20 Essential N64 Games You Must Play Before You Die

19. Star Wars: Shadows Of The Empire

Nintendo

The Star Wars game that time forgot: Shadows Of The Empire has simply been overshadowed (sorry) over the years since its release by other titles in the franchise i.e. Pod Racer and Rogue Squadron.

However, like the first Force Unleashed did over a decade later, Shadows offered up an expanded universe story of extremely high quality. Dash Rendar (the dude on the box art that looks like a more gruff Will Ferrell) is essentially Han Solo's video game doppelgänger, coming complete with his own Millennium Falcon: The Outrider.

Equal parts third-person shooter and space flight simulator, Rendar's mission to save Princess Leia from a peon of Palpatines pits him against series icons Boba Fett, Jabba, and even hairy Wampas.

The final mission even entails you reenacting a mock Trench Run to infiltrate an Empire space station and destroy it from the inside. Conveniently, Rendar dies at the end (not really - he fakes his own death), making the whole story moot in the wider narrative of the franchise.

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Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.