The game starts by quickly telling you a bit about your main character, Jorel. Apparently his parents were both taken by the savage Zorn once they reached the age of 30. Also, you must assume these Zorn came and conquered Earth, considering every man, woman and child has been fitted with a tracking implant. Although some (like Jorel) rejected the implant, most could not. Those who did escaped to the south and joined the rebels. Where they are south of, or why they camp there are complete mysteries. Regardless, now that Jorel has reached the rebels, he must go through boot camp. They use the boot camp scenario to introduce you to the way the game works. As you progress, you'll build up a small army of interesting characters to fight for Earth with you. The best part is how you can customize all their skills to your liking.

Rebelstar doesn't have the deepest gameplay around. Each side takes its turn all at once. No matter how fast your enemy is, you seem to always get to go first. Basically, you move around to explore the map, looking for enemies. Once you find them, it's a matter of picking which shooting method to employ to eliminate them. You do all this by spending action points. More skilled attacks require more action points, forcing you to move less that turn to use them. The less AP an attack requires, the less accurate it usually is. Also, if you prepare yourself, you can take enemies by surprise as they enter your line of sight. This requires you to have more AP then the enemy when you spot them, which means not doing much the turn before.

Your reward for finishing each mission? Poorly written, ugly still frame cut scenes which drag the awful story along by the hair. Thankfully, Namco kept most of these crimes against humanity short, allowing us to get back to the action as quickly as possible. Honestly, the combat can get boring at times, if you have trouble locating the last enemy on the map. You just don't get that many AP to spend, which slows you down a lot.

One nice feature of Rebelstar is the ability to pick up the weapons your foes leave behind. By walking on top of it, you get the option to take their weapon and make it yours. You'd just better hope you have the skill to use it. As you play, you gain experience, which can then be used to increase the character's abilities with certain weapons. While diversity is nice, focusing on one or two weapon types is clearly the best way to go. You also gain more health as you level, which is always nice. If you're not careful, you'll need it. Enemies seem to have decent AI, which helps keep the game interesting as you go.

As far as looks go, it's not exactly the sexiest game on the Advance. It looks a little too pixelated on a system which brought us Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. And the cut scenes are just not very attractive. The music, however, tends to keep the mood quite well. You can just feel the gears of war grinding along as the music plays in this game.

If you like turn-based strategy, you clearly owe it to yourself to at least rent Rebelstar Tactical Command. While the story is awful, the game play makes it all worthwhile. You might even find yourself buying the game after you've tried it. If X-Com-style strategy is your cup of tea, then by all means pick up Rebelstar Tactical Command. The gameplay will not disappoint.