Nintendo and Namco's Star Fox for GameCube returns the series to its roots. It plays similar to the N64 version of Star Fox, complete with a 1 player main game and a 4 player battle mode. The first thing I noticed this year is that the graphics have been improved dramatically over last year's dismal showing. The 1 player game not only looks fantastic, but it plays great and is a true testament to the developers' desires to create a game that lives up to the Star Fox legacy. The 1 player demo begins with a space mission to defend against hundreds of huge ships that look a bit like gigantic arwing prototypes. The Star Fox team sets out to destroy as many of the enemy ships as possible. The game controls nearly identical to its N64 predecessor. The team is constantly talking back and forth and poor Slippy still gets into trouble on a regular basis. The C-Stick can be used to do loops and other maneuvars, the Y button boosts, the triggers brake and do barrel rolls, the A button fires lasers, and the B button fires bombs. The controls are spot-on and the game plays perfectly.
Patrick and I had a chance to try out the multiplayer modes. We first tried out a battle on a planet's surface. 3 of us had tanks and 1 person had an arwing. The tanks were a bit hard to control at first, but there are several control cutsomizations that we didn't have time to explore. The tanks have an ability to roll around as well as hover to reach higher points. The object was to rack up as many kills as possible in the given time limit. The game was fun in this mode as well as the dog fight mode in space where all 4 of us controlled arwings. There are several hidden places to find that will give weapon upgrades and bombs.
Overall, Star Fox is shaping up to be a worthy sequel and the multiplayer mode is already way better than the one seen in Star Fox 64. Look forward to this one at the end of November. It definitely has the potential to become one of the best games this holiday season.
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