what anything is due to limited color palette of the system and the artifacts. I don't know what the actual framerate is but I'd say it has to be lower than 15. Absolutely love your videos by the way.

[@KakyouKuzuki2001]

Three Joysticks gave their life for this game and then the THRUSTMASTER came

[@Balc0ra]

Never played this game much at all tbh. But iirc the 2nd game had custom difficulty settings. So the 10 year old me could at least get past some of the levels. You could adjust individual damage taken for instance. Even set wall damage to 1 and you could hit it 1000 times with no worries. As the joystick settings were as "bad" there as you said this was to fine tune your steering.

[@BastetFurry]

Ah, the reason why folks bought a CD-ROM back then. Not aged well, not aged well at all.

[@laurens4359]

Heck it was a crap game when it was released in 93. 91-93 had a bunch of much better DOS games (Ultima VII, Undedrworld, Wing Commander, Strike Commander, X-Wing...)

[@KainXVIII]

Playing now with Dualshock 4 controller and wow - i beat starting level on first try lol.

[@IllidanS4]

Use of the video sequences is quite interesting. Were there any other games utilising them for "3D"?

[@wesleybcrowen]

Microcosm from Psygnosis. Almost the same concept, except you're a microscopic ship that travels to the human's brain.. starting from his ass, for some odd reason. In case with Lucasarts games, the INSANE technology used in this game was reused in Full Throttle for bike fights.

[@POLE7645]

There was also Novastorm (also from Psygnosis).

[@atarijaguarfan7893]

i have a theory on why the box art is somewhat misleading. it was probably originally x-wing's boxart but due to either the devs just not liking it or due to meadling this got used for rebel assault instead

[@Pixelmusement]

Not impossible, but I doubt it because the artwork on this box takes place in some strange canyons, whereas X-Wing is ENTIRELY a space-faring affair. :P

[@atarijaguarfan7893]

@@Pixelmusement maybe x-wing might have been more ambitious at one point with on planet levels and this might be slightly touched up concept art from that era in development of x-wing and when x-wing was maybe scaled back to its final version they handed over the concept art to the rebel assault team to use as that game's box art?

[@Pixelmusement]

@@atarijaguarfan7893 Yeah but now we're just circling back around to this thing's existence. It's not impossible, but I think the odds are greater that the box art we got for both games was the intended box art for both games. :B

[@RolloTonéBrownTown]

Some of the most bizarre graphics I've seen for a 90s game. What is going on with that luster on surfaces?

[@Pixelmusement]

This is the early-days of pre-rendered visuals so the specular lighting looks... well... "shiny". ;)

[@FekLeyrTarg]

I'm definitely interested in seeing your review of Rebel Assault II. Do you also intend to compare the MS-DOS version with the Playstation one? Both are fundamentally different in terms of gameplay and graphics.

[@Pixelmusement]

+FekLeyrTarg's Videos I almost certainly won't directly compare the two as I won't have the experience necessary, but if there are huge differences I'll at least comment on the existence of those differences. :B

[@quarkbent9165]

Rebel Assault: A Mess That Almost Works... Yeah, that's it alright :)

[@Anesthesia90]

Niceeeee! skiping sleep time payed off :D

[@KeeperBvK2]

"It's better to make one good game than two great ones."? I don't think, that is what you meant to say. :D

[@Pixelmusement]

+Burkhart von Klitzing It's Sid Meier's "Covert Action" rule. It relates to how if you try to cobble a bunch of great games together instead of focussing on making just one good game, you lose your focus and the games you end up with clunk against each other in how they interact with one another in their attempt to be one cohesive product. Covert Action was like that and it kinda suffers from a bit of an identity crisis as a result. :P

[@wesleybcrowen]

And this is the game that almost put me off from the entire Star Wars franchise as a kid. *THE CONTROLS ARE ABSOLUTE GARBAGE!* Luckily Dark Forces came in and lured me back with its awesomeness.

[@DarkTenka]

Dark Forces is Legit. I just wish we got Kyle Katarn somewhere in Rogue One. Was hoping that Cassian Andor would take up the same role but .. then it ended it like it did :(. Still a great ending though heh.

[@AnyUserNo2]

make one of Rebel Assault II :D

[@lull_the_un]

Maybe the controls were made challenging so your shot accuracy would be more realistic to the movies. You could play the game and be like, "so _that's_ why they never hit anything!!!"

[@Pixelmusement]

To be fair, I get that feeling from ALL of the early Star Wars space-shooting games. No one ever thought to invent the "lead indicator" in that far-away galaxy. :P

[@josephreddy7165]

I had it on sega-CD. I thought it was cool. I did play it on DOS and that sucked so I guess it depends on which platform you play.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Joseph Reddy The DOS version came first so ANY port following is likely to have fixes which make it better. :P

[@RetroSwim]

The Y-axis joystick problem you're having might be a DOSBox thing. I just tried the game on real hardware with a Logitech Wingman Extreme and it certainly behaved very "squarely". Still a really average game, but I never had the trouble controlling it that you seemed to, even as an 11 year old. :-/

[@Pixelmusement]

+RetroSwim Odd... Because the joystick was working perfectly fine in the calibration screen for the game. I guess it COULD be an emulation thing, but the X axis was working properly so why wouldn't the Y axis and only in the actual game and not during calibration? ...weird...

[@CeeOmega]

I used to like playing this game. But then again, I know nothing about games. Just cause it's Star Wars. This reminds me of Mad Dog McCree.

[@1300l]

Gemini, do you own a 386, 486 and a Pentium MMX PC(s)? I ask as if i recall, the game rendered on real MS-DOS had the gfx slight better. So idk, if you do own and it isn't too much work, maybe some reviews could have a section dedicate to how the game run on authentic hardware, so we could know if some of the DosBox and SCUMMVM emulation problems were real on real machines.

[@Pixelmusement]

+1300l Due to the nature of this game, the graphics probably felt better on a CRT simply because of the worse dot-pitch making the compression artifacts less noticeable. That said, you may also be remembering Rebel Assault II which had SVGA graphics. ;)

[@1300l]

Yea i sure did. Funny enough you Review the Dig and Rebel Assault, as when i got a 486 for office work back then it came with the dig and Rebel Assault II

[@sholva6809]

Yeah Pixel you're absolutely right Fallout 1 on a HD screen looks really pixelated compared to my dad's CRT monitor. I'm sure it's the same with most of the older games.

[@negirno]

Rebel2 had an SVGA option, but the video was still in only 200p resolution, which was either displayed as interlaced (in this case drawing only every other line) or interpolated. The menus/text were high res though... As for the controls, I think these were done by purpose to artificially lengthen game play? Even with the then vast size of compact discs, an FMV game could only be so much long because of size constraints and because good video codecs were too much for the machines at that time. The CD ROM games from the early nineties shows that most developers didn't knew what to do with the new medium. A lot of games were just re-releases of floppy versions sometimes with CD Audio music and talkies or FMV rail shooters like this.

[@Inglonias]

I actually played this on the Mac and finished it. I had fun, though you're right. The sequel is way, WAY better

[@Inglonias]

also the mac version had keyboard controls

[@mrmaxaxl]

I played the PC version and loved it. Infact I played it a week ago and while it took a while to get used to the controls, but once you mastered it: it was AMAZING!! FInished it 3 times 😁😁

[@ClusterShart]

Be happy you didn’t play the Sega CD version with only 56 colors, and even lower framerate

[@cxk7127]

I played this game when it was released. While I was initially disappointed (thinking it would be like X-Wing) I learned to mostly enjoy it. Wearing my nostalgia glasses and remembering the fond memories I had of this game I revisited it a few years back and immediately thought "What in the hell is this garbage?!?!" Looking back the only parts I enjoy at all anymore are the Beggers Canyon level (the first one) and the bombing run mission after that. Beyond that the game is really boring with lackluster controls.

[@Pixelmusement]

The controls are definitely the biggest problem with the Rebel Assault games. Had the controls been done better I think these games would've aged considerably better too. :B

[@BlackCatRedScarf]

Hmm... I wonder if you could do the review about Novastorm. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novastorm

[@anthonyspecf]

Still a better Star Wars game than BattleFront 2 EA ;)

[@AnyUserNo2]

oh and uhm, I disagree with many many things you said in the video. Like the whole boxart thing

[@reverendragu]

Never really liked this game, but there was always this cognitive dissonance like "Well, X-Wing and TIE Fighter are good, and the Lucasarts adventure games are good, this can't be bad, could it?" and I thought that maybe the reason I had such a bad time with it was that my joystick wasn't very good and couldn't be calibrated properly (it actually was perfectly fine). I'm just happy to know now that it really was that bad for everyone.

[@Pixelmusement]

The irony being that it's not like the tech driving this game isn't impressive, it's actually EXTREMELY well done... but at the end of the day you still have to make a fun game and while this one LOOKS the part it certainly doesn't PLAY the part. :P

[@reverendragu]

​@@Pixelmusement Yeah, when I say I didn't like it, it wasn't for lack of trying, but those controls just killed it for me. Pushing it out the door without giving the gameplay enough care was probably the right move in terms of profitability -- that FMV gravy train didn't stay too long at the station. But even then, the general lack of care in creating a fun experience and expecting the novelty of MOVIES!!! ON MY COMPUTER!!! to pick up the slack didn't do much for the form's longevity.

[@DeviantXS-2468]

Rebel Assault II is much better, but its not saying much. Controls are still jerky, but the experience is at least way better.

[@manicscarecrow3011]

This game sucked hardcore ass!

[@Fre1maurer]

The controls are not that bad. I was 12 when i got this game and beat it back in 93. Even i figured out how to play it right. Never focus on your shit, but to the flight path in front of you instead. This gives you plenty of time to react to obstacles. Makes sense if you think about it.