First Impressions: Fox McCloud and his team land in…Jurassic Park!
When I first laid my hands on Dinosaur Planet for N64, I would never have believed that this game would eventually be turned into a Star Fox game. Actually, I would go so far as to say that I would have laughed and spit in the face of anyone even suggesting it at the time. However, when it comes to Nintendo it seems as if we’re bound to be stumbling around in darkness trying to perceive what the company will come up with next. Because certainly, whatever anyone else might tell you, it wasn’t Rare’s idea that Dinosaur Planet should be turned into what it is today.
Star Fox Adventures still reminds me a lot of Dinosaur Planet of old, but has, of course, undergone a graphical overhaul as well as some tweaks to the control scheme. When I played it during ECTS last year, the graphics were superb, as was the control, and music and setting combined to make this game one of the most atmospheric ever. That the game managed to impress me to the level it did despite too dark TV-sets and noise that almost completely drowned out the game’s sound at times, definitely told me that Rare had a winner on its hands. However, this was N64, not some next generation console of majestic power. This time around, on GameCube, Rare has to do more than what was shown at E3 to impress. Especially some textures of less than high quality clearly reminded everyone of the game’s N64 roots. Sure, animations and character detail were good enough for a GameCube offering, but things didn’t come together as well as it should have. I hope that Rare, given some time, will iron out the less impressive aspects of the game so that we can see the world of dinosaurs as alive as we should be able to experience it on a console as powerful as this.
The story is quite simple, with a tyrant named General Scales ruling the planet of dinosaurs. Fox and company, upon arrival, discovers that the general has kidnapped the pterodactyl princess and embarks on a journey to save her and the planet from the evil lizard-like creature. A female called Krystal will also join the quest, along with at least one dinosaur sidekick called Tricky. The dinosaur sidekick adds a bit to the otherwise quite familiar way of exploring and doing battle. One can tell the dinosaur to distract, heel, dig, guard, and play. As for the characters, they can walk, run, swim, roll and lock onto enemies in a very Zelda-esque fashion. One cool thing is that when you use “Z-targeting” the target will come into focus, while the rest becomes blurry.
Apart from the common exploring of the land, Fox can take his Arwing off into orbit. At this stage the space battles haven’t really been implemented—it is more like dodging asteroids and such—but hopefully there will be a lot of space fighting for all Star Fox fans out there.
The music in this game is beautiful and should help to make the game more engaging. Tons of in-game speech is also included, which I guess will be pretty common now that Nintendo’s system is using discs instead of cartridges. Not that I’ll whine and complain about it though, haha. Anyhow, in spite of some flaws, the game comes across as destined for good things. Rare has a track record that is quite stunning, and with a game that sports such popular characters as the Star Fox crew and borrows the best elements from the Zelda series, can the company really fail? I do not think so. And even if I personally would have preferred if the game had stayed in its original shape, I guess that it’ll at least get some more notice with Peppy, Slippy, and all the other Star Fox characters in it.
