ROM OF THE WEEK 5/3/2002 SUPER STAR WARS SPECIAL PART 2, SUPER EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. [04 May 2002|01:49am] It is officially two weeks until Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, and with each approaching week we get closer and closer to finishing our Star Wars RotW special. This week, we take a look at the second (and my favorite) installment of the Super Star Wars Trilogy..... Super Empire Strikes Back. I never played Super Star Wars when it first came out. But I played the hell out of this one. I rented it from Blockbuster and ran up a whole week's worth of late fees because I knew that I had to beat this game. After dying countless times, battling legions of Wampas, Stormtroopers and Bounty Hunters and writing pages worth of passwords, I finally made it to Darth Vader and fought my way through it. Because Rebel pilot jumpsuits are just that warm Super Empire Strikes Back follows the plot of the movie pretty closely, although like its predecessor, it does veer from the continuity of its source material for the sake of gameplay. For instance, Luke never changes out of his orange Rebel Pilot uniform (even in the cutscenes) and it looks pretty silly seeing Luke telling Echo Base he'll investigate a meteorite crash (which as we all know was really an Imperial Probe Droid) while wearing that gaudy orange thing. I guess it's just really comfy. I was also sad to see that at the end of the game, they don't re-create the scene where Vader cuts off Luke's hand and tells him that he's his father, what I believe to be one of the greatest scenes in movie history. But the game is so intense, you won't have time to compare game to movie. SESB takes the Super Star Wars formula and improves on it. The first thing you'll notice is that Luke has his lightsaber from the beginning and if you want to survive this game, you'll have to become an expert at the lightsaber and blaster. Because you won't often have a choice. Which brings us to another thing you should know. Unlike SSW, you can't choose which character you can blast through the stages with. You'll be either stuck with Luke, Han or Chewbacca (sadly, you can't play as Princess Leia) depending on the stage. Luckily though, the same power-ups from Super Star Wars are back, along with a couple of more, most notably Force Power Ups, which you will need if you're going to beat this game. Even on Easy mode, this sucker's hard. The game starts out pretty boringly, because the only thing you'll find yourself fighting are little snow boars and other indiginous life forms. I thought they smelled bad on the outside. It's pretty tough from the get-go, but luckily at the end of the very first stage you'll meet up with your Tauntaun and get a longer life meter. From there, you'll work your way underground into the caves, slicing your way through Hoth's natural defenses and into a battle with what I have to say has got to be the biggest fucking Wampa I've ever seen. Note the "You've got to be shitting me" look on Luke's face After dodging the Mutant Wampa's claws and freeze breath (yes, you can get frozen and it's a pretty funny effect) you'll again blast your way through the snowdrifts to fight the Probe Droid that had been sending transmissions to Darth Vader's Star Destroyer while you were busy running around playing in the snow. You stupid schmuck. Eek, blue balls! You'll eventually get back to Echo Base and this is where the game really begins. The Battle of Hoth. Imperial Walkers have landed and are headed right for you. But not so fast, my young apprentice. You wanna go out there and take down Walkers? You gotta blast your way to your Snowspeeder first, Farmboy. Thank you, Lieutenant Warren Beatty. However, once you do, you'll be rewarded with the most fun stage in the entire game. This game is where the other recreations of the battle in other LucasArts titles come from. Here's a bit of trivia for you. Super Empire Strikes Back is not the first attempt to re-create this scene. There was a side-scroller for the Atari 2600 that was nothing but shooting AT-ATs. However, the video re-creation of the Battle of Hoth as we know it didn't begin until 1985 with The Empire Strikes Back vector arcade game. Unfortunately, it didn't do too well due to the video game crash of '84. But Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron and Rogue Squadron 2 all owe their formats to the Super Star Wars series. Watch that crossfire, boys. This is is my favorite stage in the game. Here you'll get to blast Probe Droids, AT-STs and AT-ATs. It must be played to feel the intensity. After taking down five AT-ATs, you'll find yourself battling through INSIDE the last Imperial Walker. Yowza! No problem. While Luke's busy outside, inside you'll get to finally play as Han Solo in a roller coaster of a shootfest as you try to find Princess Leia to get her out of the base on the Millennium Falcon. Once you blast your way out of Echo Base, you'll enter the second best stage in the game, the asteroid sequence. The music here is spot on with its counterpart sequence in the movie, and not only will you have to clear the stage of TIEs, you'll have to watch out for the asteroids. After that, most of it is side-scrolling 2D platform shooter (and who in the world said it was a -bad- thing?) that follows the plot of the movie relatively faithfully. Han, Chewie, the droids and Leia go to Bespin and Luke goes to Dagobah to train as a Jedi with Yoda. The Dagobah stages entail you battling generic swamp monsters, while the Bespin stages get a lot more interesting as Han and Chewie fight Stormtroopers, Ugnaughts, Bounty Hunters and Boba Fett himself while Luke eventually fights his way to battle with Darth Vader in the final few stages. All in all, Super Empire Strikes Back is super tight, and it's the closest you can ever come to actually being in this movie without having to make out with your sister. Unless you're Freak. JUST KIDDING, FREAK! ("You'd better be." - TF) You Base-heads would probably guess already that Super Empire Strikes Back gets without question... Five Fuckin'-A-Kumas The Force is with you, young Skywalker....but you are not a Jedi yet. Kev Don't fuck with Vader 1 comment|post comment

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