Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
Description official descriptions
Set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire tells the story of Prince Xizor's quest to replace Darth Vader as the leader of the Sith, and wipe out the Rebels' chances of victory. The only man that can stop him is the interstellar bounty hunter Dash Rendar. The game is based on the novel of the same name, with locations including ice planet Hoth, Mos Eisley and the sewers of Imperial City, all in full 3D.
Levels each have very different objectives, ranging from piloting snowspeeders on Hoth and racing speeder bikes on Tatooine to shooting stormtroopers and droids on foot throughout the galaxy. Dash primarily uses a blaster with unlimited ammo, but can also find more powerful weapons with limited ammunition. Each level has optional "challenge points" that are hidden throughout the level, and finding all of them will unlock a cheat dependent on which difficulty setting the save file is on.
Spellings
- ăšăżăźăťăŚăŠăźăş ĺ¸ĺ˝ăŽĺ˝ą - Japanese spelling
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Credits (Nintendo 64 version)
139 People (88 developers, 51 thanks) · View all
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 76% (based on 51 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 76 ratings with 11 reviews)
The Good
The cinematic cutscenes in between chapters are in line with a Star Wars movie with great conspiracy plot elements put in for that epic thrill. The setting for the chapters brings both familiar territory like Hoth and fascinating new places in space to explore and complete your missions.
Level design is good and worth exploring. Your weapons do have an auto-aim to assist you. This game does put all the great stuff that we all know and love in the Star Wars franchise including TIE fighters, stormtroopers and Boba Fett. Fancy fighting a walker entirely on foot with a laser pistol. Sadly the game is only decent skin deep.
The Bad
This game is absolutely packed with some of the aggravating and problematic mechanics and gameplay in a Star Wars video game. The flying sequences are among the most awkward in the genre of space shooting, made only easier by the first person view. In the first chapter, the snowspeeder's power cable is useless against the AT-AT walkers, it looks like spinning a web around it. Your only chance is to shoot them down.
The third person shooter levels feel awkward. The wonky controls can do little to get you through. You can't strafe and shoot smoothly. The camera rotation and positions don't always give you time to target your enemy, while you're being shot at, unless you're really far away. Jumping is a major chore in the levels. If you don't aim the camera perfectly as you jump a gap, you'll most likely fall to your death. Falls are your number one enemy from beginning to end. The jetpack has a horrendous tendency to make you overshoot from exactly where you intended to land. Even worse are the slippery slopes that send you zooming off cliffs, even when you're being careful. Passing the later levels requires you to die and replay lots of times and stack on lives, before you can choreograph a successful level play, because you can't save your game anywhere mid-level. To top it off, there are virtually no health pickups to preserve your current life.
The choc-blocky graphics are lacking in both texture and colour variety, especially the level surfaces. Here and there presentation is lacking with overly bold text placed in some screens. The classic crawl opening sequence moves a lot slower than it does in the films. The resolution works for everything except the HUD, making it difficult to indicate the weapon you're using and how much ammo and health you have.
The Bottom Line
This game will certainly keep you playing for many hours albeit with frustration as you grind your playing skills to pass a level. It seems apparent that LucasArts took some ideas from their Rebel Assault series, but forgot to make them work well. This could've been a decent game if not for the existing issues. One has to wonder if this game was actually finished by the time of its release. It is what it is, with a nice amount of Star Wars lore. If you're accustomed to Tomb Raider and Syphon Filter, you won't be happy with this one.
Windows · by Kayburt (30393) · 2021
The Force is strong with this oneâŚfor the first level.
The Good
The best thing about Shadows of the Empire (SOTE) is that it is set in the âStar Warsâ universe. Familiar characters and locations, like Han Solo and the ice planet of Hoth, help tie the new Shadows storyline in with the original trilogy. And, of course, SOTE would not be a real Star Wars game if it did not include the famous Star Wars sound effects and musical themes. Both are here, and they are delightful as always.
SOTE reels you in immediately by throwing you right into the midst of the spectacular Hoth battle scene we saw near the beginning of âThe Empire Strikes Back.â As if it werenât cool enough that you get to blast AT-STs and AT-ATs with your snowspeederâs guns, you also get the chance to launch your tow cable and trip up those big bad Imperial Walkers, just like they did in the movie! Itâs one of those things you have to see and do before you can understand how thrilling it really is â for Star Wars fans, anyway.
The Bad
The main problem with SOTE is that the game peaks with the very first level. Once you get past the Hoth battle, the action consists of nothing but average first/third person shooter stuff, with some arcade-like space battle sequences thrown in for good measure. Itâs a classic bait-and-switch, and big disappointment.
While the Nintendo 64 has plenty of good FPS titles, SOTE is sadly not one of them. Our hero, Dash Rendar, plods along slowly and clumsily when you move the analog stick. The stick is a pain to use, too. Itâs too bad they didnât implement the control scheme from Turok, which feels much smoother and more intuitive. Dash doesnât get many different kinds of weapons to play with, either. I love the old Star Wars laser blasters as much as anybody, but surely we deserve something more for our money here.
Itâs bad enough that the post-Hoth sequences arenât that much fun, but Iâll just add that they donât seem all that important, either. Once youâve stopped recreating that big scene from âEmpire,â there just isnât enough to motivate the player to push through it. If you are really interested in the Shadows story, then I recommend you read the book. As for the music, well, you could always buy the soundtrackâŚ
The Bottom Line
Really fun for the first level, and then mediocre the rest of the way, SOTE was more about clever marketing than brilliant game design. Still, itâs probably worth playing once just for the Hoth battle.
Nintendo 64 · by PCGamer77 (3158) · 2013
Great game that follows the novel
The Good
I remember the first time I played this game and I was reading the novel at the same time. I'd play for a while and then I'd read and try to stop at the point I was at in the video game. This video game takes place at the beginning of Star Wars Episode 5: The Emperor Strikes Back and in between episode 5 and episode 6. You play as Dash Rendar, a Han Solo smuggler type of guy, and battle through 10 levels of increasing difficulty. You get to use different kinds of guns, sometimes you get to use a jetpack, and you get to pilot a Snowspeeder, a Swoop Bike and Dash's ship, the Outrider. There are bosses at the end of each level, except the ones where you're in a vehicle. The bosses are tough and the levels can be challenging and tricky. The music is good, some of it's straight from the movie.
The Bad
Compared to the other games from 1996 - Super Mario 64, Mario Kart, ect. this game has fairly poor graphic's, but I can live with that. Also, after you beat it it's not that much fun anymore - sure you can go back and collect all the Challenge Point's, but that's not that fun.
The Bottom Line
A good game than any gamer should get.
Nintendo 64 · by darthsith19 (62) · 2006
Trivia
Dash Rendar
Dash Rendar is the only character developed from the Star Wars franchise that actually made it "back" to the movies. You can see his modified starship, the Outrider YT-2400 lifting up and taking off from Mos Eisley as Luke and his gang enter the city in the new revised sequence featured on the Star Wars: Special Edition. Also, Dash Rendar in the Nintendo 64 cutscenes looked more like a brown-haired, younger and rougher George Lucas with a rough shave instead of a beard. In the PC edition, he looks more like the original concept art for the character.
Rogue Squadron inspiration
In the first level of the game, where you fly a snowspeeder in the Battle of Hoth, was the inspiration for Rogue Squadron.
Version differences
The PC version is a revised edition of the N64 version (the major difference between the two versions being 3D cutscenes for the PC).
Awards
- Electronic Gaming Monthly
- March 1997 (Issue 92) - N64 Game of the Year runner-up + Best Music runner-up + Action Game of the Year (Readers' Choice) + Best Music (Readers' Choice)
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Related Sites +
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Lucas Arts: Shadows of the Empire
Official site. -
Video review of Star Wars games (WARNING: Language)
The Angry Video Game Nerd, James Rolfe, reviews various Stars Wars-based games, including Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire on Nintendo 64.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Kartanym.
Additional contributors: Apogee IV, chirinea, Joshua J. Slone, Alaka, LepricahnsGold, vedder.
Game added January 21, 2001. Last modified March 9, 2024.