What does it take to create one of the best games to come out this year? Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo? Yu Suzuki of Sega? How about the companies these video game visionaries work for?
Once bitter enemies, now apparent friends, Nintendo and Sega have teamed up to reinvigorate the F-Zero series with F-Zero GX, and they definitely succeeded.
I saw and played this game back in May when Nintendo stopped by the newsroom show off some games they were taking to E3, and I've been salivating ever since waiting it to come out. The game is that good.
Like in the previous F-Zero games, you pilot a hover-racing car through twisting and winding tracks. Many newcomers to the series will compare the Wipeout series, but where Wipeout has lagged off in recent years, F-Zero GX has picked up. Comparing F-Zero to Wipeout would do a great injustice to F-Zero. Playing this game sucks you right in, and you can't let go.
F-Zero GX
Platform: Nintendo Gamecube
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Nintendo
The first thing you notice are the crisp and clean graphics. Anybody who thought that the Gamecube couldn't push these kinds of graphics needs to get their eyeballs on this. There seems to be something always moving on the screen be-it the 30 hover-racers or the giant Robbie the Robot in the Port Town level. The graphics never seem to slow down or lose their detail. If you don't watch it, you'll fly right off of the track.
I also dug the speed of this game. It is fast. The load time is fast. The gameplay is fast. You don't get any of that cheesy slow motion effects when there is too much information on the screen. Going back to the Port Town level, you fly into these tubes that give you the ability to fly in a complete 360-degree circle around them. When the tube opened up at the checkpoint, I sometimes found my ship on the wrong side and off the track into space.
There are different modes of play. You have your basic versus mode that pits you against three of your closest friends. There's also a story mode where you take control of Captain Falcon while he trains for the F-Zero Grand Prix. The levels get progressively harder as you play. The first level alone forces you to pick up 25 capsules and complete the race all under 60 seconds - totally frustrating, trust me. Unlike most story modes, you have to purchase your next levels with tickets. You win tickets by playing the Grand Prix mode. The harder levels you play in Grand Prix mode the more tickets you win. You also you use the tickets to unlock the other racers.
If you don't like the look of the vehicle you're racing, fear not because there is a customization mode. In this mode, you can create a new vehicle from the ground up including the body, engines, and even the emblems. Need more parts? You better win those tickets.
After all this praise, I have on huge gripe... NO ONLINE PLAY? I actually bought the broadband modem expecting to take games like F-Zero online. Nintendo totally missed the boat with this game. Hopefully it won't take them years to realize that online play is a viable option for games. It took them quite a while to get away from cartridge media.
All in all, though, this is a sweet game. Go out and buy it. You'll never leave your place. The game is addicting. The graphics will amaze you. Nintendo first-party games still set the standards for how games should be made and played... except for the lack of online play.
Ryan Eilders is the Webmaster and video games reporter for the Web Devil. Reach him at ryan.eilders@asu.edu.
