Rebel Assault was the first in a series of games that went on to inspire Rogue Squadron and more recently StarFighter and Clone Wars. Rebel Assault was the first CD-ROM only Star Wars game and was indeed one of the first few CD only PC games. It was the only Star Wars game to be released for the Sega Mega CD and the 3DO has only Rebel Assault and Star Wars Chess in it's catalogue of Star Wars games.

The plot loosely follows that of Episode 4: A New Hope. After the initial training missions the main story starts with the Princess being captured by Darth Vader. The game deviates away from the film in places, notably to Hoth, but culminates with the Death Star trench run, also from episode 4. Clips from episode 4 are dotted throughout the film and these help bolster the sensation of 'playing the movie'.

Throughout the game you play a character called 'Rookie One', which seems a bit of an odd name for a parent to give their child. You can play as either a male or female character as you prefer, there's little difference apart from the voiceovers and a few of the animations.

This game is best described as an action-on-rails arcade shooter. Each level of the game is streamed from the CD with the interactive elements overlaid on to the movie. Gameplay styles consist of first person flying, 3rd person flying, overhead flying and 3rd person shooting. They all require you to use your joystick to shoot a variety of objects from Storm Troopers to Tie Fighters, you also have a limited amount of control over your ship, through which you must dodge upcoming obstacles.

As the content is streamed from CD, each level is much the same every time you play through it, the enemies come from the same location each time and the routes you can take remain the same. Some levels include a decision point where, for example, you can choose to fly left or right at a junction but this is the limit of the interactivity when it comes to choosing a route. Sometimes these route choices are linked together to create a maze effect causing you to find yourself back at an earlier area if you don't choose the right route through. If you're playing from CD the route selection can cause a slight interruption to the game whilst the CD drive seeks to the alternate movie.

When considering the graphics for this game you have to remember that the minimum requirements are a 386 with a single speed CD-ROM. This wasn't powerfull enough to decode MPEG1 video on the fly, let alone MPEG2 and 3D cards were a long way from becoming consumer mainstream products. As a result the graphics can appear blocky and at times indistinct but after playing for a while you tend to notice this less. The overlaid content is created from bitmaped sprites which can work well given the style of game and that the alternative at the time was plain polygons, a la X-Wing.

The background music is genuine John Williams and at the time was amazingly good. Other Star Wars games of the era used MIDI for their music synthesis where as Rebel Assault has a digital score that's streamed from the CD, hearing the full orchestrated score for the first time on a Star Wars game was quite an experience. However Mega CD release suffers from short versions of these tracks that tend to loop distractingly. The sound effects on all platforms are functional but nothing special and the sound of laser fire can soon become a bit tiring.

You have a choice of difficulty levels; Easy, Normal and Hard. This defines how difficult objects are to shoot and how much damage you take when shot, however the frequency and location of the enemies remains the same regardless of difficulty level. The 'Easy' difficulty level is indeed very easy, bar a couple of the levels, and you'll find yourself finishing the game very quickly if you choose this option. Conversely 'Hard' can be frustratingly difficult at time. Choose your poison.

It's possible to play with either a joystick or a mouse. Neither option is particularly great and sometimes you'll find yourself fighting with the control system more that you are with Tie Fighters. The controls can appear over sensitive at times and it's easy to get into a situation where your bouncing between one wall of a canyon and the other. The console releases have the advantage of a gamepad which is generally easier to manage. If you do get out of control due to the nature of the game it's not generally possible to control your speed, so you can't slow down to get control again before moving on, the level keeps moving on even if you'd prefer it didn't.

There is no save game facility, rather a system of passcodes are used to make save points. In the PC release a new passcode is give after every 3 levels that enables you to restart the game from that point, there's a different set of passcodes for each difficulty level. The gap between one passcode and the next can be a point of frustration, sometimes you find yourself playing through 2 easy levels over and over again just because the 3rd level can be tricky. The releases on all the other platforms have have passcodes after each level which makes for a saner gaming experience.

Non PC releases also have the advantage of a 'dodge' warning appearing on some levels, notably the asteroid field chases. This warning appears just in time for you to duck out of the way, it's a real help as sometimes it's a bit unclear which way you should be going until you've played through a level a few times.

The Mega CD release of this game is missing one entire level from the PC version, Level 7 - Imperial Probe Droids, probably due to the low colour depth supported by the Mega CD. It's not the greatest level and can be really awkward until you find your way through the 'maze' so it's no great loss that it was dropped. The penultimate level in the game is split into two on the Mega CD to make up the same level total of 15.

PC and Mac demos are available if you'd like to relive the moment or check compatibility. If you're looking for the full game E-Bay or the Amazon second hand shops are probably your best bet as it isn't published any more. You should be able to pick it up for a couple of quid if you're interested.