NAME: Star Fox 64 SYSTEM: Nintendo 64 MAKER: Nintendo PRODUCER: Shigeru Miyamoto GENRE: Shooter GRAPHICS: 7. Kind of bland and too much pop-up MUSIC: 6. Totally unfitting FUN: 8. It's okay REPLAY: 10. Getting the medals is an intimidating task DIFFICULTY: 6. MUCH easier than the original ENDING: 6. Unsatisfying STORYLINE: 9. More depth than any other shooter out MULTIPLAYER: 10. The battles are faboo ORIGINALITY: 5. Starfox 1 on steroids REALISM: 8. Futuristic, so you can't really judge it too well CONTROL: 8. Pretty good MATURITY: 7. The lack of cursing is done well, if a little strangely for the settings I was a huge fan of Starfox 1, so when I first played SF64 I was hoping for more. And more was what I got... more of the same. The storyline is almost identical to SF1's, many of the levels are taken from the 16-bit models, and even other things (like the battle mode, Starwolf, etc.) were taken from the never-released Starfox 2. (It's a shame they didn't give Andross the half-robot look shown in the SF2 preview in Nintendo Power... oh well.) Now if you've never played SF1, this is a very fun game. Actually, it's still fun even if you've conquered the original! Finding all of the medals takes forever, although a few levels (Sector Z, for example) make it seem impossible, to the point where you'll stop trying. The four-player mode is awesome at parties, sometimes as fun as the deathmatches in Goldeneye 007. It's a shame they didn't make it 1/2 of a screen each in 2-player, although I guess that's just being nitpicky. One of the worst parts is the music (the music in SF1 was great; see http://members.tripod.com/~cranium7/midi/corneria.mid for the Corneria track from the original). Anyway, it's a great game, but not so for shooter non-fans, and now that the Rumble Pak isn't packed in, it's slightly worse. But not by much. If you like that stuff, you'll love Starfox 64. OVERALL: ******** 80% Reviewed on 11-29-1998