I played all of the Star Fox games except for the original SNES Star Fox (because I was a wee bit too young for the video game world during the SNES days). I did like the Star Fox 64 game, which brought rumble to the home consoles with the Rumble Pak bundled in the box. I got this game as a holiday gift last year along with Metroid Prime (the best game ever as of 8/30/03). It's a pretty good game. I heard it used to be for the N64 as "Dinosaur Planet", which would have been the last of the N64 giants, but as Rare realized that the end was near for the N64, they decided to cancel the game, give it a major facelift, and make it for the Gamecube, executed as a Star Fox game. In the game, our hero Fox McCloud is called upon to save Dinosaur Planet (which is being split to pieces by General Scales and his Sharpclaw army) and save some lady fox named Krystal. It takes returning the Krazoa Spirits, the guardians of Dinosaur Planet, finding the Spellstones, and bringing down Scales and the Sharpclaw. SFA has their share of great graphics, which, when it comes to the Star Fox series, improve in a revolutionary manner by the times (the original with the graphics powered by the S-FX chip put into the cartridges, SF64 with their anti-aliased graphics [which were very advanced at the time] and the Rumble, and SFA's detailed graphics of the worlds around Fox) . However, there are flaws. Some of the puzzles you must solve are a waste of time. Part of your quest is run-and-fetch, which can be annoying at times (you have to look for lost dinosaur kids scattered at the Lightfoot Village one time). When it comes to the voices, while some voice acting is pretty good (like the greedy dinosaur running the store at Thorntail Valley who complains about wanting to live at Cape Claw), some are pretty annoying (like Prince Tricky, who goes with you on your quest, and Peppy [whose voice wasn't frail in the N64 game]) or unintentionally hilarious (like King Earthwalker or one of the Lightfoot mothers [the one who says "My babies are sooo naughty... they like to play underground"], who sort of sounds like Cartman in "South Park"). Prince Tricky, like I said, is annoying at times. I didn't like the racing parts where you race the Sharpclaw at times (it took me my guide to go through it). The parts where you fly your Arwing to get to other planets and back are great and bring back memories for those who played the previous Star Fox games, but they are completely short. There is no multiplayer, which SF64 has that SFA doesn't (then again, who cares about multiplayer, and that the multiplayer in SF64 sucks hard). It is, overall, a great game. Sadly, this game is Rare's last game for Nintendo, whereas as the game was released, Nintendo announced that they sold their share of Rare back to Rare, which then went to Microsoft, which, in turn, led to Microsoft owning Rare and having Rare make games exclusively for the Xbox (thus having games in development for Gamecube at the time delayed and brought to the Xbox). This game is probably the only Rare game for Gamecube (Rare's support in the N64 days where a contributing factor to the hit N64 was [though not as successful as the Playstation, which competed against the N64]). However, hope is not all lost to the ailing Nintendo. There is Square able to make games again for Nintendo (though Square games for the Playstation 2 are in the works too [although the introduction to the PSP might lead to Square supporting Sony completely again]). All the franchises Rare left behind that are owned by Nintendo, like Banjo-Kazooie, Star Fox (though Rare did not make the previous Star Fox games), and Donkey Kong (Rare did not make the original DK games, but they did make the 1990's DK games [Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Land, Donkey Kong 64]), are now picked up by THQ ( picking up Banjo-Kazooie, Sabre Wulf, and Mr. Pants) and Namco ( picking up Star Fox and Donkey Kong). However, even though THQ is probably not redeveloping the Rare franchises they picked up (their games are on the Game Boy Advance) since those games probably went gold before Microsoft bought Rare, when it comes to Namco matters, thats the thing to worry about, because of the lackluster showings of Star Fox 2 at E3 2003 and Namco having the Gamecube Donkey Kong be some sort of gimmicky Sambe De Amigo ripoff involving some damn conga controller (then again, the Star Fox game might be changed between the E3 showings and the product coming out). I give this game a 9 out of 10.
