Remembering the 30-year-old computer game that introduced me to Star Wars

Looking back at Dash Rendar, 3DFX cards, and a pivotal moment for Star Wars. Once or twice a month, we’ll publish a personal retrospective like this one, where we’ll feature one of the games from the list—perhaps a retro game you’ve heard of, perhaps a modern title you missed. Regardless, GOG will have a DRM-free version of the game ready to go. Be sure to check out the earlier pieces in the series! I grew up in a Star Trek household, not a Star Wars one. More to the point, I wasn’t even allowed to watch Star Wars when I was a kid, so I didn’t see the original trilogy until I was nearly an adult—about 17 years old, as I recall. For my then-fundamentalist Christian family, the so-called “Eastern mysticism” of Star Wars was a bridge too far, something that could apparently corrupt my impressionable young evangelical mind irreversibly. Star Trek was OK, though, because my parents didn’t feel it condoned witchcraft, or what have you, and they liked the original series from when they were younger. Because of all that, my first true immersion in the Star Wars universe wasn’t the movies, it was the video games, and one in particular—Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, which you can nab on G

Mar 12, 2026 → Mar 12, 2026