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Review:

10th November 2003:
F-Zero GX
Sega and Nintendo have produced one of the fastest and sexiest futuristic racers on any console!
Posted by Marc Hull - GameCube - UK and Europe

Whatever people may say about the GameCube's sales figures compared to the Xbox and PlayStation 2, there's no denying that it has some of the best games of any system, and that's mainly thanks to Nintendo's massive franchises that are instantly recognisable to gamers everywhere. So, taking advantage of this, they obviously want to update as many of these big-name games as possible, especially over the lucrative Christmas period. Unfortunately, their development teams can only work on so many projects at a time, so to keep a consistant number of triple-A titles coming to the GameCube they gave out licences to some of their biggest games to 'preferred' third party companies. The result? A collaboration between prior console competitors Sega and Nintendo to update one of the fastest racing games ever; F-Zero.

Unfortunately, this has left some fans worried that these third-party games won't have the same gameplay quality that only Nintendo games seem to contain. Well, we're pleased to say that this certainly isn't the case with F-Zero GX. Sega's Amusement Vision team, who was also responsible for the Super Monkey Ball series, have done a fantastic job bringing this series into the next-generation of consoles whilst still remaining faithful to its roots. Yes, we're talking insane speeds, loads of opponent racers on-screen at once and the comic-book style characters that have been around since the SNES version!

Veterans of the series will feel almost instantly at home when they first play GX - the Grand Prix option contains three initially-selectable cups (Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald), along with three difficulty settings (Novice, Standard and Expert). There are also loads of vehicles available, although only a small selection are initially-selectable, with the others being up for sale in the game's shop. As usual, each craft has three main attributes: grip, boost and body, which determine how it performs during a race. For instance, picking one with excellent boost normally means that it is fast but is easily susceptable to damage or slides all over the track when you try to corner. One final factor to consider is a vehicle's weight, since this affects how easily it can be knocked about by the opponents. Light craft will generally be faster, but heavy ones can charge through the pack without the worry of being knocked off the track by a particularly nasty enemy.

While Amusement Vision has resisted the temptation to completely overhaul the series in their own way, they have made some subtle changes. Whereas attacking your opponents by barging or spinning into them was quite a big part of F-Zero X on the N64, it's much more difficult to actually destroy an opponent in this way on GX. Conversely, spinning can now be performed with a simple tap of the Z-button, and an extra, less-powerful attack has also been added to the X-button, which doesn't cause you to lose speed. As before, after the first lap all the racers gain the ability to boost by using the Y-button, but this eats into the combined energy/health bar, so you have to be careful not to boost too much or hit too many corners or you'll blow up!

Turning has also been altered slightly in GX, providing you with basically three ways of taking each bend depending on its sharpness and the type of craft you're using. The basic turn, which is simply moving the control stick, seems much more effective in GX compared to previous F-Zero games. However, for tighter turns you can use the L and R shoulder buttons to bank harder, or even press both together which allow your craft to drift around the turn. Having always found the older games to be quite difficult to control, with crashes into the track walls being a regular occurence, I was quite relieved to find this control system to be incredibly responsive and much easier to get to grips with. By varying the pressure applied to the control stick and shoulder buttons in subtle amounts you can achieve pixel-perfect turns, which is very satisfying.

However, the easier control system comes with a price - you'll need to master it quickly to be able to complete some of the game's courses, let alone win against the 29 other racers on the track. Continuing the trend from the N64 game, GX features some of the most insane tracks you'll ever witness in a futuristic racer. We'll talking tubes that you race on both the inside and outside of, speedways that spiral round themselves and half pipe chicanes that throw your little hovering racer all over the place. While most of these are merely difficult to drive fast on, there are a couple of courses in particular that contain jumps on tracks with no walls to prevent you from falling off, making it incredibly difficult to even complete three laps let alone finish first. To make matters worse, if you're in a Grand Prix you can't simply retry a track forever, but instead have a limited number of lives to use before you have to start it all over again.

However, despite having an incredibly steep and often frustrating initial learning curve, things get much better after the first few hours of gameplay. Once you start learning each of the curves, getting used to the sensitivity of the controls and settling on a vehicle that has the characteristics you need you get great sense of achievement in completing each of the three cups on Novice for the first time. Also, after you've managed to stay on all the tracks for three laps, you'll find that the computer racers are more forgiving than you might think. You hardly ever get racers who finish first consistently, and there's little spacing between the points awarded making even the most dire of early races recoverable.

Aside from the main Grand Prix mode, Amusement Vision have also tried to add more variety to the options available by adding a story mode, where you follow Captain Falcon through a variety of racing-related missions. Each mission in this mode is accompanied by a nice-but-cheesy FMV cut-scene explaining what is going on, although overall this is more of a distraction from the main game than a big addition to the series. A slightly more important extra is the shop, which is where players can unlock the game's vehicles, create custom team logos and build their own craft. By completing other bits of the game you'll win 'tickets' which can be used as money to buy new parts for your craft which help to increase its performance. This is actually more difficult to get right than it sounds, with each part affecting every aspect of a vehicle's performance, as well as altering its weight. However, it does add to the complexity of the title and there's absolutely loads of stuff to find and buy, which should keep fans amused for ages.

However, the best area of the game has to be its presentation, which is absolutely top-notch. Graphically, each of the game's tracks is a visual treat with countless special effects lavished upon them and loads of neat animated bits in the background that you'll probably miss when whizzing past them at a thousand miles and hour, but can really appreciate in the game's replays. The environments are also incredibly varied, whether it's the dark futuristic world of Mute City, or the light, organic appearance of the Green Plant races, and all run at an incredibly smooth 60 frames per second, which is an amazing achievement! Equally as impressive is the game's sound, with good effects accompanied by an excellent mix of electronic, beat-heavy music that really accompanies the game well. How the GameCube manages to put all of this together whilst managing 30 vehicles hurtling around each of the tracks at incredible speeds is anyone's guess, but it's certainly a great demonstration of the console's power! The only let-down has to be in some incredibly cheesy and pointless bits, such as a one-question interview with the pilot after completing a cup, but this certainly isn't a big enough problem to spoil the package as a whole.

Overall, F-Zero GX is a great game, that should hopefully silence doubters of Nintendo's third-party franchise-licencing strategy, and will accompany Mario Kart and Final Fantasy to form the console's big three titles this Christmas. While the first few hours of gameplay may be some of the most frustrating you'll ever experience from a computer game, get past this barrier and there's immense satisfaction to be found, not to mention a whole load of vehicles and tracks to be unlocked. While not for the light-hearted, this is definitely a game that any serious gamer should buy or at least have on their Christmas list.

Marc Hull

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Review Summary:

The insane speeds, comic-book pilots and hugely extravagant tracks that define the F-Zero series have returned! However, despite more responsive controls, some of the courses are still incredibly difficult to stay on, making initial gameplay an incredibly frustrating ordeal. Get past this, though, and you'll find a real gem of a game, with incredible graphics and some great, stirring music tracks to accompany the on-screen action.

Related Games:

F-Zero GX
for GameCube

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