Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600 video computer system recreates exactly one scene from the movie it’s named after: the Battle of Hoth. In said battle, there were roughly three or four Imperial AT-AT walkers swatting down a bunch of snowspeeders defending the Rebel base. In the game, it’s one lone snowspeeder (with multiple lives) defending the Rebel base against an almost limitless supply of AT-AT walkers – apparently the Galactic Empire had a bigger budget in this universe. And unlike the movie, this speed has no harpoons or force powers in this game, but a single laser cannon of downing an AT-AT in roughly forty hits.
Exciting…
The Empire Strikes Back lacks any semblance of what people would consider sophisticated graphics. This is obviously understandable since we’re talking about the Atari 2600, but at the very least, you can make out the mountains in the background/foreground as well as the imperial walkers that magically change colors as you wear down its armor. And that gray thing you control is a fair approximation of a snowspeeder, so at the very least, the game has the details right if they’re not heavily detailed.
The sound is your usual offering of blips, beeps, and static noises that the Atari 2600 was known for, but on occasion, you’ll hear a fairly nice rendition of the Star Wars fanfare. Whenever you hear this play, you’ll be granted invincibility against the fearsome power of the AT-AT. Which means your chances of surviving a head-on assault against a walker are that much better…
…a good thing since a head-on assault is the stupidest thing you could pursue. Because while AT-ATs take roughly forty hits to die, you only take two or three. This means having to go for hit-and-run tactics quite often unless a weak point appears on the walker for you to exploit. This doesn’t happen often, but when it appears, all it takes is one well-aimed shot to take down the beast. Oh, so satisfying.
And then you move on to the next walker and repeat the whole process again. Once you’ve killed your third or fourth walker and begin to understand the mechanics and pattern of the game, the boredom starts to kick in and that’s when you go for a beer and get drunk to retain the feeling of fun and excitement when you’ve just obliterated your tenth AT-AT in a seemingly endless supply of them.
And that’s the thing. The game never ends; there’re no extra levels, and no other means of extending the game beyond this basic premise of slaying AT-ATs. The game ends three ways; when your last life is exhausted, when one of the walkers reach the rebel base, or when you decide to call it a day and shut the game off.
It seems like I’m harping on the game quite a bit in regards to its gameplay, but I actually enjoyed ESB. I found it to be a fun game. But that’s just me. While I have no problem shooting down AT-ATs for thirty minutes without end and find it to be an enjoyable activity, I do recognize that the overall monotony of the concept can turn a few gamers off. With that said, though, this is a solid addition to your Atari 2600 library and is one of the better Star Wars games on the console. There’s not much substance here to keep it from being a quick play, but play in moderation and you’ll be fine.
BREAKDOWN
Graphics: 7/10 (simple shapes resemble the vehicles they represent)
Sound: 7/10 (your usual 2600 sounds plus a nifty Star Wars fanfare)
Gameplay: 8/10 (solid controls, easy-to-understand, but gets old fairly fast)
Challenge: 5/10 (once you learn the patterns, it’s not too tough)
Replay Value: 2/10 (good for quick plays and nothing more)
OVERALL: 7/10
dtm666 