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Preview  Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet
- By Michael Loewer


May 22, 2002

Another one of the big players at this year's E3, I was able to grab ahold of this one quickly to try it out. My results were somewhat less impressive than expected, but you should take that with an extremely large grain of salt for multiple reasons.

Basically, I started out as Fox in a small clearing, attempting to do nothing more than get out and explore. You have to understand, that at E3, you're picking up brand new games under the watchful eyes of other sometimes well-known gamers. The pressure to do well is intense, but everybody sucks because it's a new game. Anyway, I became very frustrated rather quickly because of my inability to escape. Fox can't jump, and some of the controls are less than intuitive, such as using the C-analog to choose weaponry. Of course, remember that I had all of 5 minutes to play it, with only basic control instructions. Perhaps with more solid play time I could get more comfortable and it will improve.



The Nintendo rep watching over my shoulder -- a lovely young woman -- said that most of the puzzles involved finding these regenerating bombs and using them to explode barriers, hence gaining access to new areas, where one would repeat the process. I certainly don't believe it's even close to as simple as all that, but sadly I wasn't able to play long enough to find out. In particular, I wasn't able to find a single enemy to kill, nor was I able to fly my Arwing or anything, and I believe those would change my views considerably.



Now, I don't want anyone to see this preview and think I'm putting Star Fox down, far from it. The graphics in particular were exceptional, not that this should be a surprise for a Rare title. Weapons fire was quite beautiful, and Fox himself was wicked smooth. The issue is that I was unable to experience enough of the game to give you three readers and accurate review of my feelings. To be honest, I'm somewhat concerned about the combination of both third-person platforming and traditional Star Fox Arwing battles. It makes me think of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, and how while everyone loved the snowspeeders on the first-level, the rest of the third-person game was constantly ignored. Multiple friends at the time complained regularly after being blown away by the first level and finding the rest of the game entirely lacking. Will Star Fox Adventures suffer the same fate? Will the Arwing and space levels be so good that they'll cause a complete imbalance and blow away the third-person Fox levels?

My impressions are teetering right now, and they could tip in either direction. I feel extremely confident and hopeful that Star Fox Adventures will end up rocking ass once it's released, but we'll just have to see. Look for it this Winter, assuming it isn't delayed yet again.


EIC Michael Loewer, out.

- 5.22.2002