Gaming History 101

In order to understand why Rebel Strike even exists and why reviewers were so harsh on certain aspects of it, it’s important to understand where the series roots begin in the Star Wars video game universe as well as the significance of developer Factor 5.  As most gamers are aware, the mid-late 90s was a rough time for video games as games went from sprite-based 2D experiences to polygonal 3D experiences with extremely varying degrees of success and failure.  During this time Star Wars was ramping up for some new content beginning with the 1995 announcement of the Special Edition Trilogy that would remaster the original films and bring them back to theaters.  At the time this was all good news.  My friends and I were mocking the transparent snowspeeders in Empire, laughing at some of the effects in A New Hope, and reveling over the cool new things that were teased in the trailer (like the ronto in Mos Eisley).  These days there are clearly sour grapes with the Special Edition Trilogy and far more edits have been made for the Blu-Ray releases of these films than what hit theaters in 1997, but again before those films had even come out it was time to ramp up on Star Wars console games.  Couple that with the announcement of the upcoming Prequel Trilogy set to release in 1999 and Star Wars fever hit.  It should be noted that Star Wars games would consistently release during most of console gaming’s life, but most of the variety was found only on PC and the more traditional action games were found on console.

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