Star Fox Adventures (GameCube) Review

Starfox Adventures certainly looks brilliant. From start to finish the game's visuals are absolutely spectacular; the masters of the N64's technical abilities have once again extracted the very best from a Nintendo console. The animation on the dinosaurs, especially in the cut-scenes, is flawless, and Fox McCloud's face is covered in very believable fur. The lighting, too, is exceptionally advanced; fire dances on walls, shadows flicker and dim rooms can be lit by glowing fireflies that cast believable light and shadow. The grass on Dinosaur Planet is all rendered in separate blades and flowers move in the wind. The world rotates, Zelda-like, through a night-day cycle every ten minutes or so, changing the appearance of your surroundings - watching a sunset on Dinosaur Planet is quite breathtaking if you are in the right place.

Comparisons to Zelda are really very easy to make in this instance. Starfox has a perceptible trace of Ocarina of Time about it; you get the impression that Rare wanted to ease the appetites of those waiting for a hyper-realistic Zelda with Starfox Adventures, and it succeeds to a certain extent. The distinctly Zelda-esque visuals and orchestral sound combined create a comfortingly familiar atmosphere, even though Fox and dinosaurs replace Link and the slightly odd inhabitants of Hyrule. Unlike Zelda, however, there is a definite Western taste to this game. The mystery and slight ambiguity of Link, Zelda and the rest has been exchanged for starker characterisation. Fox himself has an American accent and matching kick-ass attitude and cut-scenes, British-accented speech included, are far more common than they ever were in Zelda games. The game's rather original and interesting story, too, plays a much more prominent role in Starfox Adventures, as it is the sole determinate of progress through the game. It feels more like a movie than a videogame at points, and looks the part, too.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Hell, if it can be compared to Zelda, then it must be good. Starfox looks like excellent fun. It's when you actually start to play Starfox Adventures properly that doubts begin to arise. Looking like a movie is fine in a videogame, but Starfox Adventures seems determined to act like one too. The story leads you from one task to another, no questions asked, and never leaves anything properly open - you always know exactly what you have to do next. There are no towns or sub-quests. Fox has one mission and one mission only, which leads to a slightly limiting, linear, go-there-do-that system of play. Sadly this causes a real lack of variety in the gameplay and after a few hours you will be feeling a distinct sense of deja vu.

Outside on the planet, when he's not busy switching things in what are the game's dungeons in all but name, Fox is usually helping unhappy dinosaurs in order to get to the next dungeon. Sadly, all this ever boils down to is wandering around in the immediate vicinity of the troubled dino until you find whatever he is looking for. It's a very primitive collect-and-deliver system, which involves a lot of tiresome backtracking and searching and does not really have a place in today's games. There is a horribly evident lack of imagination in Starfox Adventures - all you end up doing is playing through, systematically, letting the game lead you by the hand through the endless similar situations.

The actual mechanics of play don't do much to alleviate this rather dissatisfactory situation. Fox can run, walk, press A to interact with things and, er, that's really about it. His weapon is a magical staff, which can be upgraded to shoot energy bolts, create earthquakes, freeze things et cetera. It is also his sole defence against the nasty lizards of General Scales' army. The battle system uses the classic Z-Targeting system, but unfortunately involves not much more than hitting A repeatedly until everything is dead. Though it is possible to use the staff's other functions in battle via the Y-button, there really is no point - it wastes staff energy and it's just as easy to win by hitting A with your eyes closed. Inexplicably, multiple enemies refrain from attacking Fox all at once and wait patiently in line to be killed one-by one. Rare could at least have provided us with something interesting to look at while kicking lizard arse; Fox has exactly two battle combos, one achieved by pulling back on the control stick and one by pushing forward. It's yet another example of the quite spectacular lack of spark and variety that is so painfully evident in Starfox Adventures' every aspect.

Thankfully, there is not a total lack of interesting action. Rare occasionally deigns to break things up with a fast-paced snowmobile chase or the fabulous classic Starfox Arwing action-space-shooter sections, which are a merciful break from the inescapable monotony of the rest of the game. There are a few good ideas, such as Fox's dinosaur friend Prince Tricky, who accompanies Fox around the planet and digs things up/burns things for him and is invaluable despite his annoying voice and occasional tendency to get kidnapped. Starfox is not entirely devoid of traditional Rare magic, and it is certainly not a disaster, but when you think of what such a supposedly talented developer could have done with a game as packed with potential as this one, it makes you wince.

Starfox Adventures is a charmer. Its graphical sparkle, story and occasional good ideas make us want to keep playing, even though the game is essentially a derivative and repetitive adventure game. The absence of proper imagination is quite inexplicable when you look at the rest or Rare's games; it's the same strange mix of brilliance and monotony that pervaded Banjo Tooie. Starfox should have been spectacular; it has turned out to fall rather short of that mark.