Don't get me wrong... I think Star Fox is great. All the glowing reviews it received it deserved.

But it could have been a lot better.

I'm frustrated by what seems akin to giving a starving man a crust of bread... no matter how hungry we gamers are, should Next Generation have given Star Fox four out of five stars? Yes, Star Fox pushes the envelope in terms of graphics. Yeah, it offers players an "all range" mode where they can fly pretty much anywhere they want in a 3D space. Sure... the four player combat is great.

But just because it's better than the pack (today) doesn't make it a killer game. With a bit more effort, Nintendo could have put out a game that revolutionized the way we measure games, rather than inching the bar up just one notch.

Star Fox failed to deliver on a few levels (pun intended). First, its game play is virtually identical to its 16-bit predecessor. It's a rail shooter. Players can move to the edge of their screen and that's it. Game play consists of avoiding scenery and enemies as they fly by. Come on, isn't the whole point to go 3D? That doesn't mean nailing people to a rail while pretty 3D graphics flash by... that means giving us a 3D space to play in. The all-range mode? Weren't there something like three or four times that it comes into play in the single player game? It's icing, not the bulk of the game. It also still has a fixed ceiling and floor. Star Fox would have been brilliant if only the entire game had been spent in "all-range" mode, and it would have been amazing if the game allowed players to fly as high as they wished.

In addition to the rail-shooter aspect, Star Fox blew it when Nintendo made the game so short. There's no save function because it isn't necessary... which stinks. After playing the game for a cummulative three or four hours over two sessions, I'd won the single player game. OK, so the manual says go back and try a different path. Sure, there's maybe another hour or so of game play left. Call it a total of six. That's still a thin return on investment for the eighty bucks I shelled out. Come on... I spent probably more than sixty hours playing Mario 64 and I still haven't found all the stars.

Now allow me to rant about the reason I bought Star Fox in the first place: the four player game. There's one reason why my Nintendo 64 gets more attention than my PlayStation: I can play Nintendo games with my friends. Mario Kart 64 alone made the whole thing worthwhile. I expected Star Fox to become the new game for my circle of friends... no such luck.

Star Fox's multi-player mode has a number of drawbacks. First and foremost, what idiotic product manager thought two maps would suffice? There's no excuse for the shocking lack of variety in the multi-player environments. Hell, I'd be slightly mollified if the existing two maps were duplicated with different color schemes. The instant I checked out the multi-player game I was dissappointed by the lowly two arenas offered. No excuse, Nintendo.

In addition to the anemic offering of maps, the balance of the multi-player games is totally off. Once one player picks up twin lasers, he or she is guaranteed to win. The twin-lasers simply do too much damage compared to the single shot variety. The bomb can also be used to clinch a win: simply move away from the close-in combat that most dogfights become and launch the bomb into the middle of the fray. My friends and I have made it a house rule to ignore the power-ups. Was the game never play tested? We discovered this issue in our second or third match.

Another area where the game's balance fails is in time. The multi-player games take too long. Four players engaged in a three point match will take up to twenty minutes. When my friends and I are warmed up they go as long as thirty. A Mario Kart race concludes in less than five. Star Fox's exhausting combats mean that we play once or twice and then opt for the variety -- both in contests and in environments -- of Mario Kart.

Finally the multi-player mode dissapoints in a critical area: the tiny map rolls back onto itself and where its seams meet players often flicker in and out of the game. You'll be bearing down on an opponent only to see him or her bank and then dissappear completely. The CPU can't keep the frame rate rolling at an acceptable clip at the edge of the map... a problem exacerbated by the fact that the maps are so tiny.

And last, the radar. This pathetic tool is map based -- players' ships are displayed in a relative position on the radar screen as triangles pointed in the direction in which they're flying. Every other game makes the radar move in relation to the ship in the center. It's far easier to pilot a ship where the map's directions are relative and your own ship is fixed. Again, was the game never play tested? Not only is it hard to steer by radar, often players' ships end up at the edge of the map where even on a 32" TV it's impossible to see which direction they're heading.

All in all, Star Fox 64 is actually a good game. It does improve on past efforts, does offer a four player mode, and looks great. But don't set your expectations too high: don't expect a flight-sim along the lines of X-Wing or Tie Fighter. Star Fox 64 is simply an upgrade to the 16-bit version. It is definitely an example of a first generation game for a platform that offers almost no competition... with less than twenty games out, what else are we going to buy?

-- Scott
October 2, 1997.

"Scott's Addictions" are postings about the games I play as I play them. When a game captures my interest and becomes a front-burner favorite, I'll post a tidbit or two here for you fellow gamers to enjoy. I'll only post the best games of my crop. No ratings, just ravings. And I'm semi-agnostic: I love the Mac, tolerate my PC, and split time on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64.

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