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Chunky Monkey's F-Zero GX reviewIf you haven't played any F-Zero games before, you might not know what to expect from F-Zero GX. F-Zero games have long been known to make breakthroughs in gameplay and technology. F-Zero GX is no exception. The game sports incredible graphics, tight controls with engaging gameplay, with lots of modes and options to keep you there for hours and hours, not to mention the challenge the game has to offer. Gameplay The gameplay follows the same basic formula from F-Zero X, the Nintendo 64 game. You have the racing game usuals, acceleration, braking, steering, but then you get into the F-Zero controls. You can use L and R to tilt the craft to make a tighter turn, use boost to speed ahead of the competition, be aggressive with the side and spin attacks, and change between 4 views. Let me start with the controls. They are extremely tight and responsive. They are easily accessible, intuitive, and fully customizable. The default controls are as follows- A-Accelerate B-Brake Y-Boost X-Side Attack(with left or right direction) Z-Spin Attack(with left or right direction) L-Tilt Craft Left R-Tilt Craft Right Control Stick-Steer, move center of gravity D-Pad-Change Views The actual gameplay is nothing short of superb. You race along side 30 other rivals, striving to complete the 3 laps first without breaking down or flying off the track. You are forbidden from using boost in the 1st lap, due to the close proximity beween racers. After, you can trade a portion of health for a sudden burst of speed. Your health goes down every time another racer attacks you or you hit the guard rail, and it costs you some health to boost. There are purple pit areas on the track which repair your ship by going over them. This dynamic in the gameplay forces careful use of boost to not lose to much health while keeping with the competition. There is also the aggressive side of the gameplay, in which you choose instead of out racing your opponent to forcibly ram him or her off the track. You can use a side attack to attack a singular opponent, which if well timed, is lethal. Or you can choose to use a spin attack, which is handy for attacking many opponents a once, but is not likely to kill many of them. The track design of this game is flat out amazing. There are huge jumps, hairpin turns, different types of terrain, forks, inside of tubes, out side of tubes, half pipes, straightaways, boost pads, jump pads, and sometimes more than one at once. The tracks have the right number of pit areas in the right locations so you must ration your boosts for the straightaways and jumps. Slip zones on the track will steal your craft of its traction, dirt zones will drain your speed, and lava will wreak havoc on your health. You must choose which kind of turn you will use for each bend. There are many different kinds. You can use the tilt turn with either L or R, or the drift turn with both L and R, or you can use the spin attack to help you take tough turns. If you want to get even more complicated, you can try the drift-into-lean turn in which you start with L and R and then release L for a right turn or L for a righ turn. On jumps, you can tilt your craft up or down, depending on how far, and how fast you want to go. The sheer variety will keep you coming back for more again and again. There are many modes in this game. There is the basic grand prix, and time attack, but then there is practice, story mode, Vs. battle, and build a ship mode. Story mode is a set of 9 challenging missions with interesting situations, such as racing while dodging boulders falling from the edge of a canyon, or driving without going below 700km/h (Speed, anyone?). It is guaranteed it will take you a long time, since there are 3 modes of difficulty, normal, hard and very hard, whcih range from normal to near impossible. In the garage, you can build a custom ship from parts you unlock while racing. You have to buy those parts and other racers and story mode levels with tickets you earn from racing. The tickets dynamic is very intuitie, as it forces you to play all the modes to get the tickets needed to buy a specific pilot or part. All in all, the only gameplay nitpick I can think of is that it may be a little too challenging for some. Gameplay-9.7/10 Graphics The graphics in this game are revolutionary. The background is amazingly detailed, and even while racing with 30 other racers on the screen, it never budges from 60 fps. You can literally feel the speed of this game. If you like eye candy, stop reading this and go buy this game. Graphics-10/10 Sound The music in the game isn't particularly catchy, some track themes are nice, but the best sound feature is the separate theme song for each character. The sound effects are very nice, each individual racer has a dffierent sound for boosting and tilting. The voices in the stroy mode do a decent job, but some seem slightly out of place. One of the biggest bad guys has a surprisingly high voice. The rest of the game has decent effects. Sound- 8/10 Value This game has a ton of things to do, unlock, and beat. In time attack mode, there is a ghost set by a staff member that you can unlock with a good enough time for every single track. You start off with 15 tracks and finish with 26. You start with 4 characters and finish with 41, not to mention the fact that you can make your own. There are 4 difficulty levels in the grand prix, and if you beat a grand prix on the Master setting, youunlock a movie of the character you beat it with. The challenge of the game ensures you won't beat this game in a weekend. Value- 10/10 Overall This game is simply amazing. It has everything you could want in a racing game. If you want arguably the best racing game around, get F-zero GX. Overall-9.6/10 |
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