G-Rebels Is a Sci-Fi Flight Combat Game Where You Feel Like You’re Flying a Nissan Versa

I’ve been patrolling the skies and shooting down hostile craft successful formation sims since the 1980s, each the mode backmost to blazing distant astatine azygous greenish pixels successful the archetypal Sublogic Flight Simulator for Apple II. Since then, I’ve whipped the Kilrathi aboard the Tiger Claw, crushed the Rebellion successful TIE Fighter, gunned down the Red Baron in, well, The Red Baron, and buzzed my ain flat successful Microsoft Flight Simulator. So I was beauteous tickled by the accidental to walk respective hours with G-Rebels, an in-development crippled that combines respective things I dearly love: aviation, Blade Runner, and open-ended approaches to gameplay. This amalgam of plan influences produces thing that is curious, ambitious, and dripping with potential, but which I’m not definite has yet been tuned capable to find its footing.

G-Rebels is acceptable aft a clime catastrophe wipes retired astir of the world. You’re present a subordinate of 1 of galore factions piloting equipped craft called Skyblades betwixt the skyscrapers of what appears to beryllium off-brand Blade Runner LA. You hunt the aerial for enemies, traffickers, and rogue replicants. Yes, they’re really called replicants... I’m nary adept connected copyright instrumentality truthful don’t inquire maine how.

Now, vehicle-oriented games person to fulfill a precise circumstantial request to succeed: the conveyance has to beryllium amusive to aviator done the environments provided. And that’s wherever the problems statesman for G-Rebels: flying astir is much often a chore than a thrill. Sometimes, it’s adjacent a bore.

G-Rebels refers to your Skyblade arsenic a glider, but that statement isn’t truly accurate. Its closest real-world analog is simply a helicopter, arsenic you person the quality to hover successful spot practically anywhere. But dissimilar a existent chopper, there’s nary changeless creation of hands and feet indispensable connected the portion of the aviator to support things unchangeable astir of the time. Only cornering oregon changing altitude rapidly puts overmuch strain connected the pilot. Instead, your Skyblade effortlessly hovers, scoots, and strafes up, down, and broadside to broadside similar immoderate flying first-person shooter avatar. If you’ve ever played the past FPS Descent, things volition consciousness eerily familiar.

Yet it takes a agelong clip to get a existent bent of the X-Type Skyblade, weirdly due to the fact that it is specified a forgiving vehicle. Compared to a formation sim oregon adjacent an arcade shooter similar Star Wars Squadrons, there’s precise small consciousness of momentum oregon gravity astatine work. You tin halt and displacement your velocity from guardant to consecutive upward successful a second, but everything feels weirdly underpowered. Your Skyblade has the handling characteristics of a sci-fi Nissan Versa: slow, reliable, predictable, anemic, and utterly boring. I already thrust a Nissan Versa successful existent life, and I don’t request to transportation its steady, value-conscious banality into my phantasy worlds.

Upgrades assistance somewhat, particularly successful respect to the punch of your guns and your consecutive enactment speed, though I inactive felt similar I was simply updating my flying sedan into a flying minivan. In the end, the occupation with G-Rebels is that portion the conveyance benignant fits the Blade Runner aesthetic, the controls and capabilities are a atrocious lucifer for the near-constant canyon flying. More information needs to beryllium fixed to proximity warnings and spatial awareness, a occupation compounded by the ngo design. The run is rather simply front-loaded with escort duties and timed waypoint challenges, anachronistic designs that sap overmuch of the richness from the environment.

G-Rebels takes spot supra a flooded satellite wherever skyscrapers emergence from synthetic islands and inhabit the constrictive abstraction betwixt thundering waves and near-persistent clouds. Within that abstraction hover different Skyblades – immoderate benign, others piloted by nefarious foes. Mission plan is beauteous straightforward: spell to waypoints, look around, find targets, and stroke them up without dying yourself.

There’s a story, a plot, characters and such, but not a batch that I cared about. Voice acting was hammily scripted and severely delivered, and the tones of different pilots had a soulless ringing to them that led maine to judge they were apt AI generated... which a look astatine the Steam leafage appeared to confirm. That’s profoundly disappointing.

I shouldn’t spell overmuch further talking astir G-Rebels without pointing retired its top sin: the beingness of tightly-timed waypoint-to-waypoint-to-waypoint dashes. I thought that we arsenic a taxon had collectively agreed to discontinue these unspeakable sections successful games aft Superman 64, but seemingly G-Rebels’s developers disagreed. Why anyone thinks sprinting to 5 waypoints implicit and implicit successful a reasonably graceless conveyance that I’m conscionable learning to alert is simply a bully gameplay acquisition is beyond me.

What doesn’t disappoint is the gunplay, which feels similar 1 of the most-realized aspects of G-Rebels. Fans of formation sims and arcade formation shooters are going to beryllium beauteous acquainted with the basal modes available: a abbreviated scope weapon mode utile for dogfighting, and a overmuch longer scope guided rocket strategy susceptible of hitting targets from immense distances with an physics lock-on. Both are thoughtfully designed. I recovered that pursuing my brain’s present near-instinctual flight-sim programming worked precise well. Slightly starring turning targets astatine adjacent scope usually ended successful coagulated hits. and adjusting my pb astatine region worked conscionable arsenic it should. The missiles were potent, but the guns were truthful overmuch amusive I mostly stuck to them, poking successful and retired from down the megalithic buildings to snipe.

Your power panels and HUD are a triumph of signifier implicit function. Dashboard screens tin marque the comparative positions and altitudes confusing, and look to alternate betwixt providing excessively small oregon excessively overmuch information. Instrumentation feels similar it was designed much to make beauteous preview captures than to rapidly supply the info a aviator mightiness request erstwhile flying an antigravity vessel betwixt gangly buildings successful a thunderstorm.

You don't get a batch of the accepted dogtails and vigor tactics you’d expect from a formation crippled acceptable wrong a planetary atmosphere. Gravity truly isn’t overmuch of a factor, truthful dogfights are little chases and jousts than shootouts betwixt flying tanks. There are strategies to larn and employ, but astir of what you’ve learnt successful different flying games doesn’t truly use here. Usually, shooting archetypal and fastest is the champion warrant of victory.

The metropolis itself has potential, but successful its contiguous signifier mostly fails to present thing particularly characteristic. The buildings are decently-rendered enough, but precise small of what you spot truly feels distinct, overmuch little lived-in oregon real. It feels much similar a acceptable oregon a signifier made for a video crippled than immoderate existent living, breathing world.

G-Rebels mightiness go thing truly entertaining, but close present it's inactive precise overmuch a enactment successful progress. It’s cool, but it’s not yet consistently fun. Missions and craft handling plan person a agelong mode to spell earlier it hits that. You tin spot the imaginable for thing enjoyable, but the parts haven’t rather travel unneurotic yet into a compelling formula. I haven’t yet seen an authoritative merchandise day for G-Rebels, but I’m hoping it’s acold capable retired that the squad has clip to refine its ambitions and make the carefully-tuned formation combat acquisition they’re truthful evidently lovingly laboring to realize.

Jared Petty is simply a erstwhile IGN exertion who likes penning astir however fantastic and silly video games are. You tin find him astatine Bluesky arsenic Bluesky arsenic pettycommajared.