Vampyr
04-01-2004, 12:27 PM
Star Fox Adventures
Zachary Wright aka Vampyr
First Impression:
This game is the third game in a series of excellent video games. But this one is of a new genre than the previous two. The previous two games in the Starfox franchise were flight games. You controlled Fox McCloud as you transversed the Lylat System to defeat the evil Andross. The first game was for the SNES, and the second for the N64. This game takes a new twist though. It was developed by Rareware, the makers of Goldeneye and Banjo Kazooie, and this could be the reason its difference. Starfox Adventures is an adventure game, kind of like Banjo Kazooie. This game was hyped up so much that you would think it would be impossible to live up to the hype, well, you were right.
Game Play:
This rating is really quite generous, considering. The reason I gave it above what I think it should be is that there is this one part of the game that was very fun. The game starts out with you in control of a blue fox named Krystal. You are riding a terradactal known as a CloudRunner, and your'e supposed to shoot down an air ship with the main target being General Scales, the dictator of Dinosaur Planet. You end up being able to get on the ship, but Scales finds you. You are then placed in a temple where you will find a Krazoa Spirit. Scales finds and captures you again after you do this. That was just the prologue, after that the real game starts: Fox McCloud and his crew are flying around they Lylat System when they get a distress signal. (Note that Falco is not with the crew anymore, he flew off for a solo adventure.) Fox goes down to the planet under orders of General Pepper of the Lylat army. In order to land on the they planet you have to traverse a brief arwing mission. (Enjoy it while it lasts, its the most fun youre going to have in a while.) Once on the planet you are informed by General Pepper that your'e not allowed to take your blaster with you because your supposed to save the planet, not blow it up. Yes, I know, that is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Sending a soldier into a dangerous world without a weapon. Afterwords you get control of Fox and you can start playing. The rest of the game consists of running around on different pieces of the planet which have broken off, trying to collect the spellstones to unite the planet. Then you have to collect the Krozoa spirits and free Krystal and save the world. During this so called "journey" you will experiance a little bit of fun and a lot of frustration and you will continue to wait for it to get fun. The combat in the game is extremely fun for a little while, but eventually gets annoying, boring, and is way too easy. You can easily beat up the strongest of bad guys with the little stick that Krystal gave you. You do get little treats such as the staff upgrades, but they make the game even easier. It would have been nice if the upgrades had been cool, but they're really not what you would expect. I believe the game could have been slightly better if you had more than one weapon and could learn different combos besides the ones you start with. I did mention above that there is one fun part of the game, didn't I? Well, the funnest part of the game is when it ends, but there is a part before that that is entertaining. Near the end there is a series of puzzles and Krazoa collecting that will actually make you smile a little and want to play more. I will say that the final battle is fun, but I'm not going to say much because I don't want to spoil the ending. But, I'm not going to kid myself. The large amounts of boredom that you must trudge through to reach this small amount of fun at the end just simply isn't worth it.
For the most part the controls are fine. It's not hard to move Fox around and the combos can be pulled off extremely easy, which I think is more of a drawback than a positive thing, because the game is already to easy. The one thing that I hated about the controls, is that there is a challenge in the game that you must beat by clicking the A button as quickley as possible. I will say right now that you would have to be super-human to be able to press the A button as fast as it wants you to. If you continue to try to beat this challenge you will develope authritis by the time your'e 16. The only way to beat this challenge is to get a spoon and run it over the A button, which I think is ridiculas. A games controls should not be created so hard that you have to resort to silverware to beat the game. But I will grace the game with a 6.0 controls & gameplay because everything else is fine.
Score: 6/10
Visual Appeal:
Ok, I have to give credit where credit is due, and credit is deffinetly due in the graphics department. Rare took complete advantage of the GCN's superior graphics system and really pulled out all the stops to make SFA one of the most beautiful games on the market. Every detail seems to stand out, from the scales on the dinosaurs, to the fur on Fox's tail moving in the wind. You feel as though you could reach out and touch everything in the game, and feel its texture. The framerate is also great, you won't find the game lagging or any jerky movements. Everything is so perfect it seems to surpass realism. Mere words cannot do justice to the beauty of this game, too bad beauty is only skin deep.
Score: 10/10
Sound:
Nothing revolutionary here, folks. While the music isn't awful or annoying, its nothing special. It does include the classic Starfox tune, which gamers will find a relief since nothing else is classic. The sound effects are ok, everything sounds fine, especially the combat sounds which mimic the way it would sound in real life.
Score: 8/10
Replay Value:
It would take divine intervention to even make the possibility of playing this game again pass through my mind. I have no idea why anyone would feel the impulse to play this game after they had trudged through it the first time. The only thing in this game worth doing again are the arwing missions, and thats not going to make me go through the trouble of even putting the disc into the Gamecube.
Score: 3/10
Final Impression:
Well, I have given you my thoughts, and for the sake of all that is good and holy, do not dish out $50 to buy this game unless you have at least rented it first. I feel like I wasted a good $50 and another good 20 hours of my life on this game. I am deeply sad that Rare left Nintendo so late. If they had done it a few months before, just a few months, we wouldn't have had this game to soil the good name of Nintendo.
Final Score: (not an average) 5.5/10
Zachary Wright aka Vampyr
First Impression:
This game is the third game in a series of excellent video games. But this one is of a new genre than the previous two. The previous two games in the Starfox franchise were flight games. You controlled Fox McCloud as you transversed the Lylat System to defeat the evil Andross. The first game was for the SNES, and the second for the N64. This game takes a new twist though. It was developed by Rareware, the makers of Goldeneye and Banjo Kazooie, and this could be the reason its difference. Starfox Adventures is an adventure game, kind of like Banjo Kazooie. This game was hyped up so much that you would think it would be impossible to live up to the hype, well, you were right.
Game Play:
This rating is really quite generous, considering. The reason I gave it above what I think it should be is that there is this one part of the game that was very fun. The game starts out with you in control of a blue fox named Krystal. You are riding a terradactal known as a CloudRunner, and your'e supposed to shoot down an air ship with the main target being General Scales, the dictator of Dinosaur Planet. You end up being able to get on the ship, but Scales finds you. You are then placed in a temple where you will find a Krazoa Spirit. Scales finds and captures you again after you do this. That was just the prologue, after that the real game starts: Fox McCloud and his crew are flying around they Lylat System when they get a distress signal. (Note that Falco is not with the crew anymore, he flew off for a solo adventure.) Fox goes down to the planet under orders of General Pepper of the Lylat army. In order to land on the they planet you have to traverse a brief arwing mission. (Enjoy it while it lasts, its the most fun youre going to have in a while.) Once on the planet you are informed by General Pepper that your'e not allowed to take your blaster with you because your supposed to save the planet, not blow it up. Yes, I know, that is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Sending a soldier into a dangerous world without a weapon. Afterwords you get control of Fox and you can start playing. The rest of the game consists of running around on different pieces of the planet which have broken off, trying to collect the spellstones to unite the planet. Then you have to collect the Krozoa spirits and free Krystal and save the world. During this so called "journey" you will experiance a little bit of fun and a lot of frustration and you will continue to wait for it to get fun. The combat in the game is extremely fun for a little while, but eventually gets annoying, boring, and is way too easy. You can easily beat up the strongest of bad guys with the little stick that Krystal gave you. You do get little treats such as the staff upgrades, but they make the game even easier. It would have been nice if the upgrades had been cool, but they're really not what you would expect. I believe the game could have been slightly better if you had more than one weapon and could learn different combos besides the ones you start with. I did mention above that there is one fun part of the game, didn't I? Well, the funnest part of the game is when it ends, but there is a part before that that is entertaining. Near the end there is a series of puzzles and Krazoa collecting that will actually make you smile a little and want to play more. I will say that the final battle is fun, but I'm not going to say much because I don't want to spoil the ending. But, I'm not going to kid myself. The large amounts of boredom that you must trudge through to reach this small amount of fun at the end just simply isn't worth it.
For the most part the controls are fine. It's not hard to move Fox around and the combos can be pulled off extremely easy, which I think is more of a drawback than a positive thing, because the game is already to easy. The one thing that I hated about the controls, is that there is a challenge in the game that you must beat by clicking the A button as quickley as possible. I will say right now that you would have to be super-human to be able to press the A button as fast as it wants you to. If you continue to try to beat this challenge you will develope authritis by the time your'e 16. The only way to beat this challenge is to get a spoon and run it over the A button, which I think is ridiculas. A games controls should not be created so hard that you have to resort to silverware to beat the game. But I will grace the game with a 6.0 controls & gameplay because everything else is fine.
Score: 6/10
Visual Appeal:
Ok, I have to give credit where credit is due, and credit is deffinetly due in the graphics department. Rare took complete advantage of the GCN's superior graphics system and really pulled out all the stops to make SFA one of the most beautiful games on the market. Every detail seems to stand out, from the scales on the dinosaurs, to the fur on Fox's tail moving in the wind. You feel as though you could reach out and touch everything in the game, and feel its texture. The framerate is also great, you won't find the game lagging or any jerky movements. Everything is so perfect it seems to surpass realism. Mere words cannot do justice to the beauty of this game, too bad beauty is only skin deep.
Score: 10/10
Sound:
Nothing revolutionary here, folks. While the music isn't awful or annoying, its nothing special. It does include the classic Starfox tune, which gamers will find a relief since nothing else is classic. The sound effects are ok, everything sounds fine, especially the combat sounds which mimic the way it would sound in real life.
Score: 8/10
Replay Value:
It would take divine intervention to even make the possibility of playing this game again pass through my mind. I have no idea why anyone would feel the impulse to play this game after they had trudged through it the first time. The only thing in this game worth doing again are the arwing missions, and thats not going to make me go through the trouble of even putting the disc into the Gamecube.
Score: 3/10
Final Impression:
Well, I have given you my thoughts, and for the sake of all that is good and holy, do not dish out $50 to buy this game unless you have at least rented it first. I feel like I wasted a good $50 and another good 20 hours of my life on this game. I am deeply sad that Rare left Nintendo so late. If they had done it a few months before, just a few months, we wouldn't have had this game to soil the good name of Nintendo.
Final Score: (not an average) 5.5/10