Nintendo's "Star Fox Zero" is currently crashing on Wii U. (Photo : YouTube/IGN)
While the Vulpine aviator, a form of bushy-tailed Han Solo, has been central to Nintendo games for almost twenty years, he will not make many lists of Top 10 Nintendo characters dues to his "Star Fox" being such a mixed bag.
In many years, the game publisher has recruited a wide range of outside developers in an attempt to revive the game. Now, the duty is under the Platinum Games, famous for gonzo fights such as "Bayonetta" and "MadWorld." The resulting reboot does not portray the company's best work.
Nintendo's "Star Fox" should not be complex: all one has to do is get trapped in the cockpit and shoot aliens, according to Telegram. However, "Star Fox Zero" is ruined by a terrible design decision meant to stress the Wii U's clucky GamePad controller. A gamer has two angles on dogfights - a third-person perspective from outside the player's Arwing spaceship displayed on TV and a first-person perspective from within the cockpit that appears on the gamepad screen.
The game publisher should retell its work with the Wii U's dual display strategy and motion controls. According to Time, as opposed to playing on one screen, Nintendo divides a player's gaze between the TV and Wii U GamePad, before further splitting the way players maneuver vehicles and aim their weapons.
The controls seem a bit easy when a player lands on a planet and switches to a ground-based vehicle such as the bipedal Walker of the beefy Landmaster tank. In addition, there is the Gyrowing drone, whose stealth mission goes slowly to the extent that a player gets impatient to return into the open skies.
"Star Fox Zero" has a plot that is a rehash of 1997's "Star Fox 64." Therefore, Fox and his crew are forced to halt an invasion by the evil Andross. Gamers can polish off the story within four hours, although the final combat is so exasperating that many gamers may give up before reaching the end.
Hidden locations in the game offer some incentive to go back and explore levels already passed. Therefore, there is at least some payoff for masochists who master the difficult controls.
Nintendo's persistence to force players to utilize the GamePad's second screen is s big obstacle. It is similar to a tech demo for a 4-year-old console that has already gone beyond its prime and a terrible tribute to the failures of the fading Wii U.
Watch the footage below for details on "Star Fox Zero."
