Five stars for this foxy game! (Lylat Wars (N64))

Member Name: martial_loh

Product:	Lylat Wars (N64)
Date:	05/08/01 (168 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Looks good

Disadvantages: Your wingmen get annoying.

Starfox 64 - Lylat wars is one of my favourite N64 titles. I initially wasnt going to get this game, because I didnt really like the SNES incarnation of Starfox (or starwing, if you played the English one!) - the graphics never did convey the impression of actually flying (translation : I sucked at the SNES version!). So, it wasn't till I played this game at my friend's house, that I bothered to go out and buy the title.

You play the lead role of Fox Mc Cloud. He is, err, a fox. Who wears a flying jacket and can walk on two feet....... He has a falcon (Falco), a rabbit (Pippy) and a frog/toad (Slippy) as wing men in his fleet of spaceships... Basically there is an evil emperor-like force in space, and as Fox Mc Cloud, you have to stop it! The baddies are generally monkey-like creatures, but there are the odd run ins with mercenaries hired to take you out - like the cool Star Wolf and his band of stupid looking compadres!

The storyline is okay - but the overall game reeks of nintendo quality. The characters all have enough personality to keep them interesting, but not too much detail to distract you from enjoying the game. A neat feature in the game is that your Wingmen give you useful information about what is going on duriong each mission. They tell you in the course of playing the game about boosting, shooting bombs, corkscrew rollings and many other cool manoevuring techniques. The controls are easy to pick up - standard flight-sim type controls... but the feel of the ship is very arcade-like - the ship responds really well to the analog joystick. There is a crosshair consisting of two perspective guided squares -this is really handy in blasting your enemies away. The lock on features are good too - although they take away some of the fun in dogfighting! ANother good feature is the way you can blast your own wingmen... Sometimes Slippy the frog just got on my nerves.....so I just shot him a lot.....he was in maintenance for the next miss
ion!!!!!

The graphics are not as top notch as Zelda or Perfect Dark, but they are almost perfect for the fast-action packed gameplay that you experience. The ships are a huge improvement over the ones featured in Starfox on SNES, although they still are a little too much on the simple side. The enemy ships also suffer from the slightly too simplistic design, but this is me being too fussy! Another annoyance is the look of the lasers you shoot...they just look lame..! The enemies have really cool cannons, that have great special effects on them - all the electric sparks and stuff are fairly impressive!

Sound is decent, although you wouldn't really notice it....you'll be too engrossed in the game itself! The cutsequences are sometimes too long. Especially the initial unskippable one.. GAME COMPANIES TAKE NOTE - MAKE ALL FMV SEQUENCES SKIPPABLE!!!!!!!!!
I think I've covered all the areas of the game... It is well worth the money- its fairly long and the nice inclusion of the multiplayer battles is really fun - although you need a big TV to get the full benefit! Get the game if you like Nintendo - or if you hated the first Starfox on SNES - it will change your mind. This game is pick up and play game. Blasting all the aliens takes practice, but it really is a lot of fun! Oh yeah! The rumble pak you get with the game is quite good! Feeling the explosions is an interesting new way to enhance gaming! I sincerely look forward to the next instalment of this title range on the new Gamecube!

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