Friday, February 4, 2011

- Star Fox 64 - Full Review -



I can honestly say that I spend over a good 75 hours of my life playing this game.

Story:

Andross was young dickhead trying to destroy the galaxy when General Pepper of the Cornerin army kicked his sorry butt to Venom 4th planet of the Lylat System. Before he left he killed James McCloud when that stupid son bietch Pigma betrayed him. Peppy was in the mix and 'barely escaped' to tell Fox what had happened to his father. Then years later, Andross is screwing the galaxy again and Fox and his new Star Fox Team are sent to deal with him.

This prologue is the start of a Red Dead Redemption type of kick ass space odyssey. The story leading up to the game is a great example of why video games mean so much to us, they have a back story that you love and respect.


Graphics:

Some of you may remember the old Super Nintendo Star Fox. You probably remember its 3D'ish graphics. You also probably remember them looking sort of you know, "old school" . Star Fox 64 improves on graphics A LOT! Star Fox 64 was one of the earlier games on the N64 and it looks a lot better than a lot of N64 games, in my opinion.
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTYC_7yUW7Pna5YHiyWIXzCIiPHvgi2aP4gHPgL3OQ2e73YgkB_&t=1
The graphics do sport a, minor flaw in my opinion. When the characters talk, their mouths move at insane speeds. It's just funny to see and is quite annoying. Other then that, for the time that the game was made it is pretty awesome!

Sounds:

Music:

The music is really unforgettable. I can honestly say that I could probably play back every soundtrack music in every level in my head. I personally at a young age loved the sounds of Star Fox.


SFX:

Truly there isn't a lot of SFX.. You can hear the many different pickup items you can get in the game, the certain scrolling in the main menus and such but really there is nothing to excessive and extreme. You'll mostly hear your lasers firing and ships blowing up as they hit the ground. I love the voice overs because some of the monkey fellows just sound ridiculous, again with there spastic mouth movements.


Gameplay:

In Star Fox 64 you take pilot of your ship. It's equipped with lasers that can be upgraded with power-ups in the level as well as charged for a blast that can home in on the target. The ship is also equipped with bombs and a shield. Bombs can be collected throughout levels (you start with three) and can be launched to create a massive explosion. Your shields start low but you can repair damage via silver and golden rings. You can also increase your shields by collecting three golden rings and it will double the size of your shield meter (your shields reset at the beginning of each level and can only be doubled once). Checkpoints also lay around the worlds and both heal you and save you from having to do the whole first portion of the level in case you die.

Gameplay consists of regular Star Fox type levels. Some levels you are flying through space, dodging asteroids, some levels you are flying through an abandoned city, and some you are driving in a tank that is a blast to control. One thing stays true to all the levels, shoot what's in front of you. Most levels consist of flying straight forwards and shooting but some levels break off into a ''free range mode.'' You can basically fly anywhere. However, these sequences are short and few in numbers.

So what's bad about Star Fox 64? Immediately you'll notice your comrades. Your team of star fighters has got to consist of the most annoying people in the whole Star Fox universe. Not only are they almost completely useless but they can annoy the daylight out of you. There always screaming, ''Fox, get him off my tail!'' or ''Fox, what's taking so long!''. I am supposed to save your hide, complete the mission, and protect my hide as well when you are doing nothing at all?! And then you decide to take the occasional shot at your own teammates, either by accident because they were stupid enough to fly right out in front of you or just because you're pissed off at them and then they reply, ''Hey, what's the big idea!'' Stupid.

There are a few other minor downsides to the game. Sometimes it's hard to target an enemy, sometimes you can't even target or even shoot and enemy until it's a certain distance to you. Besides all that, Star Fox is one hell of a fun game to sit down an play in your spare time.

Control:

This control is superb. It does everything you would want your ship to do and does it all with great reaction. You can barrel roll, turn sharp, do a loop-dee-loop, and even do a complete u-turn in the opposite direction. Let's also not forget that this game was the very first game to sport the Rumble Pack capability. It was even sold with it, which was a great idea!

Replay: AWESOME!

This game is made around replay. It's very old-school. You can't save your progress but I don't see why you would. It probably take about an hour to and hour and a half at max to beat this game, but that's not where the replay lies. When you first play through the game you probably wonder what all those other worlds/areas on the map are. Well this is where Star Fox 64 is unique. Depending on what you do in some levels depends on what level you go to next. There are several different paths you can take in this game and it's a decent challenge to try and go through each path and beat every level. Not to mention this game is just a great no-brainer game in the first place.

Overall: Excellent!

This game is a great old-school classic that should be in anyone's N64 line up. It was fun to play back then and still is fun to play now and again. Today's games lack a lot of serious fun but this game simply reflects how fun games used to be. It also probably set the path for games like Rogue Squandron to build off of. This is where it started, right here with STAR FOX!






16 comments:

  1. Awesome, I CANNOT wait to buy it for the 3DS. :)

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  2. What a great game...all the levels and boss fights had so much love and imagination put into them. My favorite was the train boss who you re-reouted to crash into his own headquarters.

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  4. Love this game, i remember buying it when it first came out. Great fun, good memories :) Followed your blog, check out mine at lodimas-techlife.blogspot.com :)

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  5. never played this as i never had a 64 : (

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  6. Hey Bassisly! its never too late to try it!!

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  7. HA, I remember this was the first game that I fully beat. I was so proud when I did.

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  8. I remember spending endless hours on this game. So many good memories.

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  9. got ya bro- scratch my back please

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  10. did you do a barrel roll?

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  11. Never was much of a StarFox fan but a cool game nonetheless!

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  12. I really wish I had my N64 right about now.

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  13. No way, I couldn't put this game down when I was a kid.

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