Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire Returns

Sorry Dash Rendar, but you and your silly shoulderpads probably aren't canon anymore. You do get one more day in the sun, though, as Shadows of the Empire, one of the few remaining Star Wars games to not yet be re-released digitally, is now out on GoG. For the longest time, SOTE had the greatest Hoth level ever made. Maybe it still does?

Shadows of the Empire was part of a multimedia attempt to reinvigorate Star Wars, with a books'n'comics'n'games tale set between TESB and ROTJ. You can pretty much blame it for the prequel movies, at least if you're tired of blaming a slightly sad bearded man in a lumberjack shirt for them. The game is all over the place, veering between a then-spectacular Snowspeeder/AT-AT battle and clumsy third-person shooting, all starring the answer to the question no-one ever asked: "what if Rob Liefield redesigned Han Solo?"

Although there has no been no official confirmation that he has been stricken from the unhistory books, the shoulder pads and multiple belts of Dash Rendar most likely no longer qualify as official Star Wars canon - which is now said to comprise only the six pre-Disney films, the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series, The Force Awakens and books released around that time, and anything released subsequently.

However, Dash's no-honest-it's-not-the-Millenium-Falcon spaceship the Outrider has, confusingly, been confirmed as canon, due to a cameo appearance in one of the rejiggered versions of A New Hope. THANKS EVERYONE.

Anyway, SOTE is back after an absence of decades, and has been mildly rejiggered to play nice with modern operating systems. It's currently 20% off in honour of Mode 7 Day, so just £3.39 if you want to take a punt.

I just might. The fourth of May go with you.