F-Zero X review

Released on the Nintendo 64 in 1998, F-Zero X is the third installment in the futuristic F-Zero racing series (although the second game never made it outside of Japan). It brought the series into 3-D, allowing for some crazy but clever track designs and gameplay features that go above and beyond the games before it.

Story

Set in the future, somewhere around the mid 26th century, the F-Zero Grand Prix is the most famous event in the known universe. However, due to the brutality of the competition and a freak accident that badly injured many pilots (though there were no fatalities), it was briefly discontinued. But with the growing pressure from the many millions of fans, the Grand Prix was allowed to continue with revised rules.

The participating pilots now have their eyes set on the big cash prize, not to mention the enormous prestige.

Gameplay

F-Zero X keeps the fast-paced gameplay of previous F-Zero titles, and has a large number of game modes. There are a total of 30 machines to choose from, although only 6 are avalible from the get go, and you must progress through the Grand Prix to unlock the rest, giving an extra incentive to winning all the cups. Each machine has it's rating of A to E on three different areas; body strength which determines how much of a beating the machine can take before it's energy is drained, boost, which is how well a machine can benefit from boost power, and finally grip which is how well your machine will grip the track.
In all of the modes, your machine will have an energy bar displayed in the top right hand corner of the screen. You lose energy if you bump into walls, obstacles or fellow drivers. Energy also doubles as boost power, which in most modes is awarded at the start of the 2nd lap. If you deplete all your energy and hit something, your car will explode into a hunk of metal, and you will be "retired".
There are three default difficulties for the Grand Prix and Practice modes, Novice, Standard and Expert, with a fourth difficutly, Master becoming unlockable after beating all the cups in the first three difficulties.

The standard mode is the Grand Prix, in which you choose from one of the 30 machines,  choose a cup and then race across 6 different courses and try to get to the highest number of points to place first overall. If you are retired in this mode, you can choose to quit or retry which use up one of your spare machines (essentially lives), to try again. If you run out of machines and retire it's Game Over.
Time Attack mode has you racing in a machine of your choice across a single track to try to get the best time. If you do well enough, you can challenge staff ghosts made by the developers, as well as challenging your own times.
The Vs. Mode allows up to four players to race on any track in attempt to win first place. A nice little feature here, is that if you are retired and your friends are still in the race, you can play a little slot machine game. This will contiue until the race has ended. If you manage to line up three of the same pictures in a row, you can deplete up to half of your friend's energy meter depending on the picture. Of course, you can turn this feature off in the options menu if you want to play it fair. Options also contains a handicap setting, which helps give novice players an advantage over more experienced players, as their energy will not be depleted as fast. This mode is always a blast.
A very interesting new mode in F-Zero X is the Death Race. Your goal here is to take out all 29 of your fellow racers in the smallest amount of time possible. Your best times will be saved like in Time Attack which adds to the addiction of this mode. It is also a good way to practice attack your rivals for the Grand Prix which is often the key to winning the harder difficulties.
Practice Mode is where you can (believe it or not) practice to your hearts content on any course with any machine. If you are struggling with a particular course; practice, practice, practice!

The controls for F-Zero X are easy to learn, but take a lot of practice to master. The A button is your accelerator, while the B button is your booster. The control stick will obviously control your movement and the C buttons can change your view, and also allow you to look behind you if you want to take out a passing rival. The L and R buttons allow you to slide turn around tight corners while tapping the L or R button opposite to the direction you are turning will make your machine drift turn. However, your machine must prioritise acelaration over top speed for this to work effectively. But we'll get to that in a minute.
If you can get to grips with these controls, then I think you will be able to get the most out of F-Zero X. The controls are tight and responsive, which is epesicially good as your are driving machines that can exceed the speed of sound.

One more thing, before each race, you can set a balance between accelaration and top speed. Putting a lot of emphasise on accelaration will allow you to reach your top speed quicker, but your said top speed will be lower. Putting emphasise on top speed will allow you to reach the very highest speeds, but your accelaration will be much slower, and therefore you will not be able to benefit from the drift turn. It is best to look at the course layout and make your choice about the balance based on this.

Audio

The music in F-Zero X is delightfully retro, with most of the tunes consisting of rocking guitar rifts and remixes from the first F-Zero game on the SNES. The music might not be to everyones liking but there is no denying that alot of thought went into performing the guitars to accompany the fast paced racing. One of my personal favourites is "Dream Chaser" which plays on the Silence courses (ironically). Some of the songs are so metal that you'd think it was almost a little too "hardcore" for a Nintendo game. There is also a really good gutiar remix of the Rainbow Road theme from Mario Kart 64, but unfortunately this was exclusive to the    F-Zero X Expansion Kit (See the History section of this review for more information on that).

The only voice acting the game has is from the game's announcer Mr. Zero. They are pretty low quality, but still good enough for Nintendo 64 standards.

Visuals

One of the most infamous things about F-Zero X is its limited and at times bland graphics. To keep the game running at a constant frame rate, with 30 machines cruising and dodging their way around crazy tracks at breakneck speeds, Nintendo had to sacrifice anything that stood in the way of near- perfect gameplay. As a result, the graphics don't do much to please the eye, with few road side details or amazing background lanscapes to speak of.
However, in my eyes, this is not a flaw, as Nintendo knew that great graphics are nothing if the gameplay isn't rock solid. I respect Nintendo for what they did here and you are going too fast in the game most of the time to notice anyway.
With this all being said, the machine and character designs are all really cool and give the F-Zero universe a furturistic, almost comic book feel.
The tracks, while not too detailed, still look impressive and never feel dull or repetitive.

Negative

I don't think there's alot wrong with F-Zero X, but one little thing about that bothers me is how easy it is to slide out of control when under the effects of boost power. I can understand this with machines that have lower grip, but even those with first rate grip slide out really easily. Little taps and adjustments on the control stick are the key here, but even then it can feel tedious at times when 29 other machines are constantly ramming into you and using their boost power without sliding. This isn't a huge flaw or anything; I'm probably just more used to the physics in F-Zero GX for the Gamecube, but it's just something that I have trouble overlooking sometimes.

History

As I previously mentioned, F-Zero X had an Expansion Kit that added even more features to the game, including hidden veichles, new music, and most famously a track creator, where you could make your very own tracks from scratch. Unfortunately, this was for the Nintendo 64DD, an add-on for the Nintendo 64; it was only released in Japan as it was a commerical failure. This is a real shame as a track editor would have added almost endless replay value to the game. But I won't rate the game down for this.
It is now very hard to get your hands on an Nintendo 64DD; there are some on sites like ebay, but they are going for over £100 and unless your an Nintendo Collector completist, I just don't think it's worth it.

Overall

F-Zero X is a great Nintendo title and a memorable entry in the F-Zero series, boasting some great tracks and machines, fast, smooth-running gameplay, great music and a large number of game modes to keep you coming back for more.
It is available on the Wii's Virtual Console for 1000 Wii points, so if you have the points to spare, I'd say it's worth the download.

9.3/10