Star Fox

I continue on with big Nintendo franchises today with Star Fox.  Developed by Argonaut Software and Nintendo and published by Nintendo, Star Fox was released in March 1993 for the Super Nintendo.  The original is a straight forwards rail shooter, you fly alone a predetermined path with the ability to fly around to dodge shots and aim at enemies. 

As you begin the game, you first get to choose your control type, and then the game begins.  At first you get to choose between the first three levels, for simplicity I've decided on level 1: Venom.  At the beginning of the level, General Pepper informs you that you are counter attacking Venom as a last resort... and that's level one? 

So as you fly forwards across the level, the controls are very simple: move and shoot at enemies.  Being my first rail shooter in a while, I am quite horrible at hitting enemies, but dodging their shots I'm not bad at.  You allies (Slippy, Peppy, and Falco) make appearances every once in a while to talk about the battle.  Slippy kept asking if I saw him at one point, making me think that perhaps I had hit him at one point as he flew in front of me.  They also complain a bit if you shoot the enemies they are chasing, which is sort of funny. 


So the level is built on polygons, so its pseudo-3D has everything looking a bit blocky, but it is still discernible.  There is one section with a few arches before you enter what is obviously suppose to be a city.  The enemies keep coming as you go through, at one point Peppy flew in front of me with an enemy on his tail; he starts asking for assistance before the enemy kills him, an interesting addition. 

And a bit after that I was under the assumption I was about the be facing the boss, mostly because a health bar titled "Enemy" appeared in the top right hand corner of the screen (a real detective am I).  So the boss of the first level is a large ship with a hanger bay to my right that releases fighters to attack me and a missile bay on my left that shoots a few missiles at me.  I have to shoot each of them as they attack to do damage to the boss and lower his health.  Once you destroy one of the two sections, they explode and fall off, and after destroying both, it's just me and the main ship.  But I wasn't paying all too much attention and didn't see all the shots the main ship shot and I'm down quick. 

So the level starts again and I'm back at the beginning, slightly obnoxious, but the level wasn't too long so it's not too much of a bother.  The level moves quick and I'm back at the boss once more and am much more comfortable controlling the ship and hitting things, so the hanger and missile bay both fall off quick.  The ship starts to shoot it's bolts at me, but I'm quicker and stronger (and it's the first level) so he goes down as quickly as I did the first time. 

And another game is played and the work week will be starting again soon.  I think I'll move off Nintendo now, since I've gone through almost a full month of their games, or perhaps I'll just stay on them for the rest of the month... I'll figure that out tomorrow I guess.  Adios for today though.