PlayDevil's PC G.R.S. Proudly Presents :

Developer : LucasArts Entertainment Publisher : LucasArts Entertainment	Genre : Arcade shoot-em-up Cd's Included : 1 Might Look Like : ?
Requirements : Minimum Pentium 90 Mhz. 16 MB Ram. Windows 95. 3D-accelerated card (3DFX voodoo, Rendition verite, ...) is absolutely required. 40 MB Free space minimum. Quad speed CD-Rom. 100% Soundblaster Compatible Card. Recommended Pentium 133 Mhz. 16 MB Ram. Six speed CD-Rom.	Other Notes : Only for 3D-accelerated cards. Optional Equipment : MS Force Feedback support after installing patch. Joystick/gamepad recommended.
Official Homepage : http://www.lucasarts.com/static/shadows/shadows.html

This game was reviewed on PlayDevils Test Machine

The Star Wars saga ain't dead. Thanks to LucasArts Entertainment there will always be games that has this SW adventure. Some of you growed up with Star Wars, some don't. Seeing those movies for about 10 times or more was pretty normal back in the '70's. It was a huge succes aswell. Today, everyone know that when you mention Darth Vader, Luke, or even Jabba the Hutt you are refering to SW.
I didn't got the opportunity to see any SW movie when it was first released in the movies and didn't experience 'that' hype.

Still, I am pretty happy that LucasArts is bringing those SW adventures to the PC. Now these days in PC-Game-World, we can fly with Snowspeeders, use the incredible Light-Sabre or just kill AT-AT's. Even those Imperial bad-asses think that the Dark Side will conquer everything and everyone. We just know that this won't be the case ever! So lets feel the force in this new Star Wars game called Shadows Of The Empire.

SOTE's installation is 100% bug free but that can't be said of the game. During the install you can choose, like in any other decent game, what kind of installation you really want. Here, gamers with small HD's will be happy to know that SOTE only requires, minimum, around 40 MB free hard disk space. Ofcourse if you're equipped with a not so fast pc, I still recommend that you put 60 MB on your harddisk.
On the other hand, if you have space enough, while not try to last option and then you will need around 380 MB free hd space. The last one is only needed thou, if you have a really-really slow Cd-Rom drive. And then I mean like a 2x speed or so.
With my 6x speed , I installed 60 MB and every level was loaded in about 4 seccies. Not a complex game but you might think the opposite after seeing the graphics. More on that later on.

I did mention that it ain't bug-free. It gave me a 'Hardware Assessment error'. What does that really mean? Well, it means that my 3D-card misses some hardware features that are needed to run SOTE correctly. Note: this occured only when I installed that new patch from LucasArts. They released a patch for updating Shadows Of The Empire. A executable and a dll file was updated. Still, when I saw that error message popping up I just pressed 'continue'. Sometimes the game runned perfectly without any 3D-hardware problems but most of the time it wouldn't run at all. It just gave me a black screen and after pressing some 'enters' it just returned to the desktop. Having a Diamond Monster 3D, one of the best sold 3dfx cards in the world, I was surprised that SOTE gave me this error.
What I did was just unstall the game completely and re-install it again without that patch. And it runned perfectly. Seems to me that the patch wasn't very stable at all. Oh yes, the patch also include Force Feedback support.

In SOTE, you play the hero, Dash Rendar, that is doing all kind of jobs. This time you must defeat evil Prince Xizor. Nothing very original in that plot. Still, you won't mind at all. If you are a SW fanatic this is the perfect game before you will get your hands on Jedi Knight or any other future upcoming SW-games. The game is divided in several chapters. In the first one, the most fun and impressive in this game, is the Battle of Hoth. The place where you can fly with a Snowspeeder. The one thing you always wanted to fly with right? This level, again divided in several sub-levels, is one of the best levels ever in this game. Lets say, the best level. Not only do you fly, but you will have to take out Probes, Scout Walkers and AT-AT's. The sublevel with those baddies is just magnificent. You can blow them away with your blasters but for the AT-AT's and Scout Walkers it will give you more pleasure if you fly towards its legs and put a harpoon (tow cable) on it (see above screenshot). Now the only thing that you will need to do is just fly around the AT-AT or the Scout Walker so it can't move anymore and falls. Way to go! Even those nasty probes wants you for breakfast. Fast arcade action in this level which makes you adrenaline go higher and higher. But does it stop after the Battle of Hoth? Well, yes and no.

After those flying bits at the Battle of Hoth there are some other spectacular things like riding with a Speeder-Bike or flying with the 'heavily armored' Outrider, a variant of the Millennium Falcon, through asteroid fields. You will have to use the powerful turret to blow away the incoming Tie Fighters or Tie Bombers. Shooting away unlimited bullets or some missiles is great fun. The ship don't have any shields or any other way to repair the damage so it is up to you to keep the baddies far away from it as long as you can, otherwise you may end up in starting the entire level all over again.
Indeed, you can not save whenever you want to. Shadwos Of The Empire does not have that feature so you can only save your game after you have finished a level. Annoying. You have just 4 lives and after then it is Game Over and you'll have to restart the level over again. There are some restart-checkpoints in it but I couldn't count them on 1 hand. Let me assure you that SOTE does have some nasty and difficult jump & shoot sections.


Come here with those bombs!
Other then that, we have the classic first-person 3D view which takes up most of the game levels. There are some different camera-angles that you can choose from by just pressing the 'tab" key. The above view of your character, also a cam-mode, is totally useless. I can't really think why LucasArts include that or even why a gamer would pick that one? You just don't see any 3D. Hell, this is supposed to be a 3D-accelerated game. :) Anyway, there are just 2 cam-modes that are realy usefull, the first- and third-person viewmode.
Basicly, you will have to explore everything to find the exit and sometimes finding what you need to survive is difficult in some levels. But with some courage, you will get through it. We all do afterall.

Other levels like the dreaded junkyards of Ord Mantel, the sewers of the Imperial City, Gall Spaceport are quite nice but it can't beat the flying and riding bits. Fabulous! There are some bosses like IG-88 (which if I am not mistaken also will appear in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight), Boba Fett, Slave 1 and ofcourse the ulitmate challenge will be Prince Xizor. It will take you a long time before you get there, trust me.

SOTE will beat almost every game with its graphics. They are absolutely stunning when you run it on a 3D-accelerated system which is required. So, gamers who don't own an 3Dfx Voodoo, Rendition Verite 1000, Permedia 2 or other chipsets with similar or better performance will not be able to play this game. If I haven't said this in a other review, I will say it here again: Please go out and buy yourself a 3DFX compatible card. Most of today & future-games will only require a such a card. It may be a bit expensive to you but you won't regret purchasing it. The animation in SOTE is gorgeous and so are the characters and scenes which are fully rendered in 3D. Cutscenes are included in LA style which means quality above everything.

Music and sfx has always been an important section in LucasArts finest games. If the music and/or the sfx is crap, the game will be a load of crap aswell, even if it looks and plays good. In some games, you just can't play a music-cd when the game music sucks. In SOTE you will love the music because it keeps you going. It gives a hughe amount of that special atmosphere that makes SW games attractive. Sfx is great too. Good clear voices and effects, what could we ask more?

Our Personal 10-Point Rating Is: 

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