Ok now I have been watching the F zero anime on Saturday mornings, got to be one of the worst animes I have ever seen but I keep watching it because it's such a train wreck of a show. I decided to pick this up though to see how good the games where, besides it was on sale dirt cheap at wal-mart and I had a Christmas gift card to spend. The game.
Story.
Ok the story has to be the most ridiculous story I've heard since the latest street fighter game. It's the future and NASCAR has been outdated with Fzero a high tech futuristic racing games that features hover cars. And there are good guys out to catch those who use the F zero races for evil schemes, and bad guys who want to use it to take over the world (don't ask). The main story mode takes you through Captain Falcon’s adventures on the F zero story.
Graphics.
Ok Sega making a game for a Nintendo franchise, 10 years ago if you suggested this you would get lynched, severely. However if it's one thing Sega knows is how to make fast games look incredibly smooth, there mascot after all is Sonic the Hedgehog a game build for speed.
The Sega touch works well hear because the game goes incredibly fast but there is no slow down and rarely do you ever see the frame rate skip the whole game looks incredibly smooth.
The cars themselves aren't that well detailed with simple geometric shapes that look very generic but for some reason they work in this game and they do look fairly futuristic.
The backgrounds themselves may be the games main drawback while some like a desert stage and a few of the water world's are well detailed some of the city stages look a bit bland.
Sound.
The sound is pretty good has well it has a few hard core racing music has well has an announcer that doesn’t get to annoying. The voices in the game with the exception of the announcer are few and far between but they sound decent, better then the VA done on the TV series.
Gameplay.
Ok the two main debates on this game is that it's fast and it's fun, or it's fast and to dang hard. Well there all right the game is fast and it's fun but it can be hard and frustrating to get into. First I'll deal with the basic gameplay in the GP mode.
You start out with only 3 of the 30 or so pilots in the game so you'll have to beat a few races to unlock more. Pilots have 4 stats that need to be checked out. First and most important is the grip or how well they turn, while an average grip is usually just fine but if you get one with an E rating they will drive like there drunk. Then there is body the worst the body the more damage they take when they hit something, and boost how much energy it takes in order to use the boost. And then weight the more you weigh the slower you go but the less likely you'll be pushed off the track and easier to push others off the track.
Pick a pilot and pick one of the 3 cups to race and the race begins you have 29 AI opponents to race against which is one of the reasons they this game is so difficult, is because of the sheer number of enemies you encounter. On top of your screen is an energy gage if it runs out your car blows up and your back to the beginning of the race, with one continue less. You can refill your car by driving over purple strips located through out the strip.
For the first lap you won't be able to boost at all but for the last two you can press the Y button whenever you want and get a major boost of power, but it comes out of your energy gage. Now another thing that makes this hard is that boosting isn’t something you do to lap the guy in 2nd place for the umpteenth million time, boosting is something you find yourself doing quite often to stay close enough to the pack to smell numbers 29 exhaust fumes, in other words you have to find when and where is a good idea to use your booster. Using to much booster will make your energy go extremely low and probably make you loose the race.
Also you can fall of the track in the game has well if you go fast and get hit hard by an enemy, or just drive off a part that doesn’t have guard rails. While falling has never killed anyone, the landing sure does and it sends you back to the beginning of the race minus one continue.
And of course if you run out of continues it's game over and your back to the beginning of the race. Now it might seem that this makes everything in the game against you but quite the contrary you can run opponents out of the race has well. While light way vehicles like the Astro robin should be used mainly for racing and have no trouble keeping up with the pack, heavier vehicles like the Black Bull on the other hand are made for letting out some frustrations on the fellow AI F Zero racing pilots. When you get close to someone you can spin into there vehicles by pressing the Z button to cause damage if there hurt and smoking all ready there cars will blow up, or if there light weight and going at a good speed there cars might go flying over the guard rails and off the track. The game keeps track of how many opponents’ vehicles you totaled in a race and if you can destroy 5 enemy vehicles you get a continued back, also vehicles that are destroyed receive zero points for the race.
There are some pretty cool courses has well, some of which go about going through cylinders in which you upside down and can defiantly make you a bit dizzy, to driving on half pipes in which if you turn to fast your car can go flying off the tracks. Some of the backgrounds may be a bland but the tracks they are on are definitely not dull.
There are multi player modes has well unfortunately there is no GP multi player mode. It's a VS only mode in where only 4 cars can compete. And while you can have the CPU AI fill in for any missing players the fact that the amount of cars that you can demolish goes from 30 to 4 is a bit disappointing.
There is also a story mode in which you play has Captain Falcon and his Blue falcon has you battle evil. Each course has you trying to overcome an obstacle. Whether it’s collecting something or trying to beat Samuri Goro in a race where there is no energy strips to power your car up after a boost all these stages have one thing in common. There frustrating has hell and even easier to just quit and play the fun that is GP mode.
There is also a garage mode where you can use points won in GP mode to buy parts to create your own F Zero machine or to unlock other characters in the game. The customization of the game is definitely a cool idea to bad that there are plenty of cool unlockables that don’t count if you race with your own machine.
Final Recommendation.
F Zero’s smooth graphics and fast speed, coupled in with no hold bar aggressive demolishen derby style game play make it one of the most addictive racing games out there. And it’s a nice to have a game that actually takes it’s self seriously has the games that use real sports cars, but still has the fun has a game that involves plumbers on go karts.
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