Games: Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (N64) Parts 1&2

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire was one of the launch titles for the Nintendo 64 in 1996. And let me tell you, I spent more of 1997 playing this game than I really want to think about. When I had to do a video project for a class at Columbia College, I did one about Shadows of the Empire, because there was just nothing else on my mind.

I made this week's recording in 2002. For my own amusement, I had already made a "movie version" of the N64 Goldeneye game, editing together successful runs through the levels. I began to do the same for Shadows of the Empire, only raising the bar a bit. I would not only have to beat each level in Easy mode, but get all the Challenge Points, get all the extra lives, and not lose any lives. (Yes, I know. If I were a real gamer, I'd be able to do this in Jedi mode.)

I'd done it before, but I hadn't record it. For some reason, I only got as far as recording the first four of the ten levels before I set it aside, and I've barely played the game since.

Since the four levels I did record are enough video for three installments, maybe I can give it another try in the meantime. I still have the Prima's Secrets of the Game book, so maybe the re-learning curve won't be too steep.

Part One: The Battle of Hoth

I'm including all the run-up to the first level just to give a feel for the experience of playing the game.



Part Two: Escape from Echo Base, First Stage



UPDATE 2011: As I write, YouTube changed their policy about three weeks ago so that any user can now upload videos longer than 15 minutes and larger than 2GB... theoretically.  In practice, I find that although I used to be able to post longer videos, I no longer can.  Currently, I'm not sure if it's because I have an antiquated pre-Intel Mac that won't run the latest browser software, or because I had four copyright strikes due to music in these playthroughs.  The help forum suggests that other users who previously had no problem with copyright strikes now do.  So just in case that is the answer, I'm replacing the affected videos (like Pt.2 here) with new ones, in which I play the game with the music switched off.

1:36 What I'm doing here is opening the wampas' cages. You can hear them duking it out after I leave the room. In a moment, I'll go back and kill the weakened survivor.

5:17 Here, I'm using manual targeting on the laser cannon, because it's too far away for auto-targeting.

Next week, the rest of Escape from Echo Base, and the Asteroid Chase.