A game so inspirational, it even inspired another big hit within the franchise, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, with its very first mission: escaping Hoth. The very first mission you’re flying a Snow Speeder and taking out Imperial Probe Droids and tying up AT-AT’s, and it was a blast. But what makes Shadows of the Empire great is the fact it not only incorporates aerial combat, but also ground combat. You even fight on foot and you’re shooting at things. No force powers or lightsabers, you’re a god damn wanna-be Han Solo type with a blaster and a jet pack (later on). But playing this felt like a cool mini-movie with its narrative. Shadows of the Empire had this whole thing back in the 90’s that was actually a side thing for the franchise, but they wanted to hype it up like a film. Releasing a bunch of a merch, like toys, video games, even a decent soundtrack that was composed. Not by John Williams sadly, but man was it good enough!

And of course, they released a game that went along with the book’s and comics release. Two versions though: one on PC and on the N64. I played the N64 but the PC one has actual cutscenes and real dialogue. The N64 only had some slideshows, but I was ok with it. I was just enjoying the combat and gameplay. And the fact I could play a level where I hunt down Boba Fett himself, or even fight in a huge space battle alongside the Millennium Falcon, was enough for me.

To this day I have yet to see a Star Wars game that makes me feel like I’m not playing a Jedi, or a Sith, or some clone soldier or rebel or imperial. I just wanna be a rogue man. And this so far has felt like the only game to really bring that feeling. I’m hoping Star Wars: Outlaws will fulfill that feeling again.

Just Make the Shadows of The Empire Movie, Already! What's Your Problem, Disney?
Shadows of the Empire, which was a fully fledged Star Wars marketing cycle minus the movie, is unjustly overlooked nowadays. This would-be Episode 5.5 is absolutely SICK for a number of reasons. It goes deep into the criminal underbelly elements of the original trilogy and features characters like Boba Fett, IG-88 and some freaky green dude named Prince Xizor. Since Han is down for the count in between Empire and Jedi, we get a different renegade gunslinger type named Dash Rendar, a guy so cool he had to be disappeared immediately after the events of Shadows so as not to distract too much from the main event. This game has everything you could want in a Star Wars game in '96: OG trilogy vibes, jet packs, a Hoth stage, a Boba Fett boss battle, space battles, blowing up a Death Star type thing. Yes it's on the N64, so everything looks like garbo by today's standards but man what a time.

Wow this game was ridiculously hard, probably one of the hardest I've played in a while. I know people beat this in like an hour and a half to two and a half hours, but I took almost six and that was with me using guides on and off (which I highly encourage in hindsight with the last three missions in particular, the bike chase cause you gotta knock into people and not shoot them, and figuring out how to destroy the AT-ST in the first mission), only on medium difficulty mind you and I have a lot of experience with FPS's and these old style of shooters as well. I'm not saying I'm some kind of beast at these games, but I think I've learned enough to be considered above average without needing to learn all the ins and outs of a game just to cheese or speedrun them. Idk how they expected us to figure out certain features ourselves. It has bad hit registration, wonky controls, and some levels have very slippery terrain. I don't know if that was intentional or not. It's still a cool story though and experience you won't get anywhere else, but man I really wish somebody could make a single Star Wars game that doesn't have any of these issues I just mentioned. I don't think I could subject myself to the challenge of beating this game again ever. If you think this game sounds too difficult and off putting, then I'd highly recommend watching a walkthrough instead that's much shorter to watch versus playing it. You'll save a lot of hair trust me. Oh well, at least there's the comics and books that supplement the games. Glad I still played it though.

Sure, the PC version's 60 FPS mess up a few things and make them either much harder or easier than they're supposed to since the game was made with a healthy, low N64 framerate in mind, but it's usually not a big deal and most of the time I was actually enjoying myself quite a bit while running around as Han Solo knockoff Dash Rendarr, blasting stormtroopers thanks to some pretty good level design which was usually linear enough as to never risk me getting lost, but also hosting a lot of secrets to be discovered along the way and off the beaten path. They're not the best levels ever or anything, but they get the job done and no level ever felt like it dragged and the difficulty felt pretty reasonable throughout (at least when playing on Normal), outside of Boba Fett's stage where Dash would just slip off the path and fall to his death seemingly at random, and then the Slave 1 fight that felt barely playtested.

The issue for me, unfortunately, comes in the form of the game's various vehicular stages. The first stage on Hoth is of course iconic (for some reason) and I guess it's fine, but the others are just awful, with the Speeder that is both too fast and slippery for its own good, and the auto-pilot sections where you can't really see what's shooting at you since so many ships attack from behind which means you'll just end up taking damage basically when the game wants you too. Even when you can see them and are able to shoot them down, the aiming feels awful enough that it's still a real hassle. Not like the spaceship sections where you're in complete control are much better either, especially not the final stage where you have to destroy turrets that constantly regenerate and I basically had to sacrifice an extra life for each one since a sort of kamikaze approach was the only way for me to deal enough damage to destroy them.

So not really a game that has to be played before you die or anything. The third person sections are fine, sometimes even pretty good, but not ever remarkable enough to really stand out, and the vehicles all control terribly. Honestly, what sort of makes playing this game interesting today is if you're taking part in the entire Shadows of the Empire multimedia project with the book, comic book and album. You almost have to at least read either the book or comic to get any sort of grasp of what's really going on with the story (and the book is actually surprisingly good, so I guess I can recommend it over the game?)

I'm gonna let you know right now, this game is getting a wholeass star for that Hoth level.

If you were born after 1999, then you do not know a time in which Star Wars wasn't an inescapable part of American media. The original trilogy was a big deal, highly influential not just for how it changed the art of filmmaking but for pop culture as a whole, but the early-to-mid 90s were a period of stillness. You could find Star Wars media fairly easily, but you could just as easily avoid it - a far cry from yearly films and big budget television streaming series, and people getting irrationally upset over Sweitt Concorkill on the internet, or whatever. The release of The Phantom Menace changed that, but any conversation about Star Wars' reemergence as a media juggernaut that doesn't bring up Shadows of the Empire is one that doesn't respect history.

Shadows of the Empire was a multimedia event, deliberately treated with the same gravitas as a motion picture release in an effort to revitalize Star Wars' brand power. They even released a soundtrack for the novel. Lucasfilm wanted people to not only think this was a big deal, but to treat it as one. Now I ain't never read the book on account of me not being so good with words and junk, but I did read the comic, because it had pictures of Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett in it. I remember going to pog tournaments (which were held in an empty, unfurnished room on the second floor of a comic shop) then heading downstairs to thumb through issues of Shadows, and going home to play with my Shadows of the Empire toys. I did my tour of duty.

If it wasn't for the success of Shadows of the Empire and the special editions of the original trilogy (which released around the same time), The Phantom Menace might not have been made. Can you imagine how wonderful that would be? Just close your eyes for a moment and imagine a world where kids didn't suck on Jar Jar Binks' candied tongue. Doesn't that just calm you? Unfortunately, you don't live in that reality. You live in the one where Therm Scissorpunch - a character first introduced in a Denny's commercial - has his own carefully crafted backstory. God damn I hate it here. And yet, when people look back on Shadows of the Empire's legacy, they rarely talk about the novel (arguably the centerpiece), or the comics, or the toys and trading cards... It's all about the game. It might as well be the only part of Shadows that exists.

Shadows of the Empire: The Game Based on the Novel Based on a Major Motion Picture is a third person shooter that puts players in control of side character and certifiable space himbo Dash "Shoulder Pads" Rendar. A lot of this game could be summed up as "what if Dark Forces was third person?" Sure, it's not as fast or fluid as that, but the way you approach levels is largely the same: awkwardly platform around various alien worlds while shooting storm troopers and completing a series of objectives necessary for progressing the story and level. You also shoot Boba Fett, so uh, it's basically the same thing??

Of course, being a fully 3D game also allows Shadows of the Empire to feature more dynamic set pieces and varied gameplay types. The train level is a personal favorite, it still provides a satisfying sense of speed and the platforming is really tense, plus it culminates in an absolute bastard of a fight against IG-88. However, Shadows of the Empire is best known for its Hoth level, and while it may not be the first video game rendition of the Battle of Hoth, it's probably the most significant. Having this level of control over the snow speeder, cruising around in a fully 3D space taking out probe droids and chicken walkers, running your tow cable around the legs of an AT-AT... It was incredibly immersive for its time and it was the closest a game came to making you feel like you were in the movies. The other vehicle levels are a bit more hit or miss (the asteroid chase is great, the swoop bike level is offensively bad), but Shadows of the Empire opens strong with Hoth, and broadly speaking, the rest of the game so perfectly captures and sights and sounds of Star Wars that any kid in the 90s would be immensely satisfied with it.

Shadows of the Empire certainly has its flaws though, and it can be especially difficult to come back to today given how refined the third person shooter genre has become. Dash feels stiff and clumsy and blaster impacts just don't have the level of punch you'd want them to. Levels can be a bit confusing to navigate and nearly all of them are too damn long, and the difficulty is all over the place. I mentioned IG-88, Boba Fett, and the swoop bike chase, all of which stick in my memory because of how absurdly difficult they are. The swoop bike sequence is especially frustrating given how lengthy it is, and how punishing it can be to die right near the very end. It was always the point in which the game broke me as a kid. The remaining few levels are like drinking a warm, flat soda. Just a total bummer how weak the climax is, though it's entirely possible I think this only because I cannot perceive them through the lens of nostalgia as I can for the rest of the game. Going to guess I would've never liked Imperial City Sewers, though.

I do like the look of the cutscenes, although the story sometimes lacks gravity due to the fact that Dash is a largely reactive character, and much of his story is informed by events occurring in the novel and comics, which you don't directly see. Luke shows up, but like, Luke is having his own whole adventure in another medium. He may not be the main character of this story, but he's still the main character of the larger story that this one is a part of. It's weird, but also part in parcel for something like this. You can also only do so much cinematically with a Nintendo 64 game, and it's perhaps best that they kept things as brisk as they did.

To say Shadows of the Empire is antiquated feels insulting and rhetorically dull, but it is very much a case of a game having its time and place. It exists entirely because and within the context of Star Wars in the mid 1990's, and I think trying to excise it from the whole of what Shadows of the Empire is risks appreciating it less. In that sense, I find it both fascinating and a little difficult to reapproach. A lot of what I enjoy about it is steeped in my memories of that time, and for anyone removed from that period, it likely holds little value outside of being a time capsule representative of a grossly different media landscape. I certainly think it's worth playing for that reason, the point I'm trying to make here is swoop bikes fucking suck, they fucking suck so much, you don't have to play past that

Probably the most famous thing to come from George Lucas' Shadows of the Empire multimedia project to create a movie level Star Wars story without making an actual movie. The game launched a few months after the launch of the Nintendo 64 and was one of the first fully 3D shooter titles. But putting nostalgia aside, time has not been too kind to this game.

Star Wars Shadows of the Empire is fairly tricky to pin down to a single genre. While the main gameplay portions are the third person shooter segments, there is a variety of different gameplay styles present in different missions, including 2 arcade shooter style missions taking place from the Outrider's turrets, the infamous Swoop bike race, and of course the starfighter segments which would partially inspire the Rogue Squadron series. While many agree that the Battle of Hoth opening mission was revolutionary at its time and remains a high point in the game, most of what follows is held back by a combination of awkward controls, questionable level design, and janky physics which sometimes seems like its actively trying to get the player killed. For the sake of this review I played the PC version, though these points apply to both versions of the game.

The game has an awkward control scheme. While some of this can be attributed to being such an early game and being designed around the Nintendo 64 controller, the PC version has these as well as some of its own strange quirks including one of the most unintuitive default control layouts I have ever seen in a game. Thankfully you can rebind your controls in that version. However you cant do much to fix the aiming system which feels like no matter what you're doing, you're just firing around blindly until the auto aim finally lines up the shot for you.

The game's physics are another source of problems. THere are instances where you will expected to do platforming and jumping puzzles which would otherwise be simple in most other games. However, Shadows' inertia and momentum physics can sometimes make the simplest jumps into unnecessarily huge dangers. The Ord Mantel train level is particularly bad for leaving the player at the mercy of the game's inertia physics for almost the entire stage.

Besides these, there are a few odd problems that pop up, from levels having an abundance of enemies appearing behind doors or on top of elevators giving them no chance to avoid taking damage, to some bizarre enemy hitboxes such as the one for the Slave-1 boss battle which seemed like a coinflip whether or not you would hit it in either version of the game.

Despite all of these flaws i spent this entire review going into, there is an enjoyable, or possibly even a good game hidden underneath. However the game demands a lot of huge asks of the players if they wish to actually enjoy the experience and for some the game is demanding too much for too little payoff.

For being an early 3D/Nintendo 64 game I thought they did a very good job in creating a good atmosphere and setting the right Star Wars vibe.

This game is definitely more than just the Hoth battle level that helped popularize the game: it features a very interesting story (I'd almost movie worthy) and levels with gameplay variety. The gunplay was a bit clunky, as well as performance making some levels a bit frustrating to navigate. The difficulty was also all over the place with certain spikes here and there but overall this a very enjoyable action adventure set in the Star Wars universe and I'm glad I was able to experience it early in the life cycle of the Nintendo 64.

Just came out a bit too early in the N64 to have the polish for it to hold up. The Slave Zero fight almost made me drop the entire game, and there are absolutely other frustrating lowpoints on account of being a 3D game with flight released in 1996. That being said, within the context that it came out, this game kinda owns. This was well before the fatigue that the prequels/sequels/EU inundation would bring, and there were a lot worse Star Wars games coming out around this point.

Are the large levels obtuse and kinda empty feeling? Yeah, now, but if my only comparison to other 3D games on the N64 was SM64, I'd probably have a blast. It was still a fun enough ride to see all the way through. Apparently, this game had a ton of delays during its production, it honestly could have used another 6 months to turn into something special with a bit more polish.

theres genuinely a lot good about this game, but its very jank
not necessarily the bad jank (beyond dealing with a shoddy pc port bc i dont wanna deal with the fucking n64 version)
but its not that good jank either
it almost hits that sweet spot of good jank
but it doesnt
leaving this with a managable jank that still adds a level of tension, and immersion that really makes you feel like dash rendar
like for all its awkward clumsiness and clunk
its making me play cautiously, the autoaim is gracious enough that while i still need to line up the shot, i dont need to land the pixel on it, its kind of like goldeneye or timesplitters shooting, at least on foot
and the very VERY jank controls do add a certain tension to things, making the set pieces FEEL cinematic, and not in the modern sense of the word, but in the genuinely immersive way like im in my characters shoes
so like theres one moment where ice starts breaking apart in the second level, and the clumsy awkward jank and weird controls had cost me 2 or 3 of my 4 lives earlier in the level due to platforming, so when the ice started to break, my immediate reaction was OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD" as i was running and jumping down the rapidly separating hall, only to be greeted by 2 troopers as i was on 5 health, which just made me mash my mouse button before they could land one shot on me
its such a feeling that i genuinely havent felt in games in a long time, the genuine rush of a tense setpiece. not just a hard moment in a game, but a moment that catches you off guard, keeps you on your toes and doesnt hold your hand to show the character do all the cool shit, it lets ME have the cool action movie escape
its something i think games have kinda lost
but im making the game sound better than it is. it's genuinely a mixed bag, leaning on absolute mess
let's start from the beginning;
the opening level is a flying level, and its pretty fun, albeit slow. you remember those levels in star fox where you're not on rails but youre in an aerial dogfight arena? think that, but you shoot star wars shots. you do a section where you take out a couple droids and theyre piss weak, but hey its to get you used to the controls and feel so whatever. then you need to take down walkers, and theyre spongy, but not hard, though you might die crashing into them when you just want it to die already. then... you get to the camels and this becomes a problem. do beat the camels, you can either go back and forth around the arena shooting it for 5 minutes as each shot does a third of a percent of damage... or you can hook its legs. now, the game obviously wants you to hook its legs, but there are limited hooks. more than enough for the amount of camels, but, the camera, annoyingly, switches views when you hook the line to the leg, and you just need to deal with the clumsy controls and rapid camera change. ive lost so many lines from just being disoriented from the switch, you have no idea. after that, you get a stage with 2 camels, 4 walkers and several droids... its not hard but my god it takes forever, and god help you if you lose all your cables before you take down all the camels. so yeah the level loses some of its luster after you take down that first camel.
the next level is an on foot level, and these are the best parts of the game, this is the level i played when i described the feel of the game at the start of this. theres some simple fun in running around, blasting storm troppers, and having an on foot boss with one of those walkers from the first level but in an enclosed area... and then you can just cheese it by strafing around it from behind and shooting. it did not land a single shot on me. still kinda cool though
the next level is a short on-rails shooter where you can look in any direction and you need to shoot down like 60 ships or so and the controls are so terrible on pc, i dont even know how to describe it. its only 4 and a half minutes thankfully and i didnt die, so thankfully its not much of an issue
the next level is another on foot level but youre on a train and need to jump over obstacles and jump to other tracks... i dont want to talk to this level
the next level is another on-foot level but with an emphasis on platforming as well as shooting, and you get a jetpack. its fun, but i game over'd at the end, which kind of killed my enthusiasm, so i cheated my way to the next level
and im pretty sure this is further than i ever got as a kid, so i was curious to see what this biker level would be like

i played this level for 3 minutes, and decided to drop this game entirely
i really dont want to talk about it, its one of the worst levels ive ever touched in a game
i could just skip past it, sure, i used a code to unlock all levels, but the level was so bad it just killed any enthusiasm i had for the game

Nostalgia Glasses ON: Yeah this game is PEAK Video Game Star Wars in the 90s

Nostalgia Glasses OFF: Wow this is very rough game with mediocre controls and hilariously difficult spikes.

Star Wars Shadows of the Empire will always have a soft spot for me consider this game has aged very poorly on both PC and Nintendo 64. It actually wild how much of the merch I have for the property. This Media Campaign to make it feel like a Star Wars movie without producing one was such a amazing experience to live through and its no wonder I have a huge fondness of it to this day.

Now heading back to the game, Yeah this game had some sweet ideas but its certainly overlooked by Mediocre controls and a braindead camera system. This was a time where Dual Analog was just starting to become the norm for games to what we have today for 3rd person shooters but that idea was considered Blasphemy (lol I know).

The Music though, the music is SICK. Like Xizor's Palace, that level OST is stuck in my head rent free almost 30 years later and its certainly the hardest level. The music is certainly top notch even if it repeats at times. The Cutscenes whether you were on PC or N64 are top notch. I actually prefer the N64 ones since I grew up with those but I like the Voice Acting in the PC cutscenes. They are certainly preference.

Dash Rendar I think is one of the coolest Star Wars Characters of all time. It is a shame that he is only mentioned once since the Disney merger but his ship has made more appearances that him. SOTE solidifies him as a "Bad Ass Han Solo" who takes no crap from anyone.

Gameplay and Graphics puts SOTE in a awkward position of a time where 3D games were becoming the norm and everyone had no idea how to create a working consistent control scheme. The difficulty in the later levels certainly did not make good on those controls. It did not age well.

This game certainly had a time and a place in the 90s and early Y2K but as with time it sad to say this game did not age well. If you wanna give it a proper replay, I would recommend just playing it on PC with rebinded controls but don't expect any major improvements. There isn't much to make this game remotely easier. I love this game with all my heart but I can't live and say this game age well. Nostalgia glasses ON is HIGHLY recommended.

I battle with the "is this game actually good, or was it just good for its time?" question whenever reviewing older games - especially the early 3D era, it seems.

Shadows of the Empire suffers from what are surely the most common issues among this era - poor controls. The camera is terrible and slow to react, and the jumping is floaty and awkward.
Then there's the aiming (when not in a ship, but just using the main character, Dash) which is honestly the biggest downfall. The aiming mechanic constantly pulls your view back to the center, so as you're attempting to look up to shoot the Droid that's about to kill you? The camera is desperately trying to pull back down to "center" itself.

I absolutely loved this game as a kid. Too bad it aged like milk in the sun. I find it almost unplayable these days. But give credit where it is due - the space levels are still pretty great, and the Hoth level showed us all what Star Wars games could eventually be.