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82-445: The game features digitized footage and music from the original movies (although most of the original footage is replaced by CGI rendered sequences), and full speech. Star Wars: Rebel Assault is one of the oldest titles to make use of extensive full-motion video (FMV) on the PC. Video was used to display pre-rendered 3D graphics of various environments and battles that were far ahead of what

164-405: A CD , they became technically capable of utilizing more than a few minutes' worth of movies in a game. This gave rise to a slew of original FMV-based computer games such as Night Trap (1992), The 7th Guest (1993), Voyeur (1993), Phantasmagoria (1995), and Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT (1995). Other titles were simply scaled down ports of Laserdisc arcade games, some of them

246-495: A light gun game. Only level 9 falls into the on foot mission type. This level puts the player in a series of three stationary settings, though the player character can be maneuvered horizontally in order to avoid enemy fire. In a few stages, there are branching points, much like those in Panzer Dragoon II . Bonus points are awarded for accuracy and whether secondary objectives are accomplished. In some cases, original footage

328-800: A "boutique online network of sites." The result was the introduction of the Gamepro Media Network. In September 2010, Gamepro Media announced a new alliance with online magazine The Escapist offering marketers joint advertising programs for reaching an unduplicated male audience. The partnership was named the Gamepro Escapist Media Group. In November 2010, Julian Rignall joined Gamepro Media as its new vice-president of content, replacing John Davison, who resigned in September 2010. Gamepro ended monthly publication after over 22 years with its October 2011 issue. Shortly after that issue,

410-464: A caption for an image of one of the game's bosses as "PROTIP: To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies". The apparent advice, which is common sense and self-evident for players of first-person shooters like Doom , was widely mocked and created a meme of similarly obvious ProTips added as captions to pictures. However, the image was revealed to be a fake, created as an April Fools' joke for

492-433: A contemporary PC could render in real-time. It was followed by a sequel, titled Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire . Star Wars: Rebel Assault consists of four mission types: three spaceflight types, and one on foot. The three spaceflight mission types are third person (levels 1, 3, 5, 7, and 11), overhead view (levels 1 and 13), and first person (levels 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, and 15). In all three types,

574-450: A decade old by this time. Regardless of their sources, these FMV games frequently used B-movie and TV actors and promised to create the experience of playing an interactive movie or animation. However, production values were quite low with amateurish sets, lighting, costumes, and special effects. Animated titles either cobbled together footage from old anime or used cheaper overseas animation producers to create their footage. In addition,

656-607: A dimension where video games were real to save it from creatures called the Evil Darklings. In 2003, Joyride Studios produced limited-edition action figures of some of the Gamepro editorial characters. Gamepro also appeared in several international editions, including France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Australia, Brazil and Greece. Some of these publications share the North American content, while some others share only

738-415: A dozen Laserdisc games over the next few years and many other companies again rushed to release titles using the technology. Dragon's Lair II , a title which had been shelved years earlier, was released by Leland to strong sales. Time Traveler further pushed the technology by using special projection technology to give the appearance of 3D visuals. Again, the fad passed quickly. The limited nature of

820-481: A fansite doomworld.com. Every April until 2007, as an April Fools' Day prank, Gamepro printed a 2-5 page satirical spoof of the magazine called Lamepro , a parody of Gamepro 's own official title. The feature contained humorous game titles and fake news similar to The Onion , though some content, such as ways to get useless game glitches (games getting stuck, reset, or otherwise), was real. The section parodied GamePro itself, as well as other game magazines. What

902-470: A few years, the technology had improved and Laserdisc players were more reliable. In addition, costs had come down and the average price to play a game had gone up. These factors caused a resurgence of the popularity of Laserdiscs games in the arcade. American Laser Games released a light gun shooting game called Mad Dog McCree in 1990 and it was an instant hit and then in 1991 with Who Shot Johnny Rock? American Laser alone would go on to lease almost

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984-499: A home console system called the Halcyon was released by RDI Video Systems that used Laserdiscs for its games and was to feature ports of several popular Laserdisc arcade games of the day. It used FMV exclusively, but the company folded after releasing only two titles for the system. The LaserActive from Pioneer would try the technology again in 1994, but it too failed. By the early 1990s when PCs and consoles moved to creating games on

1066-422: A major gameplay component had eventually disappeared because of the limited gameplay options it allowed. The first wave of FMV games originated in arcades in 1983 with laserdisc video games , notably Astron Belt from Sega and Dragon's Lair from Cinematronics . They used Laserdiscs to store the video used in the game, which allowed for very high quality visuals compared to contemporary arcade games of

1148-512: A massive overhaul in the March 2007 issue. While losing some of the more dated elements of the magazine, the new arrangement focused on five main insertions: HD game images, more reviews and previews per issue, www.gamepro.com community showcase, user contributions and insider news. However the German Gamepro website is still run, however this time, by " GameStar " as their partner, as that website have

1230-516: A message at the top of the screen saying "Partner of GameStar" (Note: This is written in German) In 2009, Gamepro's 20th anniversary coincided with 20-year industry veteran John Davison joining the newly named Gamepro Media team in October 2009 as executive vice president of content. Under Davison's direction, the magazine and website were redesigned in early 2010 with an editorial shift toward focusing on

1312-560: A selling point or focus has diminished in modern times. This is primarily due to graphical advancements in modern video game systems making it possible for in-game cinematics to have just as impressive visual quality. Digitized video footage of real actors in games generally ended for mainstream games in the early 2000s with a few exceptions such as Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War released in 2006, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars released in 2007, Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure released in 2014, Her Story released in 2015,

1394-470: A series of video-game related shows. The extensive online programming is geared towards an older and more mature audience. In August 2006, the Gamepro online team spun off a new cheats site, GamerHelp.com. It was shortly followed by a video game information aggregation site, Games.net, and a dedicated gaming downloads site, GameDownloads.com. Under the new leadership of George Jones, Gamepro magazine underwent

1476-513: A similar custom movie codec in its CD-ROM release, but a later limited-volume DVD-ROM release saw MPEG-2 DVD-quality movies that far exceeded the original CD release in quality. A hardware decoder card was required at the time to play back the DVD-quality video on a PC. Wing Commander IV was also the first game to have used actual film (rather than video tape) to record the FMV scenes which attributed to

1558-439: A somewhat more positive review, praising the audio and the "awesome graphics", but once again concluded that the controls all but completely ruin the game. They remarked that the directional movements are twitchy and that the need to push the cursor to the edge of the screen in order to maneuver the ship in first person is a major problem. A reviewer for Next Generation likewise said that the graphics and music are impressive, and

1640-505: A website would be shutting down on December 5, 2011. Gamepro then became part of the PC World website as a small section of the site covering the latest video games, run by the PC World staff. In February 2010, the magazine's main sections were:- At first, games were rated by five categories: Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, FunFactor, and Challenge. Later the "Challenge" category was dropped and

1722-419: Is a breathtaking game, yet it comes up a few light sabers short in some key areas". While praising the graphics as "the best yet delivered in a PC action game", the reviewer complained that the story "essentially replays several scenes from the movie" even though the plot "required a knowledge of the movies to make sense of it". Gameplay was "an odd mix of challenging and mindless levels", with enemies attacking in

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1804-478: The Tex Murphy series combined FMV cutscenes with a virtual world to explore. Video game consoles too saw incredible gains in presentation quality and contributed to the mass market's growth in awareness of gaming. It was during the 1990s that the video/computer game industry first beat Hollywood in earnings. Sony made its debut in the console market with the release of the 32-bit PlayStation . The PlayStation

1886-466: The 2015 reboot of Need for Speed , and Obduction released in 2016. The early 1980s saw the almost exclusive use of the Laserdisc for FMV games. Many arcade games used the technology but it was ultimately considered a fad and fell out of use. At least one arcade game, NFL Football from Bally/Midway, used CEDs to play its video. Some 1970s era Nintendo games used film and projectors. formats had

1968-521: The AM Show in September, and Star Rider , introduced by Williams Electronics at the AMOA show in October. The limited nature of FMV, high price to play (50 cents in an era where 25 cents was standard), high cost of the hardware and problems with reliability quickly took its toll on the buzz surrounding these games and their popularity diminished. By 1985, the allure of FMV and the Laserdisc had worn off, and

2050-500: The GamePro name: coverage of computer games was thereafter centralized at PCGamePro.com, and in the " PC GamePro " section of GamePro ' s print edition. Australian GamePro was a bi-monthly video games magazine published by IDG from 10 November 2003 to February 2007. The founding editor was Stuart Clarke, who was succeeded in January 2006 by Chris Stead. According to the latter,

2132-643: The LaserDisc for FMV games. Many arcade games used the technology but it was ultimately considered to be a fad and fell out of use. In the early 1990s FMV games had a resurgence of interest, the proliferation of optical discs gave rise to a slew of original FMV-based computer games such as  Night Trap  (1992),  The 7th Guest  (1993),  Voyeur (1993),  Phantasmagoria   (1995), and  Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT (1995). The introduction of CD-based consoles like  3DO ,  CD-i , and  Sega CD  brought

2214-575: The QuickTime 2.0 codec. Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger was one of the most significant FMV titles made in 1994, featuring big-name Hollywood actors. The video quality in the game suffered significantly from the aforementioned problems and was almost visually indecipherable in parts; however, this did not stop the title from earning significant praise for its innovative gameplay/FMV combination. Its sequel, Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom , used

2296-654: The "Gameplay" category was renamed "Control". The ratings were initially on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0, in increments of 0.5, but a possible 0.5 score was later added. The first game to receive such a score was Battle Arena Toshinden URA for the Sega Saturn . Starting in October 1990, each score was accentuated with a cartoon face (The Gamepro Dude) depicting different expressions for different ratings. The ratings faces remained in use until about 2002. GamePro ' s reviews became esteemed enough that some games would display their GamePro ratings on their retail boxes. After 2002,

2378-449: The "very limited and very repetitive" game play despite "incredible" graphics. The magazine concluded "Come to this one expecting a good show, but be sure your trigger finger knows what your eyes and ears are getting it into". GamePro gave the Sega CD version a negative review. Though they praised the music, they described the graphics as "grainy, soupy, and very pixelated " and said that

2460-501: The Laserdisc hampered interactivity and limited replayability, a key weakness in arcade games. American Laser, the chief producer of Laserdisc games during this era, had stopped making arcade games in 1994 and most other companies switched over to newer technologies around the same time. With the rise of 3D graphics and the introduction of hard drives and CD-ROMs to arcades, the large, expensive and small-capacity Laserdisc could not compete and disappeared. While CDs would see some use in

2542-441: The ability to create a DVD-quality transfer. An exception to the rule was The 11th Hour , the sequel to The 7th Guest . 11th Hour featured 640×480 FMV at 30 frames-per-second on 4 CDs. The development team had worked for three years on developing a format that could handle the video, as the director of the live-action sequences had not shot the FMV sequences in a way that could be easily compressed. However, this proved to be

Star Wars: Rebel Assault - Misplaced Pages Continue

2624-403: The advantage of offering full frame video and sound without the quality problems of compressed video that would plague later formats like CDs. With the re-popularization of FMV games in the early 1990s following the advent of CD-ROM, higher-end developers usually created their own custom FMV formats to suit their needs. Early FMV titles used game-specific proprietary video renderers optimized for

2706-418: The category system was eliminated in favor of a single overall rating for each game on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 stars. A graphic of five stars were shown alongside the written review. The number of stars a game earned was indicated by the number of solid stars (e.g., a game's 4-star rating was represented by showing 4 solid stars and one hollow star). No game ever received less than one star. An Editors' Choice Award

2788-510: The community on its online sister publication, www.gamepro.com. There was a TV show called GamePro TV . The show was hosted by J. D. Roth and Brennan Howard. The show was nationally syndicated for one year, then moved to cable (USA and Sci-Fi) for a second year. In 1993, Patrick Ferrell sent Debra Vernon, VP of marketing, to a meeting between the games industry and the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Realizing an opportunity,

2870-408: The company was renamed from Gamepro Inc. to Infotainment World in reflection of its growing and diverse publication lines. The magazine was known for its editors using comic book -like avatars and monikers when reviewing games. As of January 2004, however, Gamepro ceased to use the avatars due to a change in the overall design and layout of the magazine. Meanwhile, editorial voices carried over to

2952-456: The company) by Google as the foundation for WebM . An early open source version of that work also appears as the renamed Theora codec of the Xiph Project. Windows Media Video , DivX , Flash Video , Theora and WebM are also now major players in the market. DivX is used in several GameCube games, including Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike . GamePro GamePro

3034-434: The concept of interactive FMV gameplay. Companies such as  Digital Pictures  and  American Laser Games  were formed to produce full-motion video games. As the video game industry was emerging from its niche status into the mainstream—by 1994 it was two-and-a-half times larger than Hollywood by revenue—Hollywood began to make inroads into the growing market. In 1994, Sony's Johnny Mnemonic became

3116-557: The content of the video (e.g., live-action vs. animated ), because CPUs of the day were incapable of playing back real-time MPEG-1 until the fastest 486 and Pentium CPUs arrived. Consoles, on the other hand, either used a third-party codec (e.g., Cinepak for Sega CD games) or used their own proprietary format (e.g. the Philips CD-i ). Video quality steadily increased as CPUs became more powerful to support higher quality video compression and decompression. The 7th Guest , one of

3198-420: The controls are poor enough to all but eliminate the fun factor in the game. Electronic Gaming Monthly scored it a 5.75 out of 10, commenting that the music is excellent but that the graphics suffer from an extremely limited color palette, which even interferes with the gameplay, making it difficult to tell when the player's ship is going to crash into something. For the 3DO version of the game, GamePro gave

3280-405: The end of 1989. Lacking the cashflow to be able to sustain growth after publishing the first issue, the founding management team sought a major publisher and in 1989 found one with IDG Peterborough, a New Hampshire-based division of the global giant IDG. Led by a merger and acquisition team comprising IDG Peterborough President Roger Murphy and two other executives, Jim McBrian and Roger Strukhoff,

3362-648: The era. A number of arcade games using FMV with Laserdiscs were released over the next three years and the technology was touted as the future of video games. Some games released in this era reused video footage from other sources while others had it purpose made. Bega's Battle , Cliff Hanger and Firefox reused footage, while titles like Space Ace , Time Gal , Thayer's Quest , Super Don Quix-ote and Cobra Command were entirely original. The use of pre-rendered 3D computer graphics for video sequences also date back to two arcade laserdisc games introduced in 1983: Interstellar , introduced by Funai at

Star Wars: Rebel Assault - Misplaced Pages Continue

3444-469: The final shot on the Death Star. The game was followed by Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire . The Sega CD version is missing Chapter 7 (Imperial Probe Droids) and skips straight to Chapter 8 (Imperial Walkers), renumbering all subsequent chapters accordingly. The Sega CD version's graphics are also considerably less sharp and detailed than those of the PC and 3DO versions, and it also lacks

3526-414: The first megahit multiple-CD-ROM games, was one of the first games to feature transparent quality 640x320 FMV at 15 frames per second in a custom format designed by programmer Graeme Devine . Other examples of this would be Sierra 's VMD (Video and Music Data) format, used in games like Gabriel Knight 2 and Phantasmagoria , or Westwood Studios ' VQA format, used in most Westwood games made from

3608-424: The first video game title produced by a film studio. Soon thereafter, video game heavyweight Electronic Arts featured well-known Hollywood talent such as Mark Hamill , Tom Wilson and John Spencer in their critically acclaimed titles Wing Commander III and IV , setting the stage for a more expansive tie-up between the movie and video game industries. With the continual improvement of in-game CGI , FMV as

3690-423: The following games: GamePro is credited with coming up with the concept of "Protip", a short piece of advice as if spoken by an expert usually attached to an image, which was explained by former writer Dan Amrich that as part of their editorial process, they were encouraged to caption the three-to-seven images used in an article with such advice. One purported image from a GamePro review of Doom (1993) had

3772-429: The format, and the format ended up being used in over 3,000, largely PC-based games. With the launch of consoles with built-in optical storage (the Sega Saturn and Sony's PlayStation ) console manufacturers began more actively taking it upon themselves to provide higher quality FMV capabilities to developers. Sony included optimizations in their hardware for their MDEC (motion decompression) technology, and Sega chose

3854-408: The game's downfall, as most computers of the day could not play the full-resolution video. Users were usually forced to select an option which played the videos at a quarter-size resolution in black-and-white. As FMV established itself in the market as a growing game technology, a small company called RAD Game Tools appeared on the market with their 256-color FMV format Smacker . Developers took to

3936-412: The magazine changed to Gamepro Quarterly , which was a quarterly publication using higher quality paper stock as well as being larger and thicker than all of the previous standard magazine issues. Gamepro Quarterly hit newsstands within the first half of November 2011. The quarterly endeavor lasted for only one issue before being scrapped. On November 30, it was announced that Gamepro as a magazine and

4018-463: The magazine was acquired, then a few months later spun off as an independent business unit of IDG, under the leadership of Ferrell as president/CEO. The later addition of John Rousseau as publisher and editor-in-chief Wes Nihei, as well as renowned artist Francis Mao, established Gamepro as a large, profitable worldwide publication. Francis Mao, acting in his role as art director for the nascent GamePro, contracted game illustrator Marc Ericksen to create

4100-417: The mid and late 1990s, it was hard drives, GD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs that caused the largest jump in FMV use in the arcade. Their very large capacities and mature, reliable technology allowed for much cheaper hardware than traditional hardware systems, and FMV cut-scenes became commonplace. FMV as a major gameplay component had disappeared by this time because of the limited gameplay options it allowed. In 1984,

4182-509: The mid-1990s up until 2000s Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun Firestorm . These video formats initially offered very limited video quality, due to the limitations of the machines the games needed to run on. Ghosting and distortion of high-motion scenes, heavy pixelization , and limited color palettes were prominent visual problems. However, each game pushed the technological envelope and was typically seen as impressive even with quality issues. Johnny Mnemonic: The Interactive Action Movie ,

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4264-413: The name and logo but do feature different content. Early in 2006, IDG Entertainment began to change internally and shift operational focus from a "Print to Online" to "Online to Print" publishing mentality. The first steps; build a large online network of web sites and rebuild the editorial team. Enter: George Jones, industry veteran. In February 2006, Gamepro 's online video channel, Games.net, launched

4346-400: The number is still growing. In the late '90s, Duck largely shelved its support for the console market (likely fueled by the direct support for DVD support in newer generation consoles) and focused its formats instead on internet delivered video. Duck went public as On2 Technologies and later generations of its technology was licensed by Adobe , Skype and was eventually bought (along with

4428-454: The people and culture of gaming. The redesigned magazine and website were met with an enthusiastic audience response. In addition to announcing the hire of Davison in October 2009, the company also announced an "aggressive growth plan throughout 2009 and beyond, with numerous online media initiatives to deepen consumer engagement and create new opportunities for advertisers." Plans included partnering with sister company IDG TechNetwork to build

4510-557: The player taking the place of Luke Skywalker in destroying the battle station. Each of the 15 chapters features its own brief "alternate ending" clip which plays if the player runs out of lives and therefore fails the mission. All of the original characters are replaced by new characters and voices, and in some cases, new situations. For example, Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon are replaced by Rebel Commander Jake Farrell in an A-wing who saves Rookie One just before he has to take

4592-429: The popularity of games loaded with live-action and FMV faded out in the late 1990s, and with Smacker becoming outdated in the world of 16-bit color games, RAD introduced a new true-color format, Bink video . Developers quickly took to the format because of its high compression ratios and videogame-tailored features. The format is still one of the most popular FMV formats used in games today. 4,000 games have used Bink, and

4674-638: The port is overall "a very close conversion of the PC CD-ROM game", but that "the control is none too solid, and game play is rudimentary." He gave it two out of five stars. Next Generation ' s review of the Macintosh version remarked that the game's recreation of vehicles and scenarios from the Star Wars universe would make it very appealing to fans of the franchise, but that the on-rails gameplay would get old quickly for general gamers. The review also commented on

4756-506: The possibility to play as a female Rookie One. Star Wars: Rebel Assault was a commercial hit. LucasArts shipped 110,000 units to retailers in the game's first day, and global sales reached 400,000 units by mid-1994. By summer 1994, this number rose to 500,000 units. The game sold 1.5 million copies. Computer Gaming World in February 1994 said of the DOS version that "In some ways, Rebel Assault

4838-517: The premiere cover for the first edition of the magazine. Ericksen would go on to produce five of the first ten covers for GamePro, eventually creating eight in total, and would continue a secondary role creating a number of the double page spreads for the very popular monthly Pro Tips section. The magazine had a monthly circulation of 300,000 Over the years, the Gamepro offices have moved from Redwood City (1989–1991) to San Mateo (1991–1998) to San Francisco (1998–2002) and lastly Oakland . In 1993,

4920-687: The print magazine. The website was based at Gamepro's headquarters in San Francisco from 1998 to 2002 and then in Oakland, California from 2002 to 2011. Gamepro was first established in late 1988 by Patrick Ferrell, his sister-in-law Leeanne McDermott, and the husband-wife design team of Michael and Lynne Kavish. They worked out of their houses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area before leasing their first office in Redwood City , California at

5002-421: The privately held International Data Group (IDG), a media, events and research technology group. The magazine and its parent publication printing the magazine went defunct in 2011, but is outlasted by Gamepro.com. Originally published in 1989, GamePro magazine provided feature articles, news, previews and reviews on various video games, video game hardware and the entertainment video game industry. The magazine

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5084-399: The same easily memorizable patterns. The magazine concluded that " Rebel Assault is a gorgeous, fast-paced shooter that is a lot of fun to play. The problem is, the fun is too short lived" and without replay value. In April 1994 the magazine said that Rebel Assault "seems to have split gamers into two camps—those that absolutely love it, and those that absolutely don't", with some criticizing

5166-685: The sequences on Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back are included. The story begins with Rookie One's training, followed by an attack on the Star Destroyer Devastator , after its capture of the Tantive IV in the events of the film. The rebel squad then defends the Rebel base on Hoth from the attack shown in the Empire Strikes Back , and finally launches an assault on the Death Star , with

5248-434: The ship generally follows the same cursor which aims its gunfire. If the player moves the targeting cursor after firing, the shots that were already fired will follow the cursor. 9 of the 15 levels are first person, which has movement more restricted than in other modes. As such, enemy fire cannot be dodged in this mode; instead, the player must shoot the enemy within a set time frame in order to avoid taking damage, much like in

5330-761: The software route. Sega worked both internally on optimizing technology such as Cinepak , and externally by licensing video decompression technology from the New York-based Duck Corporation . While Duck's offering won praise for its quality (showcased in games like Enemy Zero , major Launch titles in the US and the Saturn adaptations of console hits from the Sega AM2 arcade group) the opaque licensing and royalty structure impeded widespread adoption outside of Japanese and larger US developers. Duck's TrueMotion technology

5412-654: The system's slow disc access and limited color capabilities, this version of the Star Wars fighter ship never quite reaches light speed." Full-motion video Full-motion video ( FMV ) is a video game narration technique that relies upon pre-recorded video files (rather than sprites , vectors , or 3D models ) to display action in the game. While many games feature FMVs as a way to present information during cutscenes , games that are primarily presented through FMVs are referred to as full-motion video games or interactive movies . The early 1980s saw almost exclusive use of

5494-533: The team at the now-entitled Infotainment World launched E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The industry backed E3 and Ferrell partnered with the IDSA to produce the event. It was one of the biggest trade show launches in history. Early in its lifespan, the magazine also included comic book pages about the adventures of a superhero named Gamepro who was a video game player from the real world brought into

5576-558: The technology had disappeared from arcades by the end of 1987. RDI Video Systems ( Thayer's Quest ) had branched out into making a home console called the Halcyon, but it failed and they went bankrupt. Cinematronics's fortunes fared little better and they were bought out by Tradewest in 1987. Companies such as Atari canceled more prototype Laserdisc games than they released. Others, like Universal , stopped development on games after only one release despite announcing several titles. After only

5658-415: The top 50 CD-ROMs of 1995. Entertainment Weekly gave the game a B and wrote that "You've got to hand it to the folks at LucasArts — they wring every drop of juice from a game platform, whether it's PC CD-ROM (where Rebel Assault has been a best-seller for the past eight months) or Sega CD (which is just releasing the same game). The trouble is, Sega CD doesn't have that much juice to begin with: Thanks to

5740-624: The usual long delay between the release of the PC and Macintosh versions, and scored it two out of five stars. Rebel Assault was a runner-up for Computer Gaming World ' s Action Game of the Year award in June 1994, losing to Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame . The editors wrote that Rebel Assault "established a new record for CD-ROM game sales as well as a new model for action games based on film properties". MacUser named Rebel Assault one of

5822-432: The video quality in these early games was low, and the gameplay frequently did not live up to the hype becoming well-known failures in video gaming . At this time, consoles like 3DO , CD-i , and Sega CD borrowed this concept for several low-quality interactive games . Companies such as Digital Pictures and American Laser Games were formed to produce full-motion video games. Also, the " multimedia " phenomenon that

5904-412: Was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry , video game hardware and video game software . The magazine featured content on various video game consoles , personal computers and mobile devices . GamePro Media properties included GamePro magazine and their website. The company was also a part subsidiary of

5986-565: Was called a "sister publication" to GamePro , PC Games , was published by IDG until 1999. It was founded in August 1988, but changed its name to Electronic Entertainment in late 1993 and PC Entertainment in early 1996. The title reverted to PC Games in June 1996. Its PC Games Online website was merged with several other IDG properties, including GamePro Online, to form the IDG Games Network in late 1997. The print version of PC Games

6068-556: Was exploding in popularity at the time increased the popularity of FMV because consumers were excited by this new emerging interactive technology. The personal computer was rapidly evolving during the early-to-mid 1990s from a simple text-based productivity device into a home entertainment machine. Gaming itself was also emerging from its niche market into the mainstream with the release of easier-to-use and more powerful operating systems, such as Microsoft's Windows 95 , that leveraged continually evolving processing capabilities. Some games like

6150-442: Was extended to the PC and Macintosh as well, showcased in the high-profile Star Trek: Borg and Star Trek: Klingon , The X-Files Game , Final Fantasy VII , and the highly anticipated sequel to Phantasmagoria , Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh and other titles. It was reported that versions for PlayStation and GameCube were developed, but the last console version released was for Sega's short-lived Dreamcast . As

6232-422: Was filmed for the game with actors, and a Star Destroyer model was digitized (a mini camera 'flew' around it) for a certain mission. Most of the graphics were prerendered in 3D. Star Wars: Rebel Assault follows the adventures of a young pilot known as Rookie One, a Tatooine moisture farmer in the style of Luke Skywalker . The game largely takes place during the events of Episode IV: A New Hope ; however,

6314-469: Was given to a game that earned either 4.5 or 5.0 stars. GamePro had a "Role-Player's Realm" section dedicated to the coverage and reviews of role-playing video games . In the January 1997 issue, they published a list of "The Top Ten Best RPGs Ever" which consisted of the following games: Later in 2008, GamePro published another list of "The 26 Best RPGs of the All Time", the top ten of which consisted of

6396-401: Was officially launched in 1998. Updated daily, the website's content included feature articles, news, previews, reviews, screenshots and videos covering video games, video game hardware and the entertainment gaming industry. The website also included user content such as forums, reviews and blogs. In January 2010, the website was redesigned to reflect the same new editorial changes being made in

6478-615: Was probably the first console to popularize FMVs (as opposed to earlier usage of FMV which was seen as a passing fad). A part of the machine's hardware was a dedicated M-JPEG processing unit which enabled far superior quality relative to other platforms of the time. The FMVs in Final Fantasy VIII , for example, were marketed as movie-quality at the time. FMVs in games today typically consist of high-quality pre-rendered video sequences ( CGI ). These sequences are created in similar ways as computer generated effects in movies. Use of FMV as

6560-487: Was published monthly (most recently from its headquarters in Oakland, California ) with October 2011 being its last issue, after over 22 years of publication. GamePro's February 2010 issue introduced a redesigned layout and a new editorial direction focused on the people and culture of its gaming. Despite the shutdown of U.S. operations, the magazine continues to operate internationally in France, Germany, and Spain. GamePro.com

6642-480: Was the first FMV title made by a Hollywood studio . Sony Imagesoft spent over $ 3 million on the title. Instead of piecing together the title with filmed assets from their movie (directed by Robert Longo ) of the same name, Sony hired Propaganda Code director Douglas Gayeton to write and film an entirely new storyline for the property. The CD-ROM's interactivity was made possible with the Cine-Active engine, based on

6724-504: Was the fourth-largest computer game magazine in the United States during 1998, with a circulation of 169,281. In March 1999, it was purchased and closed by Imagine Publishing ; its April 1999 issue was its last. Following this event, Imagine sent former subscribers of PC Games issues of PC Gamer US and PC Accelerator in its place. According to GameDaily , the move came as part of IDG's rebranding effort to lean more heavily on

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