Shadows of the Empire

Summary

Genre: Shooter
Number of players: 1
Rumble Pak: No
Controller Pak: No
Expansion Pak: Not used

Review

One of the very first games for the N64, Shadows of the Empire is a game which contains a variety of different gameplay styles. Based on the Star Wars licence, Shadows features a number of characters and vehicles from the movies. You control a new character - Dash Rendar - who goes up against the Empire over ten radically-different levels. Joy.


Gameplay: As mentioned, there are a number of different play modes over the game's ten missions. These include a snowspeeder battle on the planet Hoth; space combat; a swoop bike chase on Tatooine; and, the most common type, a standard on-foot shooter mode. Of these various styles, the snowspeeder mode emerges as clearly the most fun, closely followed by the two outer-space levels. But let's look at each mode separately...

The first level in the game takes place during The Empire Strikes Back's Battle of Hoth. You control a snowspeeder, armed with lasers and tow cables, and must destroy Probe Droids, AT-ST's and armoured AT-AT's across four substages. You have a number of wingmen who help out - until they get shot down, that is. The mode is great fun, and taking down a Walker or two is highly satisfying. Your ship controls very well, and there is quite a lot of potential for tactical attack runs and evasive maneouvers. Sadly, this level is over quite quickly, but it's a top introduction to a game.

The second level is the first of the on-foot levels, where you control Dash as he attempts to fight his way out of Echo Base. And it's here that the game starts to falter, particularly when compared to more recent shooter games, such as Goldeneye or Perfect Dark. You can choose to view the action from a first- or third-person perspective, though because there's a fair amount of jumping and dodging, the third-person view usually proves better. However, comparisons to games such as PD show Shadows up to be sorely lacking in quality. There are only a handful of weapons, although each one is totally different from the others - from the standard laser pistol, to the Disruptor and its gigantic explosions, to the seeker missiles - which come with an onboard camera so you can follow the missile's path. But the lack of weaponry makes combat rather dull, particularly since the shortage of ammo for the cooler weapons makes the laser, which has infinite ammo, used almost all the time. There's little potential for targeting or accuracy, and there's certainly nothing like an aiming cursor. Holding the Z button allows you to aim higher or lower, but there's a pretty-well flawless 'auto-aim' facility even then, which takes much of the joy out of combat.

To be frank, much of the on-foot shooter sections are rather dull and basically hackwork gameplay, with you just running about, shooting bad guys repeatedly until they crumple. Each of these levels feature a boss character, some of which are quite interesting to fight, such as the jetpack-wearing Boba Fett, and the underwater monster Dianoga; some, however, are characteristic of the levels as a whole, being plodding and dull. However, one nice idea which really redeems the on-foot missions is the inclusion of a jetpack which you pick up in the third such mission. The jetpack is a great idea, and using it is a really liberating experience once you get used to it. It's pretty much the only thing in these missions that's better than what you'd find in other FPS games, but it is there. Whether it's worth hacking through the rest of the levels to get it is a moot point, though.

The swoop bike chase level is a bit of a mixed bag. It's a very fast chase through the streets of Mos Eisley on a speeder bike, in pursuit of a gang of biker thugs. If you're expecting this to be a thrilling, laser-toting pursuit like in Return of the Jedi, then you're going to be disappointed. There's no blasting, just a rather weedy shove attack, which hopefully pushes the bikers into a wall. Frankly, this is rather dull, and the fact that you can easily blow up from hitting a wall at high speed means that haring through the city at max velocity is definitely out. Still, once you get out onto the sand dunes you can pick up quite a speed, and it can be rather fun - but this level could have been so much more.

The final mode is the outer-space battle, which crops up in two levels. The first of these is a rather-simplistic targeting game, where you control your ship's gun turret and have to take out a fleet of TIE fighters and bombers; the second is a more involving mission, where you must first fight off a squadron of fighters as before, but then take full control of the ship and aim to take down a mighty space-station, guarded by a mass of enemy craft. The second level is loads of fun, although a bit less so than the snowspeeder mission; but both space levels are among the better of Shadows' missions - though that isn't saying very much...

Overall, then, the game contains a fairly large variety of play styles - some good, some okay, but, sadly, the main shooter mode is pretty darn poor. As a whole, Shadows plays alright, with a bit of everything - although nothing that really stands out...


Challenge: There are four difficulty settings, and they do make a lot of difference to the game's toughness. Completing all ten missions on any setting is reasonably difficult, and a further task which can be attempted is to collect all of the game's 'Challenge Points' from every level. If you do so, you are rewarded with bonus features, and, needless to say, it's a very demanding challenge to get them all.

Overall, there is quite a lot of challenge in the game, and on the harder difficulty settings, quite a lot of skill is required. If you don't get sick of the gameplay, the game will last you for quite a while.


Graphics: Umm. The game's graphics are really rather poor, especially when compared to more recent games. To be fair, there is quite a lot of detail on the various characters, vehicles and buildings, but many things are dull and murky, and the landscapes and backgrounds are rather uninteresting. A lot could have been improved on. Plus the 'cutscenes' are abysmal.


Sounds: The sounds are alright. There are a great many Star Wars tunes, often taken directly from the movies, together with a couple of fresh tracks. Other than that, though, there's not much else. There is no speech, and the few sound effects that there are are a little bit functional. But there's nothing really 'bad' about the sounds, just nothing that stands out.


Summing up: Given the age of this game, it's perhaps not that surprising that it falls short on graphics and gameplay. However, other early games such as Super Mario 64 and Wave Race weren't lacking in either of these areas, and that fact that Shadows' shortcomings are explainable doesn't make the game any better. A couple of levels are pretty good, and there's quite a lot of challenge - but Shadows is far, far from essential.


Gamesmark: 62%


Reviewer: Maverik