“A budget Solo was better than no Solo”
’90s Star Wars trash in Shadows of the Empire
Not to get too inside baseball about all this making a magazine lark, but when a game isn’t interesting enough for a Reinstall, it’s allowed to go here instead if the writer feels they have something to say about it. Shadows of the Empire is doomed to this tiniest slot in Now Playing—I couldn’t live with myself if I dedicated four pages to the highly-dubious adventures of Dash Rendar while we still haven’t done Dark Forces, for example. You deserve better, and you’re going to get it.
Here’s a brief history of Star Wars hero Dash, as told by this ancient game. He’s a blatant Han Solo copy, conveniently slotted in the shreds of story between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, where his copycat status isn’t as noticeable since actual Han is frozen in Jabba’s palace. Dash takes part in the Battle of Hoth, becomes pals with Luke Skywalker, successfully defeats IG-88 and Boba Fett in armed combat, then he blows up a pirate space station—the blast of which seemingly kills him too, handily pushing him out the way before Han Solo comes tumbling out of his carbonite tomb, all sweaty and handsome. Dash is perhaps the embodiment of why Star Wars’ current caretakers chose to bin the Expanded Universe and start again. He basically existed for the purposes of this daft arcade game from the ’90s, and to sell some tie-in novels and action figures.
Fake Empire
Shadows of the Empire is not fondly remembered among the very strong crop of ‘90s Star Wars games on PC. Yet I do think it has a place, as an arcadey and superficial contrast to the more serious or tricky tie-ins of the time—the likes of the X-Wing and Dark Forces series were clearly aimed towards adults. This lets you jump into a snow speeder then bring an AT-AT down within five minutes, or race on a speeder bike through Mos Eisley, or navigate an asteroid field filled with TIEs. It was a very early 3D shooter.
None of it is particularly refined, but it’s a nice quick shot of Star Wars, superior to most of the later prequel trilogy tie-in games. Kids these days can’t move for new fiction set in this universe, but the ’90s were a fallow time, which is why that golden age of Star Wars games resonated so strongly. They were the primary source of starship combat, clashing lightsabers and overuse of John Williams’ classic score until the films made their return. For all of Shadows’ otherwise rough elements among that crop, even a budget Han Solo, one wearing a terrible jacket with a bad beard, was better than no Han Solo at all.