Hoping that we’ll never see a purple courtyard in our lives again, we wave goodbye to All or Nothing and beam out of that world, arriving somewhere very different in our next helping within the Your Sinclair Top 100. No.#2 is a game that is still causing “Gaming Wave Ripples” to this day, through both Next-Gen consoles and Ultra High-End PC’s, we’ve arrived at Rebelstar from Firebird.
Rebelstar first appeared on the ZX Spectrum back in 1986 programmed by Julian Gollop, and it was the highly praised sequel to Rebelstar Raiders – also on the Spectrum – from 1984. This turn-based strategy game sees the Raiders pitted against the Operatives. Your job as the Raiders is to break into the occupied Moonbase Delta and destroy ISAAC (the main core), or if you want to go on a more blunt mission destroy all the Operatives instead. With numerous weapons to collect, bodies of fallen comrades to scavenge, morale to impede your aim and coffee tokens to find, Rebelstar isn’t just a five minute affair. Not only that but you can make it more interesting in two player mode.
Here’s a game that as a child I lost countless hours too, thanks mainly to Your Sinclair placing it on a free cover tape not once but twice. It is so extremely engrossing that time streams past you outside the Rebelstar world and you barely notice your bones losing density. Still to this day, when you get your head around the controls, you can lose yourself so easily within this strategy game. Granted the graphics don’t have a highly detailed 3D isometric slant to them, however they serve their purpose well and you can clearly see what they are meant to be. You could argue that Rebelstar 2 or Laser Squad should be in this spot, but there would be no point – if we’re honest – as all are worthy of be acknowledged as fantastic games.
To bring it back to the opening statement, as you look at X-Com 2 thinking ‘This game is the bee’s knees!’, take a moment to remember it’s humble genesis on the ZX Spectrum.
If you’d like to have a go of Rebelstar or Rebelstar 2 it’s available via a Flash website here.
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Originally published August 26, 2016. Updated November 14, 2019.
