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Y'know, life under an evil regime is never much fun to be honest; slave labour, oppression, degradation and general not-niceness are the order of the day and everybody below the top tends to have a bad time of it (sounds a bit like life working for RGCD, eh lads? - JM). Of course, where there's a dictator to be despised there's usually someone prepared to stand their ground and fight - so enter The Rebels, standing up for what they believe in, truth and justice and, in this case at least, being rather cute. Most rebels tend to be more... well, hirsute.

The mission ahead for The Rebels, either alone or working as a team, is long and arduous but simple; they've got to go out there and give the dark forces of oppression a good, solid kicking... literally! Each screen starts empty but has a series of gateways scattered around it through which opponents will enter the arena with the sole intent of stopping the rebellion. At the start, getting rid of these nasty people is quite simple since a couple of swift, well-placed kicks will see them off - but as one is dispatched, another (almost) faceless lackey will soon take their place, so the aim of the game is more about closing the gateways. Fortunately, as you take out the baddies the occasional key drops into the play area from the top of the screen which can be collected; passing by one of the gateways with a key will lock it, dropping a portcullis to prevent any more minions using it and, when all of the gateways are locked, our heroes can move on to the next level.

The titular Rebels are very simple sprite designs (as are all of their foes) but also wonderfully cute in the same way that the Bombermen or indeed Lego people are and, whilst the backgrounds aren't stunning graphically, they're presentable and functional to the point that it's easy to see what everything is meant to be. The big selling point for this game though just has to be the sheer bloody size of the thing; not purely in that it's got a large number of well-populated screens (and it gets really busy from time to time as well) but in the way they're populated. Watching the attract mode gives an idea of just how many power-ups and enemies the game has, with each of the latter having it's own movement patterns and, as the nastier ones are brought into play, armaments but it doesn't mention the end of level guardians or bonus screens.

Playing the game reveals a very high level of attention to detail, along with the sheer cuteness of the graphics and how they walk, punch, kick and so forth (which can be quite amusing in itself) there's loads of other features to be found here as well; along with the large number of opponents that are slowly introduced as the game progresses and a myriad of power-ups that do things like turn every baddie into something edible or allow the Rebels to jump on their heads, occasionally a bonus stage will appear which is a version of Breakout but involves playing "keepie uppie" by kicking a ball around and using it to collect out-of-reach gems at the top of the play area. And when playing with another player, if one should be rendered unconscious, the other can give them a swift kick to wake them up and restore one precious unit of energy, enough to keep going just that little bit longer.

The history of this game is actually a little unusual because it was originally released in Poland during the 1990s, but never made it to the rest of the C64 community until very recently. Which is an utter shame because it's bloody brilliant fun to play, something along the lines of classics like Bubble Bobble for two player co-operative fun with just a dash of Bruce Lee as The Rebels kick their oppressors around the play area. So what are you waiting for, off you go; time for the rebellion to start - power to the people!