STAR WARS™ Shadows of the Empire™

At first glance, it's not a bad game. The music is great (well, John Williams), the cutscenes look amazing for the time, and I appreciate the variety between levels. But the gameplay... oh boy. The controls are absolutely GARBAGE. You cannot remap them, just choose from a few very bad control schemes. You can use the mouse, but it's janky as fuck, and there is no mouse look either, so you better off just using the keyboard. But with that the controls still feel slippery and unprecise. While on foot, looking up and down is a chore too. In the spaceship parts you cannot see anything in 1st person mode, because your fov is like zero, and you have no idea where you are going, so you have to use the 3rd person view, but there is no crosshair in that view... Even if you have, the projectiles don't go where the crosshair is. The levels are hit and miss (hah) too. There are some cool ones, but some of them are complete abominations. For example the Beggar's Canyon, where you are on a bike. You have to destroy the other bikes before they reach Luke. How do you do that? Use your blaster? No, you have to collide with them enough. You have no indication whether they take damage or not, you just bounce all over the place, like a fucking pinball. This is without a doubt one of the worst stages I've ever played. Or I can mention the last level, where you are constantly bombarded from all sides, and you can do absolutely jack SHIT to avoid the projectiles, because you only control the turret. Some stages take like 5 minutes to complete, others are much longer. There is no save feature - there is a life system, which I am not fond of. If you're out of lives, it's game over. So much fun when one of the bullshit bosses (like the IG-88) kill you, and you have no choice but to restart the whole level. GoG made a good job with the game though - you can play on modern systems with 60 fps and widescreen resolutions. The question is, would you want to?

3/5 Stars - Awesome Star Wars theme, and the casual to die hard fans will certainly enjoy the settings, characters, and variety of theme-appropriate tasks. Much is said about the opening level on Hoth which is indeed great in my opinion. A wide variety of level types (on foot, on a speeder, flying in space, foot with jetpack, etc) keeps things interesting... however it should be noted that they may have tried too much and may have been better served spending more time on basic functions for fewer types rather than go thin on all of them. Also, the music is solid and better than average for sure in terms of video games of the era. All this being said, the controls are very frustrating, and more so once you get to the missions with the jetpack... because the jetpack is WAAAAY easier to use than normal walking/jumping. This makes at least me less interested in playing the levels where moving around sensitive areas all the less appealing. The poor jumping movement is highlights in a few levels, perhaps most notably the junkyard where you can jump up and the laws of physics seemingly disappear. I suppose we could simply say it's an alien world and maybe that just happens, except that's not the game design. There are also some more minor control issues that are fixable, but strange that they are there in the game - for instance when piloting the space craft, your button for missiles changes depending on whether you are dogfighting or shooting at a space station. That's a mid-level change! Additionally, the speeder bike level is downright comical and controls are basically just smashing left and right. Pod Racing came out so close to this title, yet this version of "racing" is a match compared to a light tower. Overall, for the price, it's worth playing through completion if you are a SW fan, but I wouldn't expect to play it additionally after you beat the game.

This game was an early Star Wars title for a new home console system, which meant it received vastly more attention than it deserved. When played in 1997, the opening Battle for Hoth level was exciting, but it was downhill from there. Most of the SOTE's gametime consists of a fairly rudimentary first/third person shooter, which paled in comparison to contemporaneous games like Quake. Only buy it if it was a childhood favourite. If you're looking for a new Star Wars experience, look elsewhere.

Shadows of the Empire is a Star Wars game that was released in 1996 for the Nintendo 64 and later ported to the PC in 1997. It was the first proper 3D Star Wars game that allowed players to fly a snow speeder at the Battle of Hoth, battle guns blazing inside star ships and recognizable locations. Despite its age, the game pushed the boundaries of the new dawn era of 3D gaming and showed a strong sense and feel of that era of Star Wars. The game received mixed reviews at the time due to the difficult control mapping when moving a fully 3D character, but it made a strong mark visually and also in sound and design. The soundtrack, composed by Joel McNeely, was done in 2 weeks but he regrets not spending more time on it. Nevertheless, the developers managed to compress and fit most of it into the N64 version. The PC version, of course, contains the full score as well as some sound and visual changes. Shadows of the Empire was the first multimedia project to be given a film license without ever producing one. The book, comics, toy line-up, and game were all unique in their production compared to today's standards and gave birth to the Rogue Squadron series later in that decade. George Lucas loved the concept of Shadows of the Empire when it was in pre-production at Skywalker Ranch back in 1994, and in the special editions of A New Hope, the Outrider ship makes an appearance in the opening shot for Mos Eisley. For any fan, this game is a must-experience, even if it isn't for the first time. Once you learn how the clanky controls work, nothing will stop you. Shadows of the Empire is a true classic and an Interquel that cleverly places itself between the beginning events of Empire Strikes Back and just at the start of Return of the Jedi. If Han Solo ever had an opposite clone, it would be Dash Rendar.

A real gem in the Star Wars library of games, though it has aged. Back in the days of the N64, we were stoked to see a 3D Star Wars game that put us in the dangerous universe of Darth Vader, bounty hunters, and the Rebel Alliance's fight against the Empire. This game delivered on all that. You play as Dash Rendar, a mercenary hired by Luke Skywalker to help during the events of The Empire Strikes Back up until Return of the Jedi. Dash is an obvious nod to Han Solo and his Outrider is the spitting image of the Millennium Falcon. You face a variety of environments from the movie and locations made up for the game, and the amount of variety is impressive for a 1996 game. You'll take down AT-ATs on Hoth, sneak through an imperial freighter, run down thugs on speeder bikes, fight your way through the sewers of Imperial Coruscant, and more. On the downside, the game is tough. The past month or so I've had the game from GOG I have seen the game over screen A LOT. You take damage easy on hard mode and health pickups become more sparse. Your auto-aim can be clunky while enemies are sniping you, and you'll be grateful aiming mechanics got so much better in 3D games over the years. On very difficult levels you get a chance for extra lives, which is merciful considering how punishing this game can be. Checkpoints are scattered liberally throughout the levels, but if you use all your lives in one level you go back to the beginning. That last sentence is a harsh warning and take it seriously! There is also a strange break in the physics in one or two levels where you can easily slide like ice off into a chasm and die. For all the game's shortcomings, it's still a blast to play, even taking out nostalgia. This has been updated from the N64 version with gorgeous new cutscenes and great voice acting (the voice of Dash sounds strangely like Alec Baldwin). Overall solid gameplay with perfect use of sound effects and music from the movies in each level. Highly recommended!