Star X is a title that will have a good chance living on as an
under-appreciated cult favorite. In this day and age, when the GBA sees
more platform titles and remakes of old console games, it's refreshing
to see something technically new. It certainly has the pretense to do
so with its stirring visuals and fast-paced gameplay. You take control
of a spacecraft and guide it through nearly two-dozen missions against
an alien race bent on, to take a quotation from a recent film,
"aggressive negotiations."
In a title like this though, the story is really not all that important,
or so I hoped to believe. Star X raises the bar on the GBA by
incorporating a 3D engine capable of rendering some pretty impressive
graphics. I must admit, I didn't have a SNES to remember Star Fox from,
so I'll take a page from the first space simulations I was exposed to,
namely LucasArts' X-Wing title. That game pumped out Goraud shaded
polygons even on ancient (80286) computer. It was a sight to behold and
finally, fans of Star Wars could participate in the epic battles that so
far could only be seen on television, played in arcades or read about in
books. Although here it's only flat shaded polygons, I'm sure Star X
will have that kind of liberating experience for Star Fox fans.
All good games are created with two essential ingredients: technical
achievement in audio-visuals and the other nebulous factor which people
call gameplay, fun factor, wow factor or whatever you want to call it.
It's what compels you to play the game and put time into it, instead of
sitting back just to look at the visuals. Star X, unfortunately, only
possesses one of these characteristics. First off, it's marred by some
shoddy controls and these are exasperated in the later levels because
you require precise, accurate ones to finish levels. Instead, the ship
you fly has about as much control and accuracy as a car missing its
power steering fluid.
Secondly, it's missing one of the quintessential things that made X-Wing
a revered game. It had an engrossing storyline, letting you participate
in epic battles that you heard of in the movies and create some of your
own. In Star X, it's wave after wave of enemy ships with no letting up.
I'm sure Star Fox did not get its name by having you hunt down fifty odd
ships per level only to beat a boss ship at the end. Surely, the
developers could have included some scripted sequences, friendly AI or
some tighter missions to the game itself. Quite frankly, that alone
would have made Star X a game of a different calibre. As it is now, it
only hobbles on the fact that it has fast 3D visuals and other games
don't.
Even the technical components of Star X have shortcomings. I'm not
necessarily pointing at the visuals but basic things like font
legibility. For a password-saved game and a device that lacks basic
backlight, the cryptic letters for your passwords are horrible to take
down. And while the game may have thrilling looks, it doesn't sound all
too well. Eventually, you'll get the feeling the only thing you'll hear
are laser blasts. It's difficult if not impossible to discern which
ones hit you. All explosions, whether on you or on the enemy are the
same. The smart bomb, likewise, emits no particular sound so when
dropped, all you hear are more explosion sounds so you don't know
whether the bomb released actually hit a target, anything, or even
dropped for that matter if you're continually shooting lasers like I
did.
With that said, it appears like so much time was spent by the developers
on the visuals that they may have ignored the precepts of developing a
good game. Perhaps they were so engrossed with tweaking the engine for
performance that they forgot to do things like basic sound effects. For
now, this feels like a great technology demo. It wows and dazzles for a
good ten minutes. After that, you'll be wondering if that's all it can
do.
There's no going back for the GBA now: Star X proves that much better
things are to come for this handheld. I am sure now I will get a
barrage of mail pointing to the revolutionary nature of this product.
They will cite things like how this is a technical revolution, like THX
1138 before Star Wars. But without solid music, sound and most
importantly, a compelling raison d'etre for this beautiful world to
exist (and for you to sink money to play it), it's a game like the women
you find in trendy boutiques downtown: all looks, great looks at that,
but no heart at all.