Renegade: The Battle for Jacob’s Star is the second video game in a small franchise based on a larger and more popular series of role playing board games. FASA originally created the Renegade Legion RPG world and it ballooned into a gaming series and also offered other memorabilia and competitive items. It was both published and released by Strategic Simulations Incorporated and has a distinctly different feel from Renegade Legion: Interceptor, the first title in the series that was also published by SSI.
While the first game in the series is a turn based strategy with huge RPG elements, The Battle for Jacob’s Star is a space flight simulation and has almost none of the features as its predecessor.
Just because the Battle for Jacob’s Star is not what a gamer may expect does not make it necessarily a bad game. It has some really good points to it, a lot of them if you like space flight simulators. If you checked into this game thinking it was going to be like the first one, maybe you have stumbled upon a new genre to explore in a universe that you already know you like. When this game first came out,
its biggest criticism was its genre. So, judge it for what it is and you may like it. It is unfortunate that it was released almost simultaneously with two of the most epic space dogfighters ever in TIE Fighter and Wing Commander 3, because those two hogged most of the market, leaving The Battle for Jacob’s Star in the dust.
To begin with, the universe is great. The Renegade Legion world was always very deep and expansive, and this game does a pretty good job of adding a lot of the details that even the first game missed. There is actually a pretty decent story told within the course of all the space dogfighting, giving the gamer a little more drive. Fans of the board game will love the environment and will really like the chance to finally fly one of those cool Commonwealth fighters, of which there are several to choose from.
Overall, the game really doesn’t add anything new to the genre with the exception of the splendid universe, and that is enough to keep you coming back for more. The controls are pretty easy to learn and are responsive enough to make the action in the fights fast paced and fun. The ships are cool to look at and fly, and are highly reflective of their inspirational crafts. It is a solid play, even if it really doesn’t fit in with the rest of the series.
