"Shadows of the Empire" is more than a terrific video game. For me, it's a trigger word for fuzzy nostalgia. It came out right around that time when the Special Edition hype was in full swing and I played this thing nonstop for a good six months. My Star Wars love had reached a fever pitch. The book, the score, the comic, I ate all of that tie-in material up.
But just as a game, itself, can you think of a better hook than putting the player right into the worlds of "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back"? Tatooine, Hoth, a Star Destroyer, dogfights (this was before Battlefront made it a standard thing); you get to take down an AT-AT with a tow cable, speeder-bike through Beggar's Canyon, fight Boba Fett! There was no topping that in '96. Who cares if there were camera issues or that Dash was a cheap Han Solo clone? Fun of this level didn't come along everyday, and it remains one of the greatest games on the N64, easily.
10/10
But just as a game, itself, can you think of a better hook than putting the player right into the worlds of "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back"? Tatooine, Hoth, a Star Destroyer, dogfights (this was before Battlefront made it a standard thing); you get to take down an AT-AT with a tow cable, speeder-bike through Beggar's Canyon, fight Boba Fett! There was no topping that in '96. Who cares if there were camera issues or that Dash was a cheap Han Solo clone? Fun of this level didn't come along everyday, and it remains one of the greatest games on the N64, easily.
10/10