Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire
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| Star Wars: Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire | |
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| Developer(s) | LucasArts |
| Publisher(s) | LucasArts |
| Engine | INSANE |
| Release date(s) | 1995 |
| Genre(s) | Action (Interactive movie) |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A |
| Platform(s) | PC, PlayStation, Mac |
| Media | CD ROM |
| System requirements | 50 MHz 486 or better, 8MB RAM, Double-Speed MPC Level 2 CD-Rom drive, 256-Color VGA Video Card, Dos 6.0 or Windows 95 |
| Input | Joystick, Mouse, Keyboard |
Star Wars: Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire is the sequel of the LucasArts action game Star Wars: Rebel Assault, set in the Star Wars universe.
This part of the series contained mostly original filming with actors and stunts, while the scenery and the space scenes were, of course, 3D rendered. According to LucasArts' magazine "The Adventurer", this game was the first media to incorporate live-action actors and footage in the Star Wars universe since Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. The stormtrooper armors, weapons, helmets and suits (and possibly Darth Vader's costume) seen to be worn by the actors, were not made for the game, but are the actual props seen in the original trilogy, taken from the archive storage of Lucasfilm.
The game makes use of the INSANE game engine.
Here, the player Rookie One is clearly shown and is obligatorily male. He commands ships not appearing in the previous game, like a YT-1300 Corellian Transport, a B-Wing, a Y-Wing and encounters new opponents, like TIE Interceptors. The fly videos now seem to move and rotate according to how the player 'moves', so that there is an illusion of 'steering' the ship (which in reality is following a 'rail' in a pre-rendered course).
[edit] Plot
After the destruction of the first Death Star, Darth Vader has begun a new project for the Galactic Empire. Meanwhile, in the Rebel Alliance, some rumours have grown concerning 'ghost ships' attacking Rebel patrols.
Rookie One, while flying with his wingman, receives a distress call from a transport, when attacked by TIE fighters. The pilot had crucial information about the Galactic Empire's new project. After the first wave of TIEs, laser shots come from nowhere. Rookie One is left alone and lands on the planet where he goes to rescue the captured transport and escape with it.
In its records, the Alliance learn about a secret Imperial mining facility in the asteroid Belt of Arah and a squadron of X-Wings moves to destroy it. It turns out that the Empire was manufacturing a secret version of the TIE Fighter equipped with a cloaking device invented by Grand Admiral Martio Batch. This allowed them to move through space neither spotted on radar nor by any pilot until they were ready to strike. Rookie One joins with Ru Murleen and as stormtroopers, board Admiral Sarn's cloaking device-equipped Super Star Destroyer Terror. Stealing a Phantom TIE, they manage to destroy the Terror and the facility, Imdaar Alpha, which is the source of the Phantom TIE's.
After returning to a Rebel base, the Phantom TIE self-destructs, killing no one in the process, but keeping the secret of the fighter and Batch's cloaking device from the Rebels; they would later re-encounter the cloaking device in Grand Admiral Thrawn's campaigns against the New Republic many years later, after Thrawn had recovered the plans from Palpatine's Wayland storehouse.
