Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
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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 Hoth level is amazing.
The Bad
The 3D shooting is poor.
The Bottom Line
Shadows of the Empire was a big âExpanded Universeâ multimedia event with this story getting a novel, soundtrack (for the novel), comic book, toys and, of course, a video game. Shadows of the Empire was released on the N64 on PC. I was originally going to use the PC version for this, as the game is identical, but it has video cutscenes with voice acting, but controller support is poor (and the HUD goes tiny). With the help of remapping buttons, I was able to create a good setup that uses modern using the strafe setup.
I played this as a kid and I do remember enjoying it.
The game starts off during the Battle of Hoth from The Empire Strikes back, with you controlling a snowspeeder. This section is great, with the snowspeeder feeling great to control and toppling AT-ATs with the tow cable is great. Unfortunately, the level isnât very long and itâs the best part of the game (you may notice the large amount of lives â thatâs more for the poor platforming in later stages). If the entire game was like this, it would be a great game, but most of the game is on-foot.
You play as Dash Randar, who in this game is essentially a Han Solo clone (the novel expands the characterâs personality a lot). Youâre armed with a blaster that recharges, and you can get special ammo for it (best saved for bosses). The game heavily relies on autoaim, which is especially necessary as you canât really aim up or down in any reasonable way (the aim button lets you, but itâs far too sensitive).
Trying to setup so you can flee Hoth, you start by watching the Millenium Falcon leave (shouldnât Vader be standing nearby?) then blast your way through the stormtroopers attacking the rebel base. The shooting isnât very satisfying and the movement is wonky.
After blowing up an AT-ST, you make your way off Hoth and blast TIE fighters in an asteroid field in a dreadful turret section with awful controls. The game at least gives you plenty of time to react as the bombs from the TIE bombers are really slow, and you have infinite missiles â they just reload between batches of 5.
Hunting for Boba Fett, Dash heads to a junkyard planet to get information from IG-88. I absolutely hate this level as a kid due to the controls but I didnât find it too bad â I think the ability to strafe helps a lot with lining up jumps, and I never figured that out the first time round. Itâs still a very ugly planet, though â Shadows of the Empire was definitely ahead of its time for its use of greys and browns. At the end of the level you take out IG-88, who gives you information on where Boba Fett is.
This is where the platforming really does take a nosedive. Dashâs jump is incredibly floaty and not difficult to control, and the narrow paths of this level are built for you to fall off constantly. You get a jetpack half way through which helps a bit, but is not as fun as a jetpack should be due to being slow and only possible to use for short bursts.
You fight Boba Fett and the Slave 1 at the end. I ran out of ammo, but found a spot where Slave 1 couldnât hit me, so was able to hit it a few hundred times to destroy it.
Some text explains that after this, Boba Fett escapes and an assassin tries to kill Luke, so itâs up to you to help protect him.
As Luke chills out at Obi-Wanâs home on Tatooine, Dash hears of a swoop gang heading to kill Luke. Speeding through this level is great, but itâs much better to go slowly to take out enemies. You find out information that an Imperial ship contains the necessary information.
As Luke waits outside in his X-Wing, Dash assaults the imperial ship on his own (this game makes Luke seem weak). Most of this level is messing with door switches in a large cargo hold. Thereâs some secrets to find, but you need to work your way, then fighting a big droid near the end. The jetpack you found earlier would have been handy, but Dash left it on his ship. On a side note, I do really like the Outrider.
In order to infiltrate a base, we need to go through a sewer. Dash has absolutely no issue diving though massive amounts of excrement as you have to find a few different items to progress. The boss fight at the end is a horrible experience, with respawning tentacles and the poor jetpack controls underwater.
Going through the base your job is to find a reactor to place charges to blow up a space elevator. Luke is also infiltrating this base to save Leia, but thatâs just background information and you never get to see them during gameplay. This is another dull level.
After another bad ship turret section, we get to actually fly the Outrider, and itâs great. You donât get to focus on shooting other ships, though: your mission is to shoot four turrets then fly into the base and blow up the reactor, Death Star 2-style. The game ends with Dash seemingly not making it (but then reveals his fate in the final cutscene).
Shadow of the Empire is not as fun as I remember. The genre has evolved a lot, and the controls are just strange and floaty. The full story is probably good, but this isnât a good adaptation as important points are relegated to scrolling text.
Nintendo 64 · by Cube1701 (2) · 2024
Solid Star Wars action, and the game that spawned Rogue Squadron
The Good
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire starts you off with a kick, flying a Snowspeeder in the battle of Hoth. From there gameplay progresses through several first or third person shooter levels, with a couple of turret shooting missions and a swoop race through Mos Eisley for changes of pace. Each shooter level has a large boss at the end, and provides a wide variety of different weapons. The high points of the game are the Hoth, Mos Eisley, and Skyhook levels, which involve flying a Snowspeeder, Swoop, or YT-2400 in battle. The action and control during these levels is extremely similar to Lucasart's Rogue Squadron series of games. In fact, Shadows is the game that spawned Rogue Squadron, and is certainly worth playing even if only for that fact alone.
The Bad
The worst part of this game is the repetitiveness of the shooting levels. Although the level design is all right, the hybrid design leaves both first and third person shooter fans wishing for slightly better gameplay. Although the third-person view is default, I found the first-person view to be easier to play with, however, the total lack of crosshairs makes aiming more difficult than it should be. In fact, the awkward control and clunky aiming are the primary contributers to the irritating nature of the shooting levels.
The Bottom Line
If you've enjoyed the Rogue Squadron games, this is the game that started it all. It's not perfect, but it is a lot of fun.
Nintendo 64 · by Shadowcaster (252) · 2002
The Good
- Successfully conveys the Star Wars feel
- Nostalgically reminds me of the (far superior) Dark Forces series
- Nice variety in level types
- Cool story and cut-scenes
**The Bad**
- Limited control over the camera
- Some very bland and empty levels
- Badly thought out level bosses
**The Bottom Line**
At the time of this game's release my PC did not live up to the minimum requirements. So even though I was quite a Star Wars fan I had to let this title slip by. I did have the chance to play the first level at a friend, but it stayed at that. Until 2010 when I finally got around playing this game. Interestingly for an early Windows 95 game it installed without any problems whatsoever on my Windows XP machine. I could just jump straight into the action. Unfortunately I was staying at my parents where I did not have a gamepad at my disposal, so I was forced to play the game with mouse and keyboard. I must say that I preferred playing it with just the keyboard. Except for the boss fights where quick circle strafing seemed to be the dominant strategy. More on this later. The game sucks you in immediately with splendid Star Wars music and sound effects. The menu interface is obviously designed for consoles, but hey we're kind of used to that in 2010. Might have been a shock at the time. The first mission is immediately one of the best. It's a re-imagining of the Battle of Hoth from Star Wars Episode V. The player controls a Snow Speeder and has to take out Probe Droids, ATSTs and ATATs (2 legged and 4 legged walking tanks). The controls are very easy and very arcade like. And even with the keyboard it's quite easy to aim at your targets even with the lack of a cross-hair. The Snow Speeder scene is the only level in which you get to fly on land. There are some other missions where you fight in space, but most of the missions are third person shooter levels. Although the camera is configurable. It is also possible to play in first person, top-down or with a stationary camera. But even though I'm a big fan of first person perspectives I found that 3rd person works best for this game. Mainly because you can't look up and down. Dark Forces and its sequel Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight count themselves as some of my favourite games of all time. And I think that in the end those games are the reason I started liking this game. Because in reality it is far inferior to those two games. Continuously throughout the game I was welcomed by warm nostalgia. Textures and 3D models that were reused in Jedi Knight, rooms which had a very similar layout to rooms in Dark Forces and other similarities forced my mouth into a smiley at a regular interval. But while there was a lot of recognition and the art was quite good for the time, there's not much positive to be said about the actual level design. Most levels are very straight forward and plain to look at. There are some interesting levels that try to do something completely different. For example a train level in which you need to jump onto passing cargo trains. And some levels feature slightly more elaborate switch puzzles. But nothing to tease the mind. The controls for the third person sequences work, but pale in comparison to
Windows · by vedder (70767) · 2010
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.